649 Goodbye Spandau Ballet - Be Free With Your Love

Chart  entered : 26  August  1989

Chart  peak : 42

For  many  people,  Spandau  Ballet  are  the  quintessential  eighties  band  so  it's  somehow  fitting  that  they  didn't  make  it  out  of  the  decade.

It  was  hard  for  me  not  to  feel  betrayed  when  they  ditched  the  synths  and  European  influences  after  the  first  album  and  rediscovered  their  soul  boy  roots  with  their  fourth  single  "Chant  No  1".  Although  that  reached  number  3,  they  had  a  serious  wobble  with  the  next  two  singles  and  had  to  call  on  Trevor  Horn  to  rescue   their  position  on  "Instinction". They  then  switched  to  Bananarama's  producers, Swain  and  Jolley,   and  reached  their  commercial  peak  in  1983  when  "True"  got  to  number  one  ( 4  in  the  US ) . They  were  on  the  bill  at  Live  Aid  but  like  many  of  their  contemporaries  they  suffered  a  decline  in  popularity  in  its  wake. A  fall  out  with  their  record  label  didn't  help . The  atypical  "Through  The  Barricades"  was  their  only  subsequent  Top  10  hit. Their  last  two  singles  hadn't  made  the Top  30.

"Be  Free  With  Your  Love"  was  the  second  single  from  their  forthcoming  album  "Heart  Like  A  Sky". The  woolly  liberal  lyrics  recall  World  Party. Musically  it's  trying  to  be  two  records  in  one . The  first  couple  of  minutes  are  pretty  standard  Spandau,  the  glossy  funk-pop  they'd  been  peddling  for  the  past  seven  years with  the  London  Tabernacle  Gospel  Choir  bolstering  the  chorus. Then,  it  speeds  up  into  a  Gloria  Estefan  Latin  workout  with  horns  and  percussion  and  endless  repetition  of  the  title  as  if  trying  to  bludgeon  you  into  submission. The  single  did  slightly  better  than  its  predecessor  but  it  was  now  obvious  they  were  struggling.

The  album  - their  sixth - was  released  the  following  month. It's  the  first  not  to  be  written  entirely  by  guitarist  Gary  Kemp  with  the  lumpen  funk  track  "Motivator" composed  by  guitarist-cum-percussionist-cum-saxophonist  Steve  Norman. It  stalled  at  number  31  in  the  album  chart. The  band  persevered  with  further  singles, the  pompous  and  vacuous  ballad  "Empty  Spaces " and  polished  Belinda  Carlisle-style  pop  rock  of  "Crashed  Into  Love  " ( a  minor  hit  in  Italy  where  their  popularity  was  holding  up )   but  neither  achieved  anything  except  to  spoil  their  100%  hit  rate.

1990  was  the  year  of  reckoning  for  the  band. The  long-in-the-can  film  The  Krays  came  out  featuring  Gary  and  brother  Martin  as  the  infamous  gangsters. Both  received  praise  for  their  performances  which  shouldn't  have  been  that  much  of  a  surprise  as  they'd  both  been  to  stage  school. With  a  new  world  of  acting  opportunities  beckoning  the  band  was  put  on  hiatus. The  other  three  members  were  left  to  fend  for  themselves.

Singer  Tony  Hadley  popped  up  first, appearing  in  the  video  for  PM  Dawn's  1991  single "Set  Adrift  On  Memory  Bliss"  which  heavily  sampled  "True". He  used  that  as  a  launching  pad  for  his  solo  career  which  began  the  following  year. Drummer  John  Keeble  stuck  with  him   and  he  was  managed  by  Spandau  manager  Steve  Dagger. He  signed  with  EMI  for  his  debut  album  "The  State  of  Play".  Though  it  yielded  three  minor  hit  singles - the  biggest  "Lost  In  Your  Love", a  decent  pop rock  number  written  by  Bucks  Fizz  songwriters  Andy  Hill  and  Pete  Sinfield, reached  number  42   in  1992- the  album  itself  didn't  chart. EMI  gave  him  a  last  shot  with  a  single  "Absolution"  a  so-so  slice  of  Erasure-ish  synth-pop. When  that  failed  to  chart  he  was  dropped. He  had  to  sell  his  home  to  pay  off  an  overdraft,

In  1995,  after  prominent  roles  in  The  Bodyguard  and  Killing  Zoe,  Gary  made  his  only  solo  record "Little  Bruises".  I've  only  heard  two  of  the  tracks, the  singles  "An  Inexperienced  Man" and  "Standing  In  Love"  and  they  were  enough. Gary  hasn't  got  a  lead  singer's  voice  and  both  songs  are  drab  singer-songwriter  fare  with  ghastly  cod-Celtic  arrangements  to  convey  Van  Morrison-esque  "sincerity".

In  1996  Tony  set  up  his  own  record  label  Slipstream  whose  first  release  was  his  "Build  Me  Up", a  very  unremarkable  dance  track  he  recorded  for  the  soundtrack  to  dire  Sean  Bean  football  film  When  Saturday  Comes.  He  then  went  on  a  singers'  tour  of  Europe  with  Joe  Cocker  and  some  continental  luminaries   In  May  1997,  he  enjoyed  his  biggest  solo  hit  as  featured  artist  on  Tin  Tn  Out's  "Dance  With  Me"  a  muted  electronic  dance  track  that  reached  number  35.That  gave  him  the  fillip  to  release  "Tony  Hadley"  a  mainly  covers  album   including  a  version  of  "Save  A  Prayer"  by  Spandau's  traditional  rivals  Duran  Duran   which  was  released  as  a  single. I'd  stick  with  the  original. Also  released  as  a  single  was  a  different  "Dance  With  Me" which  he  wrote  with  Simon  Baisley, a  Latin  tinged  ballad with  one  of  his  best  vocal  performances   but  it  went  nowhere. His  dreary  version  of  the  Bee  Gees'  First  of  May  was  lined  up  as  another  single  but  was  withdrawn. The  album  got  to  number  45  in  the  UK. He  also  duetted  with  Dutch  singer  Erikah  Karst  on  a  version  of  Phil  Collins  and  Marilyn  Martin's  Separate  Lives  but  that  was  only  released  in  the  Netherlands.

