movie – ➢➢ Shapers of the 80s ➣➣ (original) (raw)
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2014 ➤ Spandau Ballet’s world tour reunion updates
Spandau Ballet’s tenth live date: playing Heaven in London 1980. Photographed © by Shapersofthe80s
SCREENINGS OF THEIR SOUL BOYS BIO-PIC
✱ Read Shapersofthe80s’ review of the SBWW film and its UK premiere, plus European screening dates, Oct–Nov 2014
✱ Hello Down Under! Auckland NZ 2 Nov, Melbourne 5 Nov and Sydney 7 Nov for special Q&A screenings of SBWW, plus live performance in Melbourne
✱ Spandau’s first public appearance in NYC since 1983, plus US release of their new single This Is The Love, plus outdoor mini-concert in LA for their TV debut with Jimmy Kimmel 10 Nov… plus live performance on Fox’s Good Day Nov 13… Plus SBWW screening 15 Nov at SVA Theatre, premiere and band talk at Doc NYC
Hadley sings True: Spandau live at London’s Albert Hall, 2014. Photographed © by Shapersofthe80s
➢ SPANDAU’S 2015 LIVE TOUR DATES IN ONE LIST
✱ North America tickets on sale 14 Nov from San Francisco 23 Jan to Red Bank NY 10 Feb and in between LA, Denver, Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, Boston, NYC, Westbury, Washington DC . . . Extra concert added 24 Jan at The Wiltern in Los Angeles . . . Extra concert added 2 Feb in Montreal (on sale 27 Nov).
✱ 17 Jan 2015 update – Shock change to Spandau Ballet’s North America live tour – still launching 23–25 Jan in California but with other US and Canada concert dates rescheduled for April–May. Click through for complete list of world tour dates 2015.
✱ Now on sale: tickets for 13 dates 3–19 March in Spandau Ballet’s live UK tour 2015, kicking off 3 March from Dublin in the land of music, now taking in TWO London dates at O2 Arena 17–18 March, and ending in Brummie Duran-land
✱ First dates on live European tour 2015: Amsterdam 21 March, Luxembourg 22 March, Italy 24–30 March (Assago, Torino, Padova, Firenze, Roma), Germany 16–22 April (Leipzig, Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich)
✱ Down under: Auckland, NZ 10 May tickets on sale 20 Nov… Oz on sale Nov 12: Spandau’s Australia concert tour 2015 kicks off in Brisbane 13 May, playing also Sydney, Melbourne and Perth
✱ Weekly: Big Tone’s party show Saturdays 7–9pm GMT on Absolute 80s Radio, on air and online
http://youtu.be/myEJ8KrTmrU
➢ First US review of the new single This Is the Love at Billboard: “Thirty years after Spandau Ballet’s last U.S. single, the British new-wave quintet brings back everything that made it danceable on This Is the Love, touting a thick sax, Tony Hadley’s syrup-and-silk delivery and poppy drum work. The twist? There’s also a James Bond theme vibe mixed in.” – Andrew Flanagan … 8 Nov Martin Kemp tweets: “Billboard single of the week in the U.S.”
SPANDAU INTERVIEWED IN NEW ZEALAND, 2 NOV
https://13thflooroffice.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/spandau-ballet-2014.mp3
➢ Or, read a transcription of the above interview with New Zealand’s arts website, The 13th Floor – Here’s Tony Hadley on how life was different when he was a teenager: “The 80s was probably the last innocent decade in a kind of weird way, pretty primitive, you know. In Britain we had three TV channels. As a young person, you had music and you had fashion. So everything was pretty tribal and we’ve always been like that in Britain anyway, with the Mods, the Rockers, psychedelia, punk. So you picked your tribe and the kind of music you wanted to be associated with and that was it – it was just a simple time. We’ve now entered into a period where social media and connectivity around the world is unprecedented, incredible. So as a young person, you don’t necessarily need just fashion and just music. It’s a very different world we live in.”
➢ Official Spandau Ballet website
Posted in Australasia, Europe, Film, London, North America, Pop music, TV
Tagged Blitz club, Blitz Kids, Canada, cancellation, electro, George Hencken, Jimmy Kimmel, movie, New Romantics, New Zealand, premiere, reschedule, reunion, Reviews, Soul Boys of The Western World, Spandau Ballet, Swinging 80s, Tony Hadley, updates, US tour
➤ Soul Boys Spandau rise like a phoenix from the flames of their film premiere
Spandau Ballet: smart-casual on the red carpet
Spandau live at the Albert Hall: All six members of the band reunited, the sixth being manager Steve Dagger in the wings
Royal Albert Hall: full house for Spandau’s premiere
◼︎ 6,000 PEOPLE WERE UP FOR an emotional roller-coaster ride at London’s Royal Albert Hall on Tuesday – hundreds more watched simulcasts in cinemas across the land. Today Rolling Stone has called it “the biggest home-movie party in British pop history”. We sped through yards of breathlessly cut vintage footage even the band hadn’t seen before, showing how five glammed-up school friends adopted the preposterous name Spandau Ballet and effectively rewrote the rules of a moribund pop industry to rocket into the charts and become one of Britain’s six supergroups of the New Romantic 80s…
We saw how their friendships turned nasty and imploded in a law court… and how they’ve agreed to make this film 20 years later in which each tells his own version “warts and all”, soul boys baring their souls in a cathartic process of reconciliation and redemption. Why, they’d even titled their home movie, Soul Boys of the Western World, ironically referencing one of theatre’s tragic morality tales about human failings, the greater irony being that the band themselves were actually shocked to hear each other’s words at the first screening. They were the film’s only narrators, recorded separately talking one-to-one with the director and telling the tale with more “crashing and burning” than tact.
Tuesday’s audience picked up these cues in pantomime tradition. We were bearing witness just as the penitent members of Spandau Ballet were hoping. We oohed and aahed at some really tear-jerky best bits. We howled at odd Spinal Tap daftness. We heckled the cocky Cockney TV presenter. We laughed at our quaint mullets and hilarious teenage pretensions four decades ago. Then when the screen froze in a silent moment of grim truth, the whole Albert Hall groaned “Ohhhh no!” One hero had been damned, but a succession of jaw-dropping out-takes from pop-idol interviews hanged the others in turn. Icicles formed in the air, Steve Norman’s voice told us “You can see on our faces Spandau Ballet has just come to an end” and we shared their pain. At times the spoken bluntness came too near the knuckle and between last spring’s hair-shirt trailer and this autumn premiere a couple of killer icicles have been chopped.
Click any pic to launch slideshow
The old gang: Robert Elms, Christina Wilson
At rehearsals, Dagger and Norman
The old gang: Graham Smith, daughter Carla Jane
The old gang: 80s Spandau keyboardist Jess Bailey
The old gang: Christos Tolera, Wendy Bevan
The old gang: Spandau biographer Paul “Scoop” Simper
Vintage MTV interview: Gary, Tony and an icicle moment
Q&A: George Hencken and band face Lauren Laverne’s questions
Spandau live: Hadley sings True.
Barricades photographed by Dave Hogan
Spandau farewell: keyboardist Sean Barry and backing singers Lex Cameron and Derek Green
Apart from that, Mrs Lincoln, the yarn rattled along as a fascinating piece of social history, to a soundtrack deftly clipped from 22 Spandau numbers and a host of others that shaped the 80s. Tuesday’s melodrama came in three acts and we confessors gave the film a standing ovation, took a quick break to share our own shock at the band’s courage, and then rose to our feet again as the 6,000 to welcome onstage the happy smiling band of brothers, plus their equally glamorous film director, George Hencken, who had brought a woman’s instincts to handling the boys’ emotional baggage.
Soul Boys oWW reviewed by NME
Act 2 heard the team answer those burning questions live onstage, among them Gary Kemp saying “Yes, I’m the baddie”, and his brother Martin admitting disappointment in himself when young, while Tony Hadley said all the bitterness had weighed heavy on their families. There was plenty of humour too. When asked what he’d missed most since the great days, John Keeble said “the cheeseboard” (a reference to a backstage luxury specified in the band’s touring contract). Drummers, eh?
Act 3 was the equal of all that had come before. We rose to greet Spandau’s live set of six copper-bottomed hits, kicking off with their hymn of defiance, Through the Barricades, then sprinting into To Cut a Long Story Short. By Chant No 1 all six tiers of the Albert Hall were on their feet and cheering the dancefloor anthem that just missed being the chart No 1 in the riotous summer of 1981. Martin looked reassuringly relaxed powering its funky bassline, and Steve’s sax breaks were definitely dirtier than of old. In Only When You Leave Tony’s big balladeering vowels confirmed what a magnificent bel canto baritone he has become. And of course the last two classics, True and Gold, were inevitably hijacked by the choir filling the hall.
