Spandau Ballet at the Beacon Theater |
Spandau Ballet’s
concert at the Beacon Theater was something of a homecoming for both of us.
They hadn’t played in New York in 32 years and I hadn’t seen them play in New
York in 34. At first I was worried that the concert couldn’t possibly live up
to their American debut at the Underground, a show so impossibly glamorous and
exciting that Tina Turner was in the audience.
But Spandau
Ballet has grown from the synthesizer-based club anthems of their debut album, Journeys
to Glory, to the radio-friendly mainstream
pop of their international megahit “True.” They’ve also gotten better as
musicians.
The show got off
to a bumpy start (for me at least) because they were playing a lot of new
material, and a lot of it sounded to me like—I hate to say it—“easy listening”
music. (The fact that there were quite a few empty seats in the balcony at the
start of the concert didn’t help, either.)
But then they did
a medley of songs from Journeys to Glory
and that’s when they hit their
stride. Some other new songs followed, interspersed with hits like an acoustic
version of “Gold” and a powerful “Chant No. 1,” as well as an impressive drum
solo from John Keeble during an instrumental version of "Glow" that proved he has real chops.
The concert ended
with the obligatory performance of “True,” a full-band rendition of “Gold,” and
“Through the Barricades,” another “True”-like power
ballad.
This show, in
conjunction with their new documentary, Soul Boys of the Western World, should prove to doubters that they are, and always
have been, more than just five pretty faces. In addition to having one of the
best male vocalists in pop music in Tony Hadley, they are, all of them, real
musicians.