1980s INVASION

Spandau Ballet and Midge Ure roll back the years

To Dubai’s younger concertgoers, the stars of Spandau Ballet will be most familiar for their TV and movie appearances. Generation Y grew up seeing Martin Kemp on British TV soap East-Enders, Gary Kemp in The

Bodyguard and The Krays, and Tony Hadley taking the dubious honour of winning reality show Reborn In The USA.

But it was not for their TV chops, but for their musical ability, that the trio, with Steve Norman and John Keeble, made their name.

Starting out in 1976 as The Cut, the band underwent a number of name and image changes before adopting the name Spandau Ballet, after a friend saw the phrase scrawled on a toilet wall in a Berlin nightclub.

But it was when they adopted their signature New Romantic style, both musically and stylistically, that they came to the attention of industry bigwigs, sparking a bidding war that ended with them signing to Chrysalis Records. Their first single, To

Cut A Long Story Short, hit the UK top five in 1980, sparking a stream of top ten hits. Their third album saw them achieve international star status, containing the hits

True and Gold. But behind the scenes, the trappings of fame were sending the band off the rails. When their sixth studio album tanked in 1989 they split and decades of acrimony followed. A costly court battle over royalties left the two factions of the group barely speaking and even the fiercest fan would never have dreamed they would perform together again.

And then came 2009, and a most unlikely reunion. With a trend for reformed retro groups taking hold, the boys, now grey at the temples and a touch softer around the middle, buried the hatchet.

They went on a sold out UK tour. Then came a TV special, Spandau Ballet: True

Gold, next a documentary, Soul Boys Of