In words of the Eurovision winner, Spandau Ballet have risen from their ashes like a phoenix (fortunately without beards or frocks). We turn to our philosopher-drummer Keeble for the last word: “The film is a three-act play: guys have success, the wheels come off, then there’s some redemption. This now feels like fun and games – with love in it.” Gulp.
Spandau film premiere: Rock god Keeble photographed by Dave Hogan
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY ABOUT SBWW
Soul Boys oWW reviewed by Empire magazine
“More than a typical rock doc … the biggest home-movie party in British pop history” – David Fricke, Rolling Stone
“I found it gripping. Despite having never understood the appeal of the New Romantics, I enjoyed the hell out of Soul Boys of the Western World” – Observer film critic Mark Kermode on BBC-tv … “The mark of a really good rock documentary is that it makes you care about a band who played music that you were never a fan of” – Kermode again, on BBC News channel, picking his DVD of the week 24 Oct
“A funny, absorbing, trivia-filled portrait of friendship, the 80s music biz and bad hair” – Ian Freer, Empire Online
“The muscular musicianship of the band suggested that this latest stage of their reunion is more than just a nostalgia-wallow” – James Hall, Daily Telegraph
➢ Soul Boys of the Western World goes on general release 3 October, plus w/b Oct 20 screenings at Rome Film Festival and cinemas across Italy, Belgium’s Film Fest Gent… from Oct 27 Barcelona, Madrid, Bilbao, Pamplona… Plus, Nov 15 Spandau’s first public appearance in New York since 1983.
➢ Oct 20: tickets on sale today! Auckland NZ Nov 2, Melbourne Nov 5 and Sydney Nov 7 for special Q&A screenings of SBWW – Spandau Ballet are heading Down Under where the Melbourne screening will include a 20-minute live performance by the band.
Posted in Australasia, Clubbing, Europe, Fashion, Film, London, Media, North America, Pop music, Social trends, Youth culture
Tagged Blitz club, Blitz Kids, Chant No 1, George Hencken, movie, New Romantics, premiere, Reviews, Royal Albert Hall, Soul Boys of The Western World, Spain, Spandau Ballet, Swinging 80s, tour dates
➤ Another emotional gem on Spandau’s long walk to freedom
Spandau Ballet’s post-gig interview at SXSW in Texas: Steve Norman finds the humour in St John Keeble’s healing homilies
❚ NOT TO BE MISSED! Freshly posted at YouTube is yet another heart-on-sleeve prequel to Spandau Ballet’s promised Reconciliation and Redemption tour. A group interview on video unexpectedly becomes a very moving and positive expression of the band’s solidarity as friends. Famously “sticky moments” from the kamikaze wrecking of the band at the height of its success and the atomic fall-out during the 90s are glancingly referred to in the spirit of mild self-flagellation. The five musicians who defined Britain’s New Romantic movement are discussing Soul Boys of the Western World, their warts-and-all documentary biopic premiered last month at SXSW, the cool new-media festival at Austin in Texas.
“The film is pretty honest and hard for us to watch at times,” says songwriter Gary Kemp. “You can see in the film I was a bit precious.”
“That Kray twin moment [_a reference to the Kemps making a feature film about the Krays in 1990_]: for me that’s really embarrassing cos me and Gary’s answer is really conceited, but that’s who we were at the time,” says brother and bass player Martin. “The film lets us examine where we went wrong.”
SOUL BOYS SET FOR CANNES
The Spandau Ballet documentary that proved a hit at SXSW in March, is to be screened to buyers at the ➢ Cannes Marché next month, handled by UK sales company Metro International
“We’re human, we didn’t always get it right, we were young kids thrust into the limelight,” says singer Tony Hadley.
“We went through that terrible time facing each other in court at one point,” says instrumentalist Steve Norman. “It was awful. I put my saxophone on the top shelf and didn’t want anything to do with it for about four or five years cos it was symbolic of Spandau.”
Throughout the interview St John of the Drums emerges as the Kentish Town savant with a healing prayer for the sins that destroyed lifelong friendships between the five soulboys. “You can’t be revisionist,” Keeble observes. “It was a major thing when we got back together five years ago. You cannot unknow stuff that’s gone on but I think everyone felt in their hearts that it was now better to focus on the future. The whole world’s still in front of us.”
