This article was originally published in The Scotsman in 2014.
Tony Hadley, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
A Tony Hadley concert is like stumbling into a drunken business
conference hosted by a bellowing sales rep.
The Spandau Ballet vocalist has never been noted for his subtlety. He's
Foghorn Leghorn in a tuxedo laying waste to a Basildon wine bar, steamrollering
his material with scant regard for nuance or volume control. He makes Tom Jones
sound like a timid choirboy. I say all this with grudging affection.
Indeed, these days the erstwhile New Romantic has more in common with
melodramatic crooners such as Jones and Tony Christie. Which is fine by me, as
the first half of his current show with the Southbank Sinfonia Orchestra is a
belting slice of tie-loosened cabaret, featuring lusty covers by the likes of
Neil Diamond and Jim Croce.
In his rather charmingly naff fashion, he managed to Hadley-fy
everything from Bowie's Life On Mars to The Killers' Somebody Told Me.
If nothing else, that's the mark of a distinctive singer. This old-fashioned
entertainer guise suits him.
Sadly, despite bringing his largely female crowd to its tipsy,
middle-aged feet, the hit-heavy second half served as a reminder that Spandau
Ballet were absolutely dreadful.
The orchestral arrangements of the
preposterous Musclebound and – their best song – To Cut a Long Story
Short were enjoyable blasts of camp, but the ghastly likes of True
and Gold remain the very sound of Thatcherism itself.
Hadley is a genial geezer with an endearingly OTT voice, but his musical
crimes can never be forgiven.
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