Steve  in  the  meantime  had  re-located  to  Ibiza  and  got  involved  in  the  music  scene  there  , helping  to  compile  chill  out  compilations. He  also  performed  on  stage  usually  playing  sax  with  various  artists  on  the  house  music  scene  such  as  Frankie  Knuckles  and  Jeremy  Healy. He  formed  a  relationship  and  later  married  ex-Bucks  Fizz  singer  Shelley  Preston.

Martin  was  the  only  member  not  involved  in  music  during  the  nineties. He  moved  to  LA. and  concentrated  solely  on  acting  until  he  was  obliged  to  return  to  the  UK  in  1995  for  brain  surgery. Once  he'd  recovered  he  looked  for  acting  work  in  the  UK  and  in  1998  landed  a  plum  part  in  Eastenders.

The  group  was  back  in  the  news  the  following  year. Resentment  at  the  sidelining  of  the  band  had  festered  for  nearly  a  decade  and  Steve, Tony  and  John  took  Gary  to  court  claiming  he  had  reneged  on  an  agreement  to  share  the  songwriting  royalties.  Gary  vehemently  denied  it, Their  case  also  stated  that  even  if  there  was  no  agreement  ( surely  this  was  a  tactical  mistake ) the  trio  had  made  enough  contribution  to  the  songs  to  make  them  joint  authors.  Tony  admitted  in  court  that  he  was  pretty  skint. The  judge  ruled  for  Gary  and  a  threatened  appeal  never  materialised.

This  of  course  did  nothing  to  ease  Tony's financial  worries. He  guested  on  an  Alan  Parsons  single, put  out  a  live  CD  of  his  first  solo  gig  in  Cologne  called  "Obsession"  and  he  Steve and  John  had  to  go  out  on  tour  as  "Hadley, Norman  and  Keeble ex-Spandau  Ballet"  their  shares  in  the  name  sold  to  meet  legal  costs.

When  that  was  over, Steve  formed  his  jazz  outfit  Cloudfish  with  Preston  in  2001.

Tony  popped  up  again  in  2003 as  a  participant  on  Reborn  In  The  USA  although  the  premise  that  he  was  unknown  over  there  was  patently  ludicrous. He  ended  up  winning  the  competition  after  his  main  rival  Peter  Cox's  version  of  Norah  Jones's  Don't  Know  Why  became  "Don't  Know  The  Lyrics".

Tony  tried  to  capitalise  on  his  triumph  by  whacking  out  another  live  album  , this  time  of  a  gig  at  Ronnie  Scott's  in  1999, under  the  title  "Reborn"  and  re-compilations  of  his  earlier  LPs but  it  wasn't  to  be. He  toured  with  Cox  who  he'd  befriended  on  the show  and  then  ABC's  Martin  Fry, both  of  them  commemorated  with  cheap  CDs. He  then  tried  his  hand  at  jazz  with  an  album  of  standards, "Passing  Strangers "  and  then  an  LP  with  the  always-available  Tony  Bennett  "The  Kings  of  Swing". He  had  a  three  month  West  End  stint  as  Billy  Flynn  in  Chicago  in  2007 . He  also  did  TV  all  over  the  world

John  featured  on  a  2006  dance  album  by  Tim  Deluxe  and  then  started  mending  fences  with  Gary.  Martin's  stint  in  Eastenders  had  ended  in  2002 but  it  left  him  able  to  pick  and  choose  his  roles  on  TV. He  was  willing  to  pick  up  the  bass  again  and  by  the  beginning  of  2009  all  five  members  had  signed  up  to  a  reunion  that  had  seemed  exceedingly  unlikely  ten  years  earlier.

In  October  that  year  they  released  a  "new" album  "Once  More"  which  is  mainly  composed  of  re-recordings  of  the  hits. The  title  track  was  one  of  the  new  songs, composed  by  Gary  and  Steve. It  was  released  as  a  single  with  Gary, his  old  arrogance  re-surfacing , claiming  it  was  "a  way  for  us  to  show  that  Spandau  Ballet  are  back, not  just  to  play  the  hits  on  tour  but  also  to  take  on  our  contemporaries  in  the  pop  charts". I  guess  that's  why  it  sounds  exactly  like  latter-day  Take  That  but  his  prophecy  of  a  return  to  chart  action  was  sadly  mistaken. That  wasn't  true  of  the  album  which  reached  number  7.

The  Reformation  tour  was  a  great  success  and  the  band  have  stayed  together  and  done  further  tours  in  2014  and  2015 while  Martin  has  continued  acting  and  Tony  put  out  a  Christmas  album  in  2015  after  doing  that  year's  I'm  A  Celebrity  Get  Me  Out  of  Here . A  compilation  album  in  2014  reached  number  10  and  contained  three  new  songs. "This  Is  The  Love" , a  credible  return  to their  mid-eighties  pomp, was  issued  as  a  single  but  that  door's   just  not  going  to  open  for  them  again.