WASHINGTON — Spandau Ballet. Does the name ring a bell?
If you’ve ever heard the 80’s pop hit “True,” it should.
Riding the wave of London’s New Romantic movement, the band reached global success with the song and toured around the world. But they never played here in Washington D.C.
Until now.
Tuesday night, Spandau Ballet brings their “Soul Boys of the Western World” tour to the 9:30 Club for their first ever show here in their illustrious career.
The tour was rescheduled from an earlier February launch to coincide with the band’s new documentary of the same name.
“A few people were a bit put out by that and I do apologize, but it made a bit more sense to coincide it with the recent film,” saxophone player Steve Norman tells WTOP. “It’s different these days. It used to be the album was the more important thing and then you toured to promote the album. Now, especially for us, the most important thing is our live shows.”
The documentary “Soul Boys of the Western World” first took everyone by storm when it debuted last year at the South By Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas. That debut served as the catalyst for the U.S. dates of this tour.
“I don’t think we realized until…we played at the SXSW Festival and it was a real shock for us, because there was such a fuss about the band,” Norman says. “We thought because we hadn’t been to America for such a long time that you guys would’ve forgotten about us and it wasn’t. There was still a lot of love for Spandau. So we thought when we do go out, we’ll kick off in America.”
The film has been in limited release at film festivals and theatres across North America, but this week it’s becoming more widely available. Monday marked the Canadian theatrical debut, and Wednesday it will be available on Video On Demand services in the U.S., including iTunes, Google Play and Amazon On Demand.
The film is an honest, no-holds-barred look at the history of Spandau Ballet. That includes their falling out and eventual court battle over song royalties, which pitted Norman, drummer John Keeble and singer Tony Hadley against guitarist and primary songwriter Gary Kemp. Kemp won the case and it seemed the relationship between members was fractured beyond repair.
Ruffled feathers were smoothed over enough for a 2009 reunion, which in turn spawned the documentary. Norman says it wasn’t easy to watch the film for the first time together at SXSW.
“It was a real eye opener because we did our voiceovers individually,” he says. “We didn’t know what each other had said. There’s a line (in the movie) – there’s 3 things that we always believed as a band that split bands up. One is money. Another is drugs and the third is women. And I said, well I think there’s a 4th one: ego. At that point, the camera went to Gary in slo mo and I’m squirming because Gary is sitting right next to me!”
If you’re still on the fence about attending tonight’s show at 9:30 Club, Norman says the band thrives on playing live.
“We play all the hits. It’s the longest show we’ve ever done,” Norman says. “We’re showing people what we do now, we’re showing people what we did when we first started…we’re catering for everyone really. It’s not quite chronological, but it’s a journey through the sound of Spandau Ballet.”
Click here for ticket information.
Listen to the full interview below:
