Music / Reviews
Review: Tony Hadley, Colston Hall
You’ve got to admire a middle-aged man who chooses Air’s ‘Sexy Boy’ as the music that plays in the auditorium before he goes on stage. But when Spandau Ballet frontman Tony Hadley saunters into the Colston Hall you know he can pull it off. With a tumbler of whiskey in one hand, a glass of water in the other and an open-collared shirt… Tony is a louche loungeman who’s lapping it up. Oh, and he had the Southbank Sinfonia Orchestra to back him up.
In the first half, Tony delivers a succession of covers interspersed with a few numbers from his new album. He’s in his element belting out covers of Don Henley’s ‘New York Minute’ and Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’. Less so with David Bowie’s ‘Life On Mars’, where Tony’s baritone can’t quite reach the heights that David’s voice can.
In the second half, Tony offers exactly what the audience paid for – a ricochet of non-stop Spandau classics. And from the moment that ‘To Cut A Long Story Short’ starts up, you can hear the sore throats developing as the audience shrieks their love for him. From ‘Round And Round’ to ‘Through The Barricades’, Tony delivers soaring anthem after soaring anthem, long-held note after long-held note, and fist pump after fist pump. The man’s on fire. Especially while air-conducting during ‘True’.
is needed now More than ever
Some of the earliest Spandau songs – ‘Musclebound’ and ‘Toys’ – sound almost theatrical with a glockenspiel-wielding 32-piece orchestra in the background. Throw in some anthemic crescendos, Alison Limerick on backing vocals and a drummer in a flatcap and, well, you’ve got an ‘80s pop revival on your hands.
As a performer who was in one of the biggest bands of the 1980s with teenage girls throwing themselves at him, it must be a little depressing for Tony to now look out and see a multitude of middle-aged women jabbing their fingers at smartphone screens. But that doesn’t stop him flirting with every single one of them.
Oh Tony, you old romantic, you.
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
