The defeated Norman, Keeble and Hadley outside the law court 1999: “You can see on our faces Spandau Ballet had just come to an end”
Hell freezes over as an interviewer asks: “Gary, you’ve been referred to as the driving force. What is the input of the others in the group?” Tony Hadley: “Ah-ha-ha!”
❚ WHAT A HAIR-SHIRT OF A TRAILER!Nettlesome would be a good word for the first glimpse we’ve been given this week of Soul Boys of the Western World, the warts-and-all biopic about the rise and fall (and rise again) of Spandau Ballet, which premieres next week at SXSW in Texas. The trailer rattles through the glorious birth pangs of a new fashion-and-music scene in the 80s and screeches to a standstill at the gaping open wound when the band decided in 1989 they really didn’t like each other any more.
For 20 icy seconds hairs rise on the back of your neck. A direct question in a TV interview blows a hole in Spandau’s credibility – Tony Hadley simply laughs, “Ah-ha-ha!” Before a another interviewer, the Kemp brothers dissemble about their acting ambitions. After a battle over money, three band members leave the law court defeated. And lifelong friendships wither before our eyes. John Keeble said this year: “It’s very honest and very difficult. It’s a film about redemption.” By God, it had better be.
“These guys talk funny, right?” – Best of friends since their schooldays, Spandau Ballet star on Soul Train in 1985, at the height of their American fame
Director of the Spandau movie, George Hencken, tweets: “No better way to spend Wednesday afternoon than watching @SpandauBallet in rehearsal. Texas here we come!”
❚ REUNITED FOR THE FIRST TIME in three years, the five men who fronted the New Romantic sounds of 1980 started rehearsals this week. Spandau Ballet were gearing up for their return to the live stage in the US on March 12 as part of the promotion for the biopic about their rise, Soul Boys of The Western World, which is being premiered at the SXSW Festival in Texas.
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Lauren Kemp’s snap of Tony Hadley
Another snap by film director George Hencken
John Keeble: “My Paiste”
John Keeble: “My office”
Only When You Leave: Big Tone back in front
Steve Norman back on guitar, Gary Kemp leading
Martin Kemp’s insta-vid of Gary and Tony
Martin Kemp – What an amazing way to spend a day! SpandauBallet rehearsal room was rocking today!
George Hencken as Henckenstein – First time I’ve been in a room with all the boys together. I can’t lie. It was emotional.
John Keeble – My irreplaceable Paiste 3000 24″ Ride. Over a quarter of a Century of Grooves!
Gary Kemp – Looking forward to playing in the Lou Reed tribute concert on 14th March in @sxsw. Spandau delivering a peach from Transformer.
SPOT THE LEITMOTIF… ‘REDEMPTION’
News hound Matt Everitt interviewing Spandau in rehearsals last Monday – “Such great hair going on in that photo”. (Where’s Big Tone? Hadders was unwell that day)
Songwriter Gary Kemp on the documentary film: “It’s warts and all. There are some tough bits because we went through a smash-up, and that’s all there on the screen. But there’s also redemption.”
Drummer John Keeble: “It’s very honest and very difficult. Life comes at you. There was no point in telling the story and airbrushing it. We grew up together, we explored the world together and we fell out – badly. It’s about redemption.”
What next, Martin? “We’ll see! There’s a couple of surprises along the way, coming up.”
redemption / rɪˈdɛm(p)ʃ(ə)n: “The action of saving or being saved from sin”
❚ “I DIDN’T KNOW I WAS GOING to turn round and see this rock god dude!” said Kylie Monogue on The Voice UK on Saturday night. The dude in question had delivered his own steady but highly emotional and emphatically rock reinterpretation of Rozalla’s acid house smash Everybody’s Free to his own twangy Rickenbacker guitar. By his hollering climax the studio audience were on their feet and two of The Voice’s four celebrity coaches had spun their chairs in hopes of recruiting him: superstar Kylie Minogue and Ricky Wilson (“the bloke from Kaiser Chiefs”). Within minutes the dude had opted to join Ricky’s team as its final member, before the BBC TV talent contest’s real battles begin next week.
An hour after transmission he posted on Facebook: “Who saw me then eh? SURPRISE.” Jamie Lovatt, cocky 24-year-old face about Shoreditch where he runs a bar, was back. The frontman for the once glam-goth band Romance, since restyled as tribal “cabaret rockers”, had definitely stolen the show, even though the acts auditioning blind on Saturday were a cut above previous weeks, because most proved to be seasoned performers with terrific voices. This dude also looked like nobody else within miles – an eyeful of androgynous 80s glam, Jamie sported long blond hippy hair and eyeliner, a gold crocheted clingy top, snakeskin trousers and cowboy boots. His style is a fusion of Prince, Billy Idol and the 80s postpunk shamanists Death Cult, though the TV audience was spared his usual stage gambit of performing shirtless.
