A Spandau Ballet reunion may be looking increasingly unlikely, but fans can still enjoy the band’s hits live.
The 80s outfit’s erstwhile frontman Tony Hadley is out on tour this month – he plays Scottish dates at Perth Concert Hall and Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall next week – and the Londoner’s in the mood to celebrate his career highlights.
He says there’s no way he couldn’t have included a swathe of songs by his old band in his 40th anniversary tour setlist. “I wanted to do, in a sense, a kind of a travelogue,” says Hadley, 61.
“‘This is where it started’, ‘this was the first song we sang’, ‘wow, it wasn’t always like this’ kind of things. So far it’s been brilliant.
“Regardless of all the hits there’s some really interesting early Spandau things that we’re doing, and a couple of covers that we haven’t done for years.
“We’re doing a really smoky Frank Sinatra song that takes us back to Ronnie Scott’s in Birmingham, because when I first went solo I used to do six or seven nights there.
“To be honest, that’s responsible for me having the confidence to talk to the audience. No one was allowed to talk while you were playing and people had to be really quiet and respectful – it was absolutely terrifying!”
How it all began
Originally formed in mid-1978 as power-popsters Gentry, the more electro-orientated Spandau Ballet played their first gig 18 months later at London’s Blitz nightclub as its New Romantic fashionistas sought to create their own soundtrack.
The Gary Kemp-led five-piece scored a huge hit with their anthemic debut single To Cut A Long Story Short in late 1980 – the first of 10 UK top 10 singles in just six years as the Spandaus vied with Brummie rivals Duran Duran for chart supremacy.
Looking back on the band’s output, Hadley says it was only right that fans were given a chance to nominate cuts from those heady days for inclusion in his live shows.
“We asked if they had any particular Spandau favourites or solo stuff or covers, so we had a real barrage,” he declares.
“It got to the point where my band said, ‘Look, we are not Ken Dodd, we are not on the stage for three hours!’ We’ve trimmed the show right down – it’s about an hour and 45 minutes – and it runs really quickly and smoothly.”
Global chart-topper
After ditching the sporrans and tunics in 1982, Spandau Ballet went on to even greater success with their blue-eyed soul third album True the following year, scoring a global chart-topper with its title track.
Such later successes as I’ll Fly For You, Only When You Leave and Through The Barricades were in a similar vein as the band continued to eschew Euro funk in favour of sophisti-pop, with Hadley’s croon a key element.
“I grew up with Queen, Roxy, Marc Bolan, Rod, Elton, all that kind of stuff – Be-Bop Deluxe,” he adds.
“And then, of course, punk arrived and we’d formed the band at school.
“But my mum and dad, on the run-up to Sunday lunch, would always play Sinatra, Jack Jones, Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Mathis – all that kind of stuff.
“And my mum kind of realised I’d be singing at a couple of holiday camp places and she said, ‘Look, I know you love your punk rock and all that business but check out a few of the crooners.’
“That’s how I got into swing music. I love that style of music. Another influence on To Cut A Long Story Short was Mario Lanza and that kind of semi-operatic vibe, so it kind of stood out from the crowd a bit.”
Bust up
Hadley last toured with Spandau in 2015, but a bust-up the following year with songwriter Kemp – who released a solo album last year – appears to have KO’d any further comebacks.
The father of five says he’s just relieved to be gigging again following the mass vaccinations.
“Thank God we live in that kind of age where we’ve got Zoom and Teams so we could still communicate with our loved ones,” says Tony.
“But at the end of the day people want to be together and to experience the physical thing. So when people come along to the concert we just want them to sing along and have a brilliant time, and there’s a few surprises too.”
* Tony Hadley plays Perth Concert Hall on Tuesday March 22, with support from Kezia Gill.
