This unofficial site features his current and recent events and tours
Review of Spandau Ballet at the o2 Arena, Dublin
13th October 2009
If you'd asked me last year what the odds of a Spandau reunion was, I would have said very slim, although Tony had been mellowing about the subject in recent years. So when the reunion was announced in March, I had to make the decision which of the gigs I would be going to. There are no big arenas in the South West of England, so I knew that would be a non starter, but my local airport is quite convenient with flights to Dublin, Belfast, Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow and other European destinations.
I like to go to the first show of a tour if I possibly can and the flights to Dublin fitted in nicely, unfortunately there wasn't a flight back the next day, but there was one from Belfast, so there was nothing else I could do but go to both shows.! I'm writing this from the train from Dublin to Belfast.
Arriving at the o2 Arena after a walk down the road from our hotel, it seemed a strange place for a venue, almost in the middle of the Dublin docks, but once inside it was a nice venue with 9,200 seats and slowly everybody took their seats and filled the place almost to capacity. I'd bought the tickets from the Spandau Ballet website, so until two weeks before the show, I had no idea where we would be sitting apart from the fact that we would be in the flat seating in front of the stage. There weren't too many rows in this section and we ended up with end of the 5th row and a good view.
There was no support act, just 80s music playing over the loudspeakers and the stage had a thin curtain which lifted when the band came on stage. You could see John's drum kit and some microphone stands through it.
We wondered when the show was going to start as the only thing that the tickets had told us was that the doors opened at 6.30 pm, we'd arrived not long after this and had a good look around the merchandise stalls and then took our place in the auditorium. The one thing that struck me was the width of the stage, I had seen Tony perform on a similar large stage, but I have been more used to him being on much smaller stages. Behind the band was a huge video screen.
In the run up to the shows, I had tried to guess which songs they would include, I had a feeling that they would start with 'To Cut a Long Story Short' and I was right there, I also had a feeling that there would be no Musclebound and I was right there. I decided to write the set list down as there would be no way of getting a printed set list and it turns out that everything was done electronically anyway.
The Set list was:
To Cut a Long Story Short
The Freeze
Highly Strung
Only When You Leave
I'll Fly For You
How Many Lies
Virgin
She Loved like Diamond
Once More
Round and Round
Man in Chains
With The Pride
Through The Barricades
Instinction
Communication
Lifeline
Chant No. 1 with
Paint Me Down in the middle
True
- - - - - - -
Fight for Ourselves
Gold
Someone threw an Arsenal flag onto the stage whilst Tony wasn't looking, I thought someone had thrown knickers on the stage but it was the flag. He opened it up and made a comment about it being the best football team or something like that and then he draped it over John's drum kit.
When it came to the 'With The Pride' there were supposed to be chairs brought on stage, but somebody forgot, so Tony and Gary were left on stage waiting to start their acoustic song. When they did get their stools, sat down and started, one of them made a mistake and Tony said 'lets start again' and then he said 'least you know its live'. This is an excellent part of the show and really shows off Tony's voice.
I can't make much more comments apart from the fact that it all seemed to go too quickly and the show was over, but I knew that I would be seeing the show again the next day.
Denise - October 2009