❚ SONGWRITER GARY KEMP recalls the 2009-10 Reformation Tour by his pioneering New Romantic band Spandau Ballet, to be screened as a 2 hours 30 mins broadcast on Sky Arts this weekend:
“ The Reformation Tour was a coming back together I never thought would happen. After years of fighting, this tour taught us that being Spandau Ballet is a thing to be proud of. It turned out to be the best and most successful tour we ever did. If there’s one piece of evidence I’d like to leave for posterity it would be this film. ”
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Meeting of two queens on June 4. At Facebook Ivan Antunovic adds this caption… The Queen: Tell me your secret, dear… Grace: Nightclubbing, your majesty, nightclubbing. (Photograph: PA)
❚ IT WAS A MEETING OF TWO QUEENS in their own realms… This isn’t a new photo but it was published yesterday on Grace Jones’s Official Facebook page as if the singer is suddenly chuffed to bits with the moment it captures. Just as chuffed seems to be the expression on the face of one’s monarch as HMQ greets Grace backstage following the star-studded Diamond Jubilee Concert on June 4. The official Facebook caption marks the two-month-old occasion: “It was an honour to play a part in the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations with such an incredible band… two months ago this weekend.”
Between the regal pair, the photo captures the terminally unfunny comedian Rob Brydon giving his impersonation of the nation in shock. Other videos record how his gags died the death on the Jubilee stage, but Grace’s video continues to make compulsive viewing as she twirls a hula-hoop (Why?) while singing Slave To The Rhythm, her biggest hit and title track from her triumphant seventh studio album, produced by Trevor Horn in 1985. Priceless cutaway shots of the royal box as Grace performs might have come straight from the Mel Brooks movie satire, The Producers.
The Jamaican-American singer, supermodel and actress Grace made her home in Britain after settling down with music producer Ivor Guest, 4th Viscount Wimborne. Didn’t she do well?
Grace’s showstopper: This BBC video cutaway to the Royal Box during Grace Jones’s orgasmic act is a dead ringer for the gobsmacked audience watching Springtime for Hitler. How many astonished princesses, archbishops, ex-prime ministers and director-generals can you count?
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Grace’s finale: Another cutaway as Grace bids farewell to her audience and becomes confused about the occasion: “We love you! Happy birthday, our Queen.” How many humourless heirs to the throne and bemused princesses royal can you count?
Onstage last Thursday in Hamburg: Tony Hadley with guitarist Richie Barrett and drummer John Keeble. (Photo by RTN)
❚ WE HAVE HEARD ONLY HINTS SO FAR. But today singer Tony Hadley posted a link at Facebook that leaves no doubt. When you click through to photos of his performance in Hamburg last Thursday, a stark message is attached. “Spandau Ballet got together for the last time in 2009/2010 for a farewell world tour.” Nobody in the Spandau circle has yet used the words “last time” and “farewell”. Tactfully they allow us to believe that the future is a place where anything might still be possible. Hadley’s bel canto baritone voice was the most identifiable part of the supergroup’s musical signature in the 80s, and there’s nothing the band’s fans want more than to hear him singing again with his onetime schoolmates.
On Thursday and Friday, Hadley as solo performer was one of five British acts rostered for the Back to the 80s live gigs in Hamburg and Berlin. Above, we see him raising a storm onstage with Richie Barrett, the guitarist in the permanent band that has accompanied him as a singer for 13 years. Behind them on drums we see John Keeble, also a founder member of Spandau.
And when the Hamburg concert pictures were published on Friday by the German RTN news agency, this report accompanied them: “Hamburg — Konzert mit Musiklegenden der 80er Jahre war Tony Hadley am 1. Dezember 2011 in der o2 World Hamburg zu sehen. Tony Hadley sorgte mit Spandau Ballet und Songs wie True, Gold oder Only When You Leave für unverwechselbaren Sound und echte Ohrwürmer.
“Anfang der 90er Jahre startete Tony Hadley seine Solokarriere. Spandau Ballet taten sich 2009/2010 für einen Abschieds-Welttournee letztmalig zusammen.”
The brutal second paragraph translates into English as:
“ At the beginning of the 90s Tony Hadley began his solo career. Spandau Ballet got together for the last time in 2009/2010 for a farewell world tour. ”
The two key words in German are more explicit than anything Hadley has issued before about past and future… letztmalig means bluntly “for the last time”. And Abschied undeniably means “farewell, leave-taking, parting”, and in a military context is used to describe an officer who is being retired.
This statement from the Hadley camp removes any ambiguity that lingered in an interview he gave in August, following his first American solo tour. Remember, an argument over royalties split Spandau Ballet asunder in 1990, until they agreed to reunite and tour in 2009. In August the singer said: “It was only ever meant to be a one-off. At the moment there aren’t plans to do Spandau again. You could be waiting 20 years.” Well, now we know that means for ever.
+++ ❚ EXTRAORDINARY! IS IT POSSIBLE THAT Simon Le Bon’s voice sounds better than ever??? Even on an amateur concert video (above, posted at YouTube by Soralella71)) there was plenty of power and range to the tenor voice soaring over The Brighton Centre last night when Duran Duran opened with Before The Rain — all the more impressive since it was injuring his vocal chords that halted the AYNIN world tour in its tracks last May. There are 11 more gigs to play on this UK and Ireland leg of the tour, so fingers crossed.
❏ Corinna Scammell: Thankyou for Brighton — totally bloody marvellous and you did Secret Oktober! ❏ Lindsay Franklin: Bloody Brilliant Show last might in Brighton boys — it’s been too long! Last time I saw you was in the 80s. Even better now. Outstanding. ❏ Dan Thekebabman Burgess: Really enjoyed the show last night guys. Great job, simply amazing! ❏ Julie Stalford: Last night in Brighton was a fantastic night guys, thankyou so much, what a great great live band. Loved it.
John Taylor at Duran’s finale in Brighton last night: “That was definitely worth the wait. Thank you!” (Video grab from Soralella71 at YouTube)
A sentimental postcard from
John in Birmingham
➢ Dec 3: John Taylor on a DD family outing — “ You can’t blame the Brum crowd for their sense of ownership of songs like Planet Earth and Rio, they were written in their back-yard. We have lived in a lot of cities over the years and there have been a lot of places I have called home for a time, but you know, there’s really only one, and that’s the city of Birmingham. It beget us and it made us. Thanks to it for a great night. ” / Read more online
❏ Elegant French production of The Man Who… directed by Jethro Massey, with Faith Anne Gosselin, Sorrel & Massimiliano, Mocchia Di Coggiola
❚ TOMORROW DURAN DURAN RESUME their live British dates on the world tour which had been halted in May by Simon Le Bon’s vocal problems. The All You Need Is Now tour kicks off again in Brighton, and moves on to Europe in the New Year. After a painstaking year-long journey, the Brummie band has regained its status as magnificent international popsters and to celebrate, Shapersofthe80s has selected ten videos which demonstrate the energy Duran’s music has brought to the 20-tweens.
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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
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“See David Johnson’s fabulously detailed website Shapersofthe80s to which I am hugely indebted” – political historian Dominic Sandbrook, in his book Who Dares Wins, 2019
A UNIQUE HISTORY
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❏ 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
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
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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 new 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
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