For those of us who’ve known Jamie since he deejayed in London’s fashionable Neo Romantic clubs, the fierce TV act was a surprise metamorphosis from the once shy teenager (off-stage!), through the frenetic vocalist onstage with Romance, to this assured showcase cover version bursting with intense feeling which Kylie and the other coaches sensed immediately. Almost 90 seconds into the number, Ricky hit the voting button and six seconds later Kylie followed.
She was full of admiration: “I liked the emotion in your voice. I don’t know if you always sing like that but the fact that you have the ability to sing like that is very moving.”
What set Jamie’s interview apart was the sadness that brimmed within him as he told how Romance’s first lineup had been torpedoed by ill health and their four-album record deal was cancelled when the label dropped the band in 2011. “I lost management, I lost everything.” But not his faith to carry on.
The coaches rallied. Will-i-am said: “As far as getting dropped, guess what? They lost.” And the audience cheered. Tom Jones paid a couple of quiet complements that were evidently heartfelt. Ricky had been there himself: “I know what you’ve been through. I’m in a band… and we lost a record deal.” Lucky Jamie was able to pick which team to join and as he stepped from the stage it was noticeable how all four coaches crowded in for a piece of him. He’d been dignified, determined and, incredibly, said “Thank you” more times than you’d expect from a self-declared “lone wolf” rocker.
Some think a shiny-floor TV talent show might undermine a rock singer’s credibility, but Jamie is a 21st-century man and believes it’s the only way to crack the industry these days. He told The Sun: “People don’t think of someone like Jagger or Jim Morrison going on these shows but if you were to take them at the age they were discovered and have them living now, would that happen?”
Today was spent doing the rounds of the media as a hot TV property. What’s the question they were all asking? Answer: “How did it feel?” Jamie told Shapersofthe80s: “All I can say is it was surreal then, and from all the support I have received, it’s even more surreal now! Absolutely overwhelming, humbling and shocking. I can’t thank everyone enough… Didn’t think this would happen at all. I’m really moved!”
Me and Mr Sanchez: 1981’s debut chart hit for Blue Rondo à la Turk with cover art by former Wag club host Chris Sullivan
❚ PROMISES! PROMISES!All-round clubbing maestro Chris Sullivan has been faffing away for a year since he got his hands on the original master-tapes of his stand-out Latin-funk dance-band of 1982, Blue Rondo à la Turk. Going public on Facebook today, he dares to promise a re-release of their first album Chewing The Fat this spring (having originally mooted it for last spring), meanwhile posting online a punchy fresh mix of their debut chart single, Me and Mr Sanchez.
Sullivan said: “This is a remix we’ve done for our forthcoming bonus remix CD to accompany the first ever CD release of Blue Rondo’s first album Chewing The Fat on May 5.” Then comes the killer punch: “We’re looking to license it to a TV company for the World Cup… any ideas? It’s a no brainer and the original was used in Brazil by Globo TV for the 1982 World Cup but this is a better mix.”
A year ago he was downloading the whole Rondo catalogue fresh off the original tapes, saying: “First time anyone will have heard them digitally – other than disc dubs, of course. Looking back and listening to the tunes (especially the Heavens are Crying mix) what astonishes me is the f***-you-we’ll-do-our-thing approach.”
Since then Sullivan has released a handful of mixes from the putative new album, including an earlier mix of Mr Sanchez about which he acknowledged that the dean of swing, ex-Rondo guitarist Mark Reilly, “did the lion’s share”.
Macnee and Hendry as The Avengers in episode one, Hot Snow, 1961: they set out to avenge the death of the fiancée of David Keel, played by Hendry
❚ DANIEL PATRICK MACNEE IS 92 TODAY – congratulations! And the keen nudist and actor best known as TV’s secret agent John Steed was spotted yesterday collecting the mail from from the end of his driveway in La Jolla, Southern California. Suave old Etonian Macnee, who became an American citizen in 1959, came eventually to define the spy series, The Avengers. Yet from its first episode in 1961 – broadcast live in black and white – the show’s initial incarnation was as a gritty cops-and-robbers drama, when Macnee played second fiddle to the uber-cool Ian Hendry, for whom the role of Dr David Keel was created.
