Spandau Ballet
I had been commissioned by The Face to go on tour with Spandau Ballet for a few dates as they criss crossed England to promote their third and most successful album to date ‘True’. They had begun to outgrow their New Romantic label and were beginning to craft a slicker pop sound. This was at the time when journalist Robert Elms had been espousing the ‘Hard Times’ fashion look of torn jeans, plaid shirts and tee shirts. Although the trendy Spandau audience were dressed down accordingly – The Face being the fashion bible of those times - the band were still wearing their slick dandy suits which created a strange contrast.
There is nothing very glamorous about being on the road. Invariably you are left waiting around for sound-checks and engineers to find eqipment and the logistics of moving around the country with a large entourage means you rarely get to see much apart from hotels, coaches and dressing rooms with dodgy food. It is also often hard to get the entire line-up of a band together in one place other than when they are onstage. I finally got them all on the roof of the hotel where we were staying at 2am on my last night for a session that lasted about ten minutes.
