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40th Anniversary: Spandau Ballet at HMS Belfast - July 26th, 1980

Tue, September 15, 2020

Back in London from St.Tropez in mid-July, 40 years ago, we were able to watch the 20th Century Box/Janet Street-Porter documentary on Spandau Ballet for the first time. And it was very easy to see why it had created such a frenzy amongst the UK’s record companies on its broadcast on July 13th, 1980.

Looking at it today, in 2020, it is an interesting snapshot of a band and an underground scene just before stardom and assimilation into the mainstream of pop culture. very easy to see why it had created such a frenzy amongst the UK’s record companies on its broadcast on July 13th, 1980.

Looking at it then, it was like an infomercial for Spandau Ballet and everyone associated with it. It followed the band around as it prepared for the May 13th performance at the Scala Cinema, at John Keeble”s family council flat, at soundcheck, Tony being interviewed driving, and then with Gary at a beautiful art-deco bar in Bloomsbury called Jacques. In parallel two members of the scene, Robert Elms and Jo Strettle took the film crew on a “tour of the lifestyle”. Willie Brown’s Modern Classics boutique in pre-fashionable Old Street, where Willie and his beautiful model girlfriend and partner in the business were interviewed. And to the centre of the universe, Smile hairdressers in Knightsbridge, where Ollie O’Donnell, a young hairdresser and hugely important figure in the club scene (later to run Le Beate Route and Wag clubs), is interviewed giving Robert a haircut and on to the crowd arriving at the Scala which is filmed as they arrive. Everyone explains how they feel about what they are doing, and how Spandau is part of it.

The footage of the show and the crowd that attended showed an exciting, great sounding, a great looking band with hit singles and complete with an exotic, enthusiastic audience and youth cult. To the like-minded viewer, it is a validation of the way they feel about music, fashion, and the evolving “club culture” and is helpfully instructive about how to do it all properly.

To the record companies, it is like catnip. What more could they possibly want? All they had to do is put the records out. The film ends on a line from Gary’s interview in Jacques .”The reason why all the record companies want to sign us is they know we are going to sell thousands and thousands of records.”. As the film was set up to be about a band in what was still, at that time a very underground scene, I wanted to make sure the industry (and the public) knew we were serious about becoming stars and selling records. I had declined to be interviewed as I didn’t want it to appear that this was some sort of hype, so I suggested Gary integrate that line in his interview. In the post-punk, post-hippie world that was a very unusual thing for a serious band to say, so I was sure they would use it.

So all the record companies bit, and the ones that were interested before the programme bit even harder. But this did present us with another immediate problem which quickly became obvious. In the week of our return from St.Tropez, I went to meet with all the record companies, often accompanied by Gary to talk business. In those days, they were nearly all in Soho and the West End, so we went on foot from one to the other, covering off 4, 5, or more in a day. The average meeting went something like this:

“We saw the programme and we have heard all about the band. We would love to sign them.”

“Great’.

“So who do we talk to about the business. The deal, son?”

I was 22 and looked like one of the band’s friends.

“Me”

“Oh yes, of course! Sorry, I meant…”

“That’s ok”

“So what are you looking for ?”

“£200,000 advance, our own label, and full creative control. Here is the royalty structure with sales incentives”

Gulp! Accompanied by shuffling of papers, feet, etc.

“That’s a lot…I don’t know if…I will have to talk to…”

To be fair, it was the most any unsigned new band had ever had at that time.

“That’s OK, if you feel you can’t do it, been great meeting you, and thanks for your interest. Thanks for the coffee but we have to be at Phonogram in 20 mins”.

“No, wait! I think we might be able to…are there any demos that we could hear?”

“No.” There really weren’t.

“Could we come and see the band rehearse?”

“No.” What and strip away all the magic?

“Is there another show we could come to?”

“No, not at the moment”.

“It’s just that what you are asking for is unprecedented…but we really want to sign the band. Don’t do anything until we get back to you.”

Of course, they had a point. No one could agree to a deal of this scale without either seeing the band perform or hearing demos. And the record companies we were most interested in actually signing to had only just become aware of them through the documentary.

The exiting events with our unique audience were working for us and the band were great live, particularly after their residency in St.Tropez.
It became obvious that we needed to put on another event so that all the interested parties could come and experience the band live in context. But we needed to be quick to maintain momentum. But where?

I went home after one of these days of meetings and shared this conundrum with my Dad. I needed a spectacular venue which could be booked quickly. He said, ”What about HMS Belfast?” He had been a sailor in the war and regularly attended Royal Naval Association drinks evenings there and said it could be hired for events. Brilliant! A battleship parked opposite Tower Bridge!

The next day I went down there to book it, accompanied by Chris Sullivan and Graham Ball, our friends from the scene and some of the promotors of the legendary Mayhem Warehouse parties. A public school ex-Naval officer type met us.

