December 14^th 1984

The day of the concert had arrived, it was time to set off for the Royal Court, Liverpool, to catch one of the coaches put on to take the Spandau fans to Queensferry, where the Deeside Leisure Centre is. My two cousins are with me, Tina, 15 and Debbie, 12. when we arrived at the theatre we had to wait for the coaches to turn up. When they did we were on coach no. 2 and settled down for the hour long journey. Time flew by as did the countryside around us and we reached the car park for the Deeside Leisure Centre in no time at all. We got off the coach and joined the queue of girls waiting to get in. we were at the back of the queue, which was around the back of the building already. We could hear music coming from inside, Spandau were rehearsing, we tried to see in somewhere but all the windows had been blocked. We had to wait 30 minutes after the band had stopped rehearsing before the queue began to move and it took another 15 minutes before we were in the building and entering the covered Ice Rink where Spandau were performing.

We positioned ourselves about 20 feet from the stage in the centre and waited patiently. The Centre soon filled up and we were afraid of getting shoved out of our perfect position. I was particularly worried about Debbie as she being the youngest, I wanted to protect her from being pushed around too much.

Then the lights went down and the stage lights came on. A voice was heard over the speakers saying ‘The Deeside Leisure Centre Proudly Present, SPANDAU BALLET’ We all screamed and there they were. Tony, Steve, Gary, Martin and John. They started to sing a song off their parade album. Those in the audience who had the album sang along. They sang every single off their previous albums and some other tracks too. The crowd sang along with every song and we were all dancing.

It was an effort for me to keep my youngest cousin from disappearing from view under the mass of dancing and screaming girls. Somehow we found ourselves nearer to the stage. I could almost touch Gary Kemp but not quite as I kept getting knocked away by some girls who did not care who they hurt. Then after nearly two hours of performing their hit singles, Tony started to say those dreaded words. ‘it’s time for us to go now. We hope you have enjoyed it, you’ve been a fantastic audience Deeside, see you all soon’ The other band members were waving and saying goodbye. We all screamed in unison ‘ More! We want more!’ Spandau came back on and sang WITH THE PRIDE, GOLD and TRUE before finally leaving the stage. We shouted for ‘more’ again but the lights came on and we all began to leave the Centre. We made our way back to the coach park, found coach 2 and the journey home began.

We arrived back outside the Royal Court Theatre at 11.30pm and made our way to the station for the last part of the journey home. I was looking forward to the future, hoping that it won’t be too long before Spandau tour again. I didn’t realize then that it would not be for another two years.

Within the two years that Spandau Ballet were touring Europe, Steve Norman injured himself. They recorded the Band Aid single ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’ with Bob Geldof and Midge Ure and other stars from the 1980’s. then they appeared for 10 – 15 minutes on the big concert of 1985 Live Aid. They started off singing GOLD then sang a brand new song called WE ARE VIRGIN and finished their set with TRUE. The singles collection album was released by Chrysalis Records.