Click any pic to launch slideshow
Lori Majewski chairs Spandau Ballet’s post-gig interview in Austin last month. Screengrabs from SXSW video
Tony Hadley says: We didn’t aways get it right
Steve Norman tells how he put his saxophone out of reach
That Kray twin moment for Gary and Martin Kemp
➢ Why the trailer for Soul Boys of the Western World stops you in your tracks
What’s sad from a fan’s perspective is that the live gig in Texas which followed the film’s screening was the first and only time Spandau have played together since their year-long Reformation tour ended in 2010. That comeback tour was a sensational success, just as this gig has proved to be. The video interviewer, writer Lori Majewski, called Spandau a formidable live band: “I was surprised how tight you guys were, how great the live show was!” Entertainment Weekly reported the gig exuding “a rare atmosphere for a very youth-centrict fest, and a truly inspired musical moment – not bad for a bunch of fifty-somethings”.
The documentary has received keen reviews for its sole use of vintage footage and director George Hencken’s intelligent deployment of the band’s hit tunes from the 80s. The SXSW interview also reveals that at the 1985 Live Aid concert Steve Norman shot some under-cover footage backstage where cameras officially weren’t allowed. John Keeble remarks on the amount of original footage in their movie which the band themselves had never seen before – much shot by Martin Kemp as a Super8 enthusiast – while there’s plenty more footage that didn’t make the cut. So come on, lads. Let’s stage a premiere for the Spandau out-takes.
Click on video title above, then scroll to No 7 in the playlist
❏ This meeting of travellers at a crossroads in Austin has all the signs of a mystical resurrection sent from heaven, yet we’re told a Spandau tour is unlikely to happen this side of New Year. How patient must fans be? They had to wait three years for this film to be finished, having evolved naturally from a gifted film-maker recording the Reformation tour.
Two superb books on Spandau have been in preparation for years: one, a smart limited edition photobook, still awaits a strategic publication date to support a career jump-start.
The other was commissioned ten years ago, yes ten, in a wishful gesture of reconciliation while band members roamed the wilderness of solo careers. The showbiz writer Paul Simper was rightly deemed the only person qualified and trusted to capture the fascinating inside story of Spandau Ballet. His manuscript was revised five years ago to boost the Reformation tour, then publication was postponed in order to embrace the selfsame Reformation tour. His gripping text is far more thorough than many rock biogs because of the extraordinary times it describes and the wide-ranging context his research has captured. Currently, Simper is re-retuning his words which could become the book-of-the-film – once the film is given a release date. “Hearing the band talk so eloquently and emotionally gives me new impetus,” he said today. “It’s thrilling to hear them looking to the future.”
For the fans camped at the tiny Oasis of Hope, the road to truth and reconciliation for the band who’ve been pals since schooldays is a long one, as it has been for post-apartheid South Africa, and for Ireland since partition. But y’know, those two were nations with histories riven by British politics. Not a chart-topping pop group. Why doesn’t somebody ask Jerry for his Final Word then we can all get back to the music?
SPANDAU BALLET LIVE AT SXSW 2014
AND AT THE LOU REED TRIBUTE AT SXSW
➢ Previously at Shapersofthe80s: Curtain up on Spandau’s rollercoaster saga of war and peace
CHEEKY CHAPPIES: THE WAY THEY WERE IN ’81
Posted in Film, Media, North America, Pop music, Youth culture
Tagged 1980s, Austin, Blitz Kids, Books, George Hencken, Interview, live concerts, movie, New Romantics, Paul Simper, pop video, premiere, Soul Boys of The Western World, Spandau Ballet, SXSW
2014 ➤ At last, Kemp reveals Spandau to tour UK and US in the fall – and tomorrow The World!
Gary Kemp scoops Spandau Ballet’s own website on March 15
Spandau Ballet reunion at SXSW: the band together onstage playing 11 of their classic numbers at the Vulcan Gas Company
❚ HERE ARE THE TWEETS Spandau Ballet fans have all been waiting for, when Gary Kemp scooped even the band’s official website following their reunion performances and film premiere at SXSW in Texas. Yes, a tour is in the offing and it will conquer the world.