As an in-demand star of film and TV, Hendry quit after the first 26 hour-long episodes when industrial action held up production, to star in the film Live Now, Pay Later. Macnee inherited the leading role and the rest is Swinging 60s history. His trenchcoat gave way to bowler, brolly and Pierre Cardin suit. The Avengers ran eight years until 1969, becoming jauntily more tongue-in-cheek and making stars of Honor Blackman, Diana Rigg and Linda Thorson as Steed’s assistant. Then a brief revival, The New Avengers (1976–77), saw Steed teamed with Joanna Lumley and Gareth Hunt whose careers also went stratospheric.
Handsome, sexy and compassionate, Ian Hendry was one of British television’s first idealised heroes. Health issues cut short his life at the age of 53, his last public appearance being on This Is Your Life, which reunited him with Macnee.
“The thing I’m really proud of is that I never carried a gun. I said that I wouldn’t carry one; when they asked me why, I said that I’d just come out of a world war in which I’d seen most of my friends blown to bits. In a way, I was politically correct at that time.”
Dame Diana Rigg, DBE, whose Avengers action woman Emma Peel from 1965 to 1968 proved the generator of a huge fan following, was once described by TV chat-show host Michael Parkinson as “a lustrous beauty”. Her range from comedy to serious drama puts her in the world-class league of respected British thespians. Last year she guested in two other cult TV series, Game of Thrones and Doctor Who, and today she still gives sharp and candid interviews at 75.
Diana Rigg and Macnee as The Avengers,1965–68: Emma Peel was equally at home in a Quant mini-skirt, a leather cat-suit or mod-girl outfits styled by John Bates
➢ Choose “View full site” – then in the blue bar atop your mobile page, click the three horizontal lines linking to many blue themed pages with background article
MORE INTERESTING THAN MOST PEOPLE’S FANTASIES — THE SWINGING EIGHTIES 1978-1984
They didn’t call themselves New Romantics, or the Blitz Kids – but other people did.
“I’d find people at the Blitz who were possible only in my imagination. But they were real” — Stephen Jones, hatmaker, 1983. (Illustration courtesy Iain R Webb, 1983)
“The truth about those Blitz club people was more interesting than most people’s fantasies” — Steve Dagger, pop group manager, 1983
PRAISE INDEED!
“See David Johnson’s fabulously detailed website Shapers of the 80s to which I am hugely indebted” – Political historian Dominic Sandbrook, in his book Who Dares Wins, 2019
“The (velvet) goldmine that is Shapers of the 80s” – Verdict of Chris O’Leary, respected author and blogger who analyses Bowie song by song at Pushing Ahead of the Dame
“The rather brilliant Shapers of the 80s website” – Dylan Jones in his Sweet Dreams paperback, 2021
A UNIQUE HISTORY
➢ WELCOME to the Swinging 80s ➢ THE BLOG POSTS on this front page report topical updates ➢ ROLL OVER THE MENU at page top to go deeper into the past ➢ FOR NEWS & MONTH BY MONTH SEARCH scroll down this sidebar
❏ Header artwork by Kat Starchild shows Blitz Kids Darla Jane Gilroy, Elise Brazier, Judi Frankland and Steve Strange, with David Bowie at centre in his 1980 video for Ashes to Ashes
VINCENT ON AIR 2026
✱ Deejay legend Robbie Vincent has returned to JazzFM on Sundays 1-3pm… Catch up on Robbie’s JazzFM August Bank Holiday 2020 session thanks to AhhhhhSoul with four hours of “nothing but essential rhythms of soul, jazz and funk”.
TOLD FOR THE FIRST TIME
◆ Who was who in Spandau’s break-out year of 1980? The Invisible Hand of Shapersofthe80s draws a selective timeline for The unprecedented rise and rise of Spandau Ballet –– Turn to our inside page
SEARCH our 925 posts or ZOOM DOWN TO THE ARCHIVE INDEX
UNTOLD BLITZ STORIES
✱ If you thought there was no more to know about the birth of Blitz culture in 1980 then get your hands on a sensational book by an obsessive music fan called David Barrat. It is gripping, original and epic – a spooky tale of coincidence and parallel lives as mind-tingling as a Sherlock Holmes yarn. Titled both New Romantics Who Never Were and The Untold Story of Spandau Ballet! Sample this initial taster here at Shapers of the 80s
CHEWING THE FAT
✱ Jawing at Soho Radio on the 80s clubland revolution (from 32 mins) and on art (@55 mins) is probably the most influential shaper of the 80s, former Wag-club director Chris Sullivan (pictured) with editor of this website David Johnson
LANDMARK FAREWELLS. . . HIT THE INDEX TAB UP TOP FOR EVERYTHING ELSE
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