“It’s a party for us and a load of our friends who have just come down from Oxford and want to celebrate getting our degrees.” we lied.

“Oh, marvelous. I can let you have the Officers Wardroom on Saturday week.”

“Fantastic.”

“Now what about food, you have to have something, it’s the licence you see.”

“Oh just that our grants and the allowances our parents gave us have gone so, we don’t have much…..”

“Of course, I know how it is. Haha! Tell you what, I can do you a cheese dip. How’s that?”

“Great! Thank you!”(What’s a cheese dip?)

As we left, I said to him, ”Is it OK if we have some live music? There is a quintet we know.”

“I love live music. That will be fine.”

It seemed natural to lie about it because, honestly, he would never have booked it he had known the truth. So that’s all he knew about what we going to do.

In the next 10 days, the entire scene whipped into a frenzy of activity to organise and promote a Spandau Ballet event on HMS Belfast. Graham Smith designed some fantastic tickets/invites with a vaguely Russian, 1920s Battleship Potemkin Vibe. Chris Sullivan’s extraordinary book of contacts led the way, with the combined forces of Graham Ball, Robert Elms, and the other Mayhem participants and our friends promoting the show by word of mouth. The word spread quickly through what was the Blitz, Club Culture in-crowd, but perhaps because of the documentary broadcast and other Spandau /Blitz publicity, the word seemed to travel much further into the suburbs and there was a clamour to be on the boat and tickets quickly sold out.

The day of the event was hugely stressful (for me anyway). The soundcheck revealed the limitations of the electrical supply in the wardroom to power a PA and the band’s backline. Steve Lewis (soon to become legendry DJ at the Beat Route and manager of Animal Nightlife), a trained electrician and member of our road crew that day, somehow worked some magic and saved the day. There was a huge clamour for places on the guest list, and from late afternoon an exotically dressed crowd who did not have tickets began to gather on the jetty.

Our host began to suspect he had been misled as the band’s equipment started to arrive and became agitated. His mood blackened as he saw the nature of the crowd that was arriving. This was the combined forces of hip London Blitz/club culture at its finest. There were Elizabethan inspired crossdressers, there were Soul boys, Rockabillies, there were Fritz Lang futurists, there was Boy George, Marilyn, Phillip Salon in their prime and one man in a wedding dress with fairy lights who asked Graham if there was a plug socket he could use to illuminate. Rusty Egan, the DJ from the Blitz and our great friend began his set of electronic sounds. It got worse still as the party got started and as the crowd became boisterous with drink, drugs (there was a lot of acid and speed ), and a degree of sex. The cheese dip went all over the place.

Legendary club promoter Dave Mahoney, Polecat band member Phil Bloomberg, and others, although on the guest list, stole a rowing boat, and boarded the Belfast from the river.
As the fire eaters that Chris had booked arrived and combined with his discovery of 2 men having sex in the engine room, it would be fair to say that our host went mental. A friend of Graham’s who was involved with the promotion, found a sweet spot which was £15 every 45 minutes or so which seemed to pacify him to the extent that he didn’t shut it all down. In the middle of all this, the band took the stage, sun-tanned, dressed in Wille Brown and Simon Withers futuristic designs looking and sounding fantastic. They played a great set. And really looked like stars. Worth £200,000 of anyone’s money. Who could resist?

At this point, I thought, the record companies? Where are they? And there they were. At the sides and back of the officer’s wardroom, bizarrely trying not to stand out in their regulation 70s record company executive Hawaiian Shirts and satin bombers. They all looked very awkward and out of place. The evening ended and we all abandoned ship quickly to avoid the continued wrath of our host.

The Aftermath.

The crowd had a great time and word got round to everyone who wasn’t there that they should have been. The band’s place at the epicentre of hip club culture in the UK was cemented.
And the record companies were very impressed. Stuart Slater and Roy Eldridge from Chrysalis sought me out in all the chaos and said there and then how impressed they were. Simon Hicks from CBS phoned me on Monday morning and said,” It was all true! Everything you said about the band was true! We get so many people feeding us with bullshit, but they really did look great, play great, and have great songs.”

The HMS Belfast was not amused. ”Never again. They rubbed cheese into the officer’s wardroom carpet” they said to the Evening Standard. My Dad had to keep his head down there for a while.

***

Steve Dagger - Spandau Ballet, Manager

September, 2020

(Image credit: Graham Smith)

(Footage shot by: Nick Jones)

Official HMS Belfast Baseball Shirt - order here.

***40th Anniversary Features***
40th Anniversary: Spandau Ballet in St.Tropez - July, 1980

40th Anniversary: Spandau Ballet at The Scala - May 13th, 1980

40th Anniversary: The Blitz - The First Spandau Ballet Performance