Gary’s news of a UK tour also emerged on March 15 during interrogation at Twitter by Irvine Welsh, the Scottish author of the 1993 novel, Trainspotting
Two days later, March 17: Tweeter Martin Wood, an English fan from Yorkshire, engages Gary in some banter…
… whereupon Gary Kemp announces a second scoop at Twitter. Well done, Martin!
Spandau Ballet on Friday performing Satellite of Love at the Lou Reed Tribute at SXSW … Videograb courtesy Chickrock: click the pic to view her video in new window
➢ Previously at Shapersofthe80s: First review of Soul Boys of the Western World
Posted in Film, Media, North America, Pop music
Tagged Irvine Welsh, movie, pop music, premiere, Soul Boys of The Western World, Spandau Ballet, SXSW, tour news, Twitter, UK, US
2014 ➤ Curtain up on Spandau’s rollercoaster saga of war and peace
Hello America! In Austin, Texas, 28 years after their last vsit, Spandau Ballet return to play live
➢ UPDATE – First official review of SBWW from Mel Brown at Facebook:
“ I’m a very lucky girl. Got to see the worldwide premiere of Soul Boys of the Western World. Truly amazing. An emotional roller coaster. This film is not just for Spandau fans, it’s for anyone who loves a good story of friends growing up together. Can’t wait for its UK release. Thanks guys! Looking forward to the first US show in 28 years tonight. ”
❚ AUSTIN, TEXAS, IS SIX HOURS BEHIND THE UK so any minute NOW the curtain is going up on the world premiere of Soul Boys of the Western World. The documentary movie made entirely from vintage footage follows the rise and fall of the five london schoolpals who became one the the world’s half dozen pop supergroups of the 80s. And in two hours’ time we’ll know how much of a tearjerker it turns out to be. Take it away, Tone!
Spandau Ballet all together on the Austin TV breakfast show: first public reunion since the Reformation tour ended in summer 2010
➢ Tony Hadley on Facebook early today:
“ A tiring but extremely successful day 2 at SXSW. We spent pretty much the entire day from 7.30am to 6pm doing promotion for the movie. The feedback from all the journalists that interviewed us was fantastic and there will be some reviews online later. In the afternoon we had a couple of hours to head out and check our back-line equipment for today’s show at a rehearsal facility here. In the room next door there was Kanye West and Jay-z rehearsing. Last night I had a chance to go and see London Grammar, Imagine Dragons and Coldplay playing at the iTunes Festival here. They all put on a great show.
“ Today is the main Spandau Ballet event…the premiere of Soul Boys of the Western World at the Paramount Theatre at 1400hrs. Very exciting! Tonight we play our first show here in the US for 28 years at the Vulcan Gas Company and we are all really looking forward to it. I’ll let you know tomorrow how it went!! ”
FIRST SNAPS AFTER THE SCREENING
After the screening of Soul Boys of the Western World: Spandau invite a Q&A from the Paramount audience… Far left, the film’s director George Hencken
Today’s Tweet from Gary Kemp @garyjkemp
– On stage with band and director @georgehencken for Q&A post screening. Thank you @sxsw, it was emotional.
Soundcheck for tonight’s live gig: Spandau onstage together for the first time in almost four years at the Vulcan Gas Company in Austin. Photo by Spandau’s first record producer, Richard James Burgess
Today’s Tweet from Spandau’s film director Henckenstein @georgehencken
– Tonight is going to be about this: #SpandauBallet #VulcanGasCompany
Another reunion! Steve Norman meets up with Spandau’s first record producer Richard Burgess today at SXSW
Today’s tweet from Spandau’s first record producer Richard James Burgess
– I haven’t seen them in a small room since 1980
After the soundcheck for tonight’s Spandau show: Tony Hadley relaxing as Steve Norman takes the snap
Today’s tweet from Steve Norman @SteveNormanReal
– The big man post sound check, pre gig madness @TheTonyHadley #SXSW
Marquee of the Paramount in Austin, Texas: Soul Boys of the Western World premieres today
➢ Today’s SXSW 2014 print interview with Spandau Ballet and their film director George Hencken
➢ Click to view the trailer of Soul Boys of the Western World
➢ Previously at Shapersofthe80s: Spandau confirms live reunion gig in Texas – for a tiny elite!
Posted in Film, Media, North America, Pop music, Youth culture
Tagged George Hencken, Interview, movie, pop music, premiere, reunion, Richard James Burgess, Soul Boys of The Western World, Spandau Ballet, SXSW, Tony Hadley, trailer, TV