This unofficial site features his current and recent events and tours
Review of Spandau Ballet at the o2 Arena, London
20th and 21st October 2009
The day the tour was announced I was working from home and my daughter was on a day off from work. I had to decide quickly which shows I wanted to go to. As an avid concert goer, she said I should look at the seating plans to see where the best seats were. She also said that as an o2 customer she could get special advance booking good seats from their Blueroom, so she text the number and got a special code back and went to the website and waited for the tickets to go on sale. On the dot of 2.30 pm the tickets went on sale and she entered the code. The next thing I know is she is saying 'Mum, Mum, I've got Block A2, Row A, seats 26 and 27, do you want them?' Of course I wanted them, they were front row, middle on the 20th. My hands were shaking as I entered my payment details on the website.
Wendy is trekking in Namibia (you can sponsor her here) next March for Action Medical Research and when were watching the Tony Hadley Golf Classic in September, his manager said it would be possible to do a charity collection at the o2. We decided that it would be good to do this, but we wouldn't be able to collect on the first night at the o2 as another charity - Shooting Star Children's Hospice (Tony is a patron of this charity) would be collecting. So we decided to do a collection on the second night, but this only allowed us to collect and not see the concert, so at the last minute I decided to get us some tickets from ebay, they couldn't have been more different to the ones on the first night - Block 414, row N, not quite at the back and top, but almost.
The two evenings, even though they were the same concert they were so different. The first show seemed like it was a personal concert just for us along the front row, even though there were another 12,000 people behind us. It was hard to hear the reaction of the audience behind us, the sound quality wasn't as good as if we were further back and we couldn't appreciate some of the big screen. The second show was more of an overview and of being part of a huge show. I found myself mainly watching the big screen as you couldn't see any facial features, so it was almost like watching video. The one advantage of not being close was that I could get the full benefit of the video footage on the big screen.
I'd already seen two shows already and there were no changes to the set list or video shown during the show. The show started off with the trailer which had been put together at the launch and the band came out and you could see them standing on stage behind the silhouette of the curtain, it dropped and they launched into To Cut a Long Story Short. My favourite songs in the show included 'I'll Fly For You' with doves flying across the big screen, Round and Round (my favourite Spandau song) with the video clips of the band when they were young. Another of my favourites is 'With the Pride' - a brilliant showcase for Tony's voice. The only sadness is when they got to True and knowing that it is the end of the main show and there is only the encore left. After a quick change, the band is back and launch into Fight for Ourselves, which gets the audience on their feet and they remain standing for Gold and this ends the gig with an high, although at the first show we had been standing all along.
It was an excellent show and although Tony has been suffering from a cold, you wouldn't have realised it as he sang all the songs brilliantly.
SET LIST
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
I didn't bother taking many photos on the second night as there really wasn't any point, and it was nice to just listen to the concert, but I couldn't resist just taking a few near the end and these are the results.
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Full 10x oprtical zooml |
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Full 10x optial zoom |
photo of the big screen during True |
Denise - October 2009