Location: Zagreb / Dom sportova / Croatia
Date: Saturday, 27.02.2010
In the whole parade of reunions “plaguing” the rock present, all aimed at reviving the nostalgia of those wild days of youthful inexperience flying high on clouds of fame, the “sobering up and landing phase” has finally caught up with what may be the most typical representatives of the eighties New Romantic wave. Spandau Ballet. They, too, sold their musical talent with a helping hand from “boyband” good looks. They cranked that flawless image up with sly steps through the obligatory “glam-makeup” masquerade, which never covered up the sense of high-strung elegance and gentlemanly charm of this band – a typical representative of the eighties new wave era.
The demand for concerts by the reunited original lineup, which stepped onto the stages of the United Kingdom in autumn 2009 for the first time since splitting up 19 years ago, proved that people haven’t forgotten “ballet rock”. The band sold out the O2 in London in a mere 20 minutes. A venue that is still bigger than the average Slovenian concert hall, with a capacity of 23,000 people.
Well, the old European continent is simply not the United Kingdom. Spandau Ballet decided to take “The Reformation” tour to the rest of Europe too, and so we caught them not in Ljubljana but in Zagreb. After 21 years since they last played Ljubljana, for the third and final time. And the view? Around eight in the evening the stands were nicely filled. Up to 70% of the available seats. They didn’t open any more seats anyway. So the seats were effectively completely full. The reason for the rush to the stands lay in the difference in ticket prices. A ticket for the floor cost €50.00, for the stands simply €7.00 less. Still, the floor kept filling up minute by minute too, so that by half past eight, when Spandau Ballet burst onto the scene, the big hall of Dom sportova was a proper party zone, feverishly awaiting its troubadours.
The crowd had aged along with Spandau Ballet. Birth years somewhere between 1960 and 1980 and the golden mean of 1970 brought in the bulk of the band’s fans from their teenage days. A curtain spanning the full height and width of the stage structure, with a short biographical film about the band projected onto it, hid the stage from view for the first few minutes. All eyes were glued to that curtain, following the frames of archive footage of Spandau Ballet. As expected, a few deep sighs immediately escaped from the female part of the audience. The curtain suddenly vanished and the famous quintet appeared before the crowd, positioned right at the front of the stage, with only a few meager auxiliary “lamps” lighting them! The audience is in shock! A thunderous roar rings out through the hall!
The opening couldn’t have been better thought out. Spandau Ballet shot us straight back to the start of their career with the hits To Cut A Long Story Short and Freeze. A mix of rock and punk, with a dash of primitive synthesizer sounds and a danceable “Gary Glitter knock-knock” rhythmic base. The foundation of synth pop, or New Romantic. The figures of the band’s main songwriter and guitarist Gary Kemp behind the keyboards, as well as percussionist and saxophonist Steve Norman on guitar, drew the most attention, since you don’t see them playing keyboards (Kemp) or guitar (Norman) every day. In effect, that’s how Spandau Ballet conjured up the first steps of their musical career in Zagreb. In keeping with that, the opening mood was fueled by the deliberately weak and minimal stage lighting.
The dressed-to-the-nines lads, always accompanied by a charm of great elegance and a sense of aesthetic combining of stage play, show spectacle, and a trend of expensive designer clothing (good morning Bryan Ferry!), only took up their standard positions on stage with the third song, Hghly Strung. A song with a prominent guitar pattern in the verse, and one that confirmed (among a dozen others) the band’s drift into pop rock waters, with an ever more frequent dash of mellow soul hairdo, mostly thanks to the color and style of Tony Hadley’s singing. Here the stage was flooded with full lighting, with gradients and a mischievous play of spotlight beams in mostly shades of blue, green, and white light.
The band is crafty. They enchant you with their assurance and confidence. The guys are unbeatable at combining stage play with brilliant execution of the material. Tony Hadley, who didn’t hide the fact that he’d earned himself a hefty double chin during the years away from the band, is still an excellent vocalist, as well as a charmer who knows exactly how to whisper into the ladies’ souls. Through his contact with the crowd, with practiced eye contact and a contagious smile, he easily tore down the barrier to the audience and knocked on the spoiled and demanding hearts of all the girls, bridesmaids, or life partners. Enjoying the voyage through a bag of emotions with a often dreamy romantic atmosphere, further reinforced by Steve Norman’s erotic saxophone, went hand in hand with the singalong choruses of the classics Only When You Leave, I’ll Fly For You, Round And Round, Through The Barricades, Lifeline, Chant No 1, True, and especially in the encore with Fight For Ourselves and the song that even those who still don’t know it’s by Spandau Ballet know, it’s that evergreen. Gold!
The brothers Martin and Gary Kemp shamelessly showed off foreheads a few centimeters higher, earned over the last 20 years. Both Kemps are still agile performers today, but of course Gary took the spotlight from his brother, especially in the closing sections, when he set off on solo excursions in the company of Steve Norman’s saxophones. Not excessive, but with a properly measured aim of spicing up the stage atmosphere! One of those was the extended closing part of I’ll Fly For You, which reminds us that Spandau Ballet are not only a quintet known for commercial success but, musically speaking, above all excellent instrumentalists.
