Spandau Ballet + Tears For Fears @ The BEC 27-04-10

Spandau Ballet

If you’d told me 25 years ago that one day I’d be photographing Spandau Ballet and Tears For Fears I would never have believed you.  (And then I probably would have gone “Spandau Ballet? Ugh!”).  But that’s what I find myself doing tonight at the BEC (my first time photographing at the venue since John Mellencamp, way back in November 2008), although I’m definitely here for Tears For Fears part of the evening rather than the Spandau Ballet headlining spot.  In a way, I’m surprised that TFF are supporting as I would have thought that they’d sold an awful lot more albums than Spandau Ballet.  However, being here tonight and finding out it’s Cougar Town, with the audience probably in the region of 80% females in their late 30s/early 40s, it’s obvious that the pulling power of boy bands is immense, even long after their heyday and with the band members all around the age of 50.  It brings a wry smile thinking that in 30 years time this is the crowd that Justin Bieber will be pulling.

Tears For Fears start with a kind of weird karaoke version of Mad World, the track starting as a choral backing track as soon as the lights go out and the band start making their way onto the stage, and with Curt Smith singing over the top of the track.  It’s a bizarre start and a bit of a waste of a good song, with it being treated as rather a throwaway couple of minutes whilst the band are tuning up rather than one of their biggest hits, particularly thanks to its recent resurgence via Gary Jules’ cover version on the Donnie Darko soundtrack.  However, next up is Everybody Wants to Rule The World and standing right in front of Roland Orzabal as he picks out the intro is a real spine-tingling moment, with just a few notes the power of nostalgia instantly takes me back to 1985.  The final song I get to photograph is a ‘new’ song, Secret World, from their last album, Everybody Loves A Happy Ending (I say ‘new’ as it was released in 2004).  It’s got a similar late-period Beatles feel to Sowing The Seeds of Love (which follows as the fourth song played tonight), with Roland Orzabal showing his continuing McCartney fixation by segueing part of Wing’s Let ‘Em In into the song.

Disappointingly they’ve only been given an hour to play, although they still manage to include another ‘new’ song, Floating Down The River, a rarity which isn’t on any of their studio albums and can only be found on a recent anthology album.  Again it’s a perplexing moment; having such limited time in which to play and including a virtually unknown song at the expense of much better known tracks, and it obviously receives a muted response from the audience.  But for the rest of the set it’s the classic singles; Pale Shelter, Head Over Heels, Woman In Chains (including a truly remarkable performance by singer Michael Wainwright taking on Oleta Adam’s parts from the original recording), Break It Down Again (an interesting choice as it comes from the period after Curt Smith had quit the band and Tears For Fears had become essentially a Roland Orzabal solo venture), and the set finishing up with the obvious Shout.  With the band being seemingly omnipresent during the time when I was discovering music it’s great to finally see them play, even if it’s for such a short set, and both singers were in excellent voice, especially Curt Smith, who can still hit the high notes.  Since leaving Australia, they have played some headline shows in Asia and are heading to the US for a 17 date tour, so hopefully they’ll come back for a proper tour sometime in the not-to-distant future.

There’s a massive curtain covering the front of the stage and, as Spandau Ballet take their places behind the curtain, images, clips and quotes from the band are played on it, culminating with each member of the band having their name projected in huge letters.  It’s a bold move showing a load of images of you from 30 years ago before dropping the curtain and unveiling yourself to the audience as 50 year olds, but when it does they look in pretty good shape, although Tony Hadley has piled on a few pounds since the 1980s and looks to be soon regretting wearing a suit in the Brisbane humidity.

I think I only know three Spandau Ballet songs; True, Gold and To Cut A Long Story Short.  Luckily they start with To Cut A Long Story Short.  For the first couple of songs they seem to be doing some tribute to how it was ‘back in the day’ when they first started and were playing smaller club dates, with the four front members of the band playing close together on a dark stage, with each member only lit by a single tungsten spotlight.  Song three and all the lights are on, a number of additional musicians are on stage (including a female singer in the world’s tightest PVC trousers), and Steve Norman has changed from the guitar he played in the first two songs to the saxophone, and is stood in front of the drums, playing it 1980’s style, i.e. leaning back holding the sax above his head.

The whole thing is incredibly cheesy but also quite fun. Or should that be funny.  And they look really happy to be there; possibly thinking that never in their wildest dreams did they think they would be playing to such large audiences more than 30 years after they formed.  Despite their bona fide New Romantic credentials, as I’m photographing away I can’t help but keep thinking “You used to be in Eastenders!” every time I look at Martin Kemp.

More photos on Flickr.

Spandau Ballet
Spandau Ballet

Spandau Ballet

Spandau Ballet

Spandau Ballet

Tears For Fears
Tears For Fears

Tears For Fears

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