My
Spandau Ballet days Diary
By
Part 1
Early 1983
A newspaper announces that Spandau Ballet are to tour the
country. One of the venues they are to play is Liverpool Empire Theatre. I also
received a letter from the Spandau Ballet fan club announcing the tour.
I really wanted to go so I pleaded with my friend Jane
Harrison to come with me; after all I had just sacrificed a night all to myself
to go with her to see Duran Duran. As soon as she agreed I went to get the
tickets from the Liverpool Empire box office.
The concert is to be on April 16th 1983. Just
before the tour Spandau released their new LP True and had already had a hit
with Lifeline and had released the single True which had gone to Number One in
the charts.
The night of the concert arrived and I was excited even
before we arrived at the Theatre. We got dropped off outside with strict
instructions of where we were to be picked up from and at what time. We passed
some men selling counterfeit goods outside the theatre and I felt the
excitement bubbling up inside me and couldn’t wait to get inside.
Once inside we bought some real merchandise in the form of
posters, badges and a souvenir brochure before making our way to our seats on the
balcony. The theatre was gradually filling up with excited teenagers like
myself, and young women. As 8pm approached my friend and I were watching the
audience who like us were becoming restless. You could just see the roadies
setting up the equipment on the stage and every so often a girl in the front
stalls would cheer thinking it was Spandau coming on stage.
Then at half past 8 the lights went down the whole theatre
was plunged into darkness and a voice from the darkness said “The Liverpool
Empire proudly welcomes on Stage SPANDAU BALLET”. The opening chords of
‘Foundation’ strike up and the stage light go on and there they are… Spandau
Ballet walk on stage. Tony makes his way to the centre and starts singing
Foundation above girls screaming for their favourite member. My friend and I
begin to dance, clap and sing along with every other girl in the Theatre. After
finishing the opening song Tony Hadley shouts “HELLO LIVERPOOL” everyone
screams again. Tony, Gary, Martin, Steve and John all look so handsome in their
suits and we all scream again as one of the others talk to us over the
microphone only to be drowned out by the screaming.
Song after song performed to perfection. Communication,
Pleasure, Gold, Lifeline, True, Paint me down, Instinction, Heaven is a secret,
Code of love, The freeze, Musclebound, She loved like diamond but not in that
order. Between each song Gary or Tony would try to speak but were always
drowned out by the screams reverberating around the theatre. Then they left the
stage after saying goodnight. We all screamed we want more and Spandau returned
to the stage to sing two encores, which were Chant No 1, and To cut a long
story short. And then they went off the stage again and returned with flowers,
Roses to be precise and began throwing them to the screaming girls who by now
were screaming louder than ever. I could just hear Gary and Tony saying ‘Thank
you Liverpool’ and ‘You’re the best, Cheers, Liverpool’ and ‘Have a safe
journey and goodnight’ before they left the stage for the final time. We all
screamed again ‘We want more’ but the lights came back on to signal that the
gig was over. Jane and I collected our things together and made our way out of
the Theatre. The exit we came out of was at the other side of the theatre to where
we were instructed to meet my father so we had to walk around the back of the
theatre and past the stage door.
‘Let’s wait
for them to come out’ I suggested.
‘OK’ my
friend replied, so we waited amongst a crowd of 40 excited girls. Suddenly a
window above the stage door opened and there they were…. Spandau Ballet….
Hanging out of the window. We all started screaming for our favourite member
again and the band just laughed between them and waved to us all before
disappearing briefly. When they returned they began throwing roses and photo’s
out to us.
There was a wild scurry of young girls desperately trying to
grab Spandau’s offerings. I made to grab a rose but was pushed out of the way
by an overexcited young girl. Then I saw a photo falling through the air
towards me. I reached out to grab it but once more I was pushed out of the way
as if the girls life depended on getting that photo. Another was thrown and
another and another and with each one I was determined to catch one. I made a
grab for one that was falling towards me, my feet nearly left the ground in my
determination. Yes!!!! I got it…. I said to myself as I pulled it towards me
‘please let it be Gary or Martin, Please!’ Slowly I turned it over so I could
see who it was of…damn! It was Steve, oh well I thought I will just have to try
and catch another one but there were not as many being thrown out now and the
other girls were acting like wild animals.
‘Never mind’ my friend shouted
towards me ‘ look there’s another one…’ she continued before disappearing under
a mass of scavenging female bodies. A minute later she reappeared at my side.
‘Look what I got’ she said showing me a crumpled signed photo of Gary Kemp.
‘ You lucky thing’ I shouted to her before trying to catch another falling photo but to no avail. Then Spandau Ballet disappeared from the window and the window shut behind them. Downheartedly I looked hopefully on the floor for any missed photos but there was nothing. Then the stage door opened and the five members of Spandau ran out and got onto a waiting coach. We all rushed towards the coach in the hope of just touching one of them and girls began to scream again as they flocked around the coach.
‘ Martin, I love you!’ and ‘Tony,
I’m True for You’ were things shouted by some girls standing by me. Slowly the
coach began to move off up the road with girls still chasing it, screaming
madly. Behind the darkened back window of the coach five shadowy figures of
Spandau Ballet can just be seen, waving to us all.
As my friend and I made our way towards my fathers waiting
car to go home Jane said to me ‘I tell you what.’
‘What?’ I
asked
‘I’ll do you
a swap, you can have Gary Kemp and I will have Steve Norman.’
‘Are you
sure?’ I asked hesitantly.
‘Course I’m
sure.’ Jane replied.
‘Ok it’s a
deal.’ I said gratefully as we reached the car. Once we got in the car the swap
was made.
‘What took
you so long?’ My father greeted us with.
‘Nothing’ I
said
‘Well hurry
up and get your seatbelt on I haven’t got all night.’ My father said sharply.
‘Did you have
a nice time daughter dear?’ I said sarcastically ‘Yeah great!’ I replied,
looking back at my friend in the back seat. Who was smiling. ‘Did you enjoy it
Jane?’ I asked.
‘Yeah it was
brilliant.’ She replied
‘It was
wasn’t it.’? I said completely ignoring my father’s hostile attitude. We
dropped Jane off at the house before going home. When I got in Mum asked.
‘Did you have
a good time dear?’
‘Mum it was
brilliant!’ I said happily. ‘In fact next time they tour I’m going to go and see
them again.’
‘Oh! That’s
nice love’ Mum said absently as she saw the mood my father was in. I left the
room quickly to get ready for bed, as I had to revise the following morning for
my English exam.