THERES A line in the new Spandau Ballet single Once More that goes: “I just want to take us back where we belong. We were hot and we were oh so strong.”
Nearly 20 years after their last concert, Spandau Ballet took to the stage at the O2 in Dublin last night older and presumably wiser after a bitter falling out after which singer Tony Hadley said “hell would freeze over” before they would re-form.
A lot has changed in the meantime, not least the relationship between the band members and especially between Hadley and chief songwriter Gary Kemp. There was a real warmth apparent between all five band members, and an audience who thought the day would never come. A silver screen projected the word “reformation”, and a few more we are only too familiar with, like “recession”, “unemployment”, “blood”, “war” and “tragedy”, reminding the audience that things were grim, too, when the group first made their breakthrough in 1980 with To Cut A Long Story Short.
It was their first single and, appropriately, the first song from last night’s comeback gig which was almost a sell-out.
The band sounded tight for the most part but there were a few first-night nerves when Gary Kemp fluffed the guitar intro to their acoustic version of With the Pride, and they had to start again.
“We missed you, what have you been doing for the last 20 years?” Hadley asked an audience of mostly thirty- and fortysomething women who remembered Spandau Ballet in their heyday.
They cheered images on the big screen of the band in their pomp.
It was a girls’ night out for Anne Curran, Fiona Bohan, Linda Reid and Deirdre Brady, who all went to the Holy Faith School in Glasnevin back in the 1980s. “They’re having a reunion, so are we,” said Anne, “we haven’t been together like this for ages.”
