Spandau Ballet were an English new wave band formed in Islington, London, in 1979. Inspired by the capital's post-punk underground dance scene, they emerged at the start of the 1980s as the house band for the Blitz Kids, playing "White European Dance Music" as "The Applause" for this new club culture's audience.

 

They became one of the most successful groups of the New Romantic era of British pop and were part of the Second British Invasion of the Billboard Top 40 in the 1980s, selling 25 million albums and having 23 hit singles worldwide.

 

The band's classic line-up featured Gary Kemp on guitar, synthesiser and backing vocals, his brother Martin Kempon bass, vocalist Tony Hadley, saxophonist Steve Norman and drummer John Keeble. Gary Kemp was also the band's songwriter. Their debut single, "To Cut a Long Story Short", reached No.5 in the UK in 1980. It was the first of ten UK Top 10 singles.

 

In 1985, they performed at the Live Aid benefit concert at Wembley Stadium.

In 1990, the band played their last live show before a 19-year absence. In 1999,

Spandau Ballet reformed in 2009 for The Reformation Tour, a sell-out “greatest hits” world tour. In 2014, they released a feature length documentary biopic, Soul Boys of the Western World.

 

Hadley announced his departure from Spandau Ballet. A year later, the band announced singer and actor Ross William Wild as their new frontman for a series of European live dates and a one-off show at Eventim’s Hammersmith Apollo.

 Suddenly in May 2019 Wild tweeted that he had quit the band “to pursue my own music with my band Mercutio”, while Spandau bass player Martin Kemp confirmed there were no further plans for Spandau to tour.

 

Spandau Ballet

Over Britain 1983

Tour Programme