The scent of eighties golden-age sentiment, and therefore giddy nostalgia, was stirred up especially by the classic Round And Round. Mostly thanks to the film projected on the enormous screen in the background, which strung together images of the band at the peak of their career in the eighties throughout the performance of the song.
Last October, Spandau Ballet backed up their return to the scene with a new album, “Once More” (2009). On it they offered the classic hits in somewhat restructured arrangements, as well as the other “lesser-known” regular studio tracks from the albums released through the eighties. This special release, which all the true fans of the band already have at home, also includes two brand-new songs. One of them, Once More, was played in Zagreb too. Even though it was written twenty years later, you couldn’t shake the feeling that Spanadu Ballet still breathe the eighties in the new era, with full lung capacity. Subtler versions of the originals were also given to the songs with “loosened-up” arrangements Love Like Diamond, and then especially the “Parade” twins Always In The Back Of My Mind and With The Pride. During the latter, only Gary and Tony stayed on stage. The acoustic guitar in Gary’s hands hinted that the superhit Through The Barricades was lurking just around the corner. And sure enough. In the first part of this hit, the singer and guitarist were still on stage alone, and then the other band members slowly joined them. A real atmospheric leap came with the switch of the lead motif at the verse “Oh, turn around and I’ll be there…”, where the cabaret blue was replaced by a real flash of light in the hall, backed by a single hit from the quintet that carried us toward a new mood and into a dynamically lively continuation of the song. These are the moments that prove Spandau Ballet are skilled masters who know how to seize every opportunity offered and turn it to the benefit of deepening the stage theater and fun.
In one of the pauses, Hadley got talkative and apologized to the audience, who had to wait more than 20 years for Spandau Ballet to return to these parts, to the concert stages! Tony sang phenomenally. In the moments where the band shows its power of stringing together compact, melodically polished, naturally sounding figures of sound, his vocal is especially seductive and intense in its sensuality. He crowned his talent and stage-figure character at every moment with carefully considered movement around the stage and heartfelt singing, in which he didn’t skip his own signature engraving of soul articulations. It’s precisely this that especially defines his unique vocal approach. He had some trouble with the heat radiating from under the spotlights. Sweat streamed down his face in rivers and the man had to wipe his eyes properly a few times, as stinging salt ate into them mercilessly. At the end of the concert he got a pack of pocket tissues from the audience and used them theatrically too, which set off volleys of laughter in the hall.
Especially in the second part, Spandau Ballet ramped up their performance by hammering out hit after hit. When they came back on stage and raised the crowd with Fight For Ourselves, it was clear why John Keeble has a giant gong behind his back. The wild man almost knocked the gong off its stand in the closing part of the song, so into the pounding of it was he. Tony Hadley introduced the rowdy Keeble as “Mr. Yankeeman”, probably because he’s the only one in the quintet who wears “jeans” on stage. Keeble kept the theater going by lying down on the steps leading up to his drum riser after Fight For Ourselves ended, and lying there motionless through the quiet opening part of Gold, until Gary Kemp asked him: “John? Are you still alive?”. The performance of Gold was of course a chapter of its own. The whole hall joined in thunderously one last time at the concert. The extra percussion effects, for which Norman would have needed at least one more pair of hands, were coaxed out on keyboards by an additional keyboardist.
The band delivered top-notch sound and a top-notch stage show, confirming that they haven’t betrayed the origin of their musical roots in any way, as outlined by their eighties opus. Flawless. Even the stage nostalgically echoed elements of the stage constructions used in the eighties. Extra platforms, steps, railings. Three-quarters of an hour of full-on togetherness with Spandau Ballet’s biggest hits achieved its purpose. It confirmed that Spandau Ballet are like a good wine that ripens with age and gets better and better.
You can’t get more eighties than this. What we saw sketched out a glimpse of a hidden longing, to which memories from twenty years ago still bind us vividly. For a moment, the illusion became real! Spandau Ballet rose once more, like the phoenix from the ashes of the eighties’ scorched legacy. Time, then, stood still for Spandau Ballet. Perfect ballet pirouettes wrapped in the silken yarn of an era long gone. An era that only comes alive in the moments when the stage magic of Spandau Ballet comes alive with it. Let’s hope it’s as often as possible.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Bojan Horvat
Setlist:
1.To Cut a Long Story Short
2. The Freeze
3. Highly Strung
4. Only When You Leave
5. I’ll Fly For You
6. How Many Lies
7. Virgin
8. Love Like Diamond
9. Once More
10. Round and Round
11. Always in the Back of my Mind
12. With the Pride
13. Through The Barricades
14. Instinction
15. Communication
16. Lifeline
17. Chant No. 1/Paint Me Down
18. True
—encore—
19. Fight For Ourselves
20. Gold
