{"id":335,"date":"2018-12-17T20:29:54","date_gmt":"2018-12-17T20:29:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/musicmuses.co.uk\/?p=335"},"modified":"2026-02-07T00:08:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T00:08:19","slug":"tony-hadley-a-night-at-the-opera-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicmuses.co.uk\/?p=335","title":{"rendered":"Tony Hadley: A Night at the Opera (House)"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the end of October, I toddled off to see Tony Hadley at the Manchester Opera House, and reviewed the gig for the Mancunion<\/em>, our university’s newspaper. The following review was subsequently published on the paper’s website here: https:\/\/mancunion.com\/2018\/10\/31\/live-review-tony-hadley-a-night-at-the-opera-house\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/u><\/p>\n

Tony Hadley has left life in Spandau Ballet behind to embark on a solo tour with a new album, Talking to the Moon, <\/em>from which he performed several original songs, as well as some classic Spandau \u2018gold\u2019 (see what I did there) at Manchester Opera House on the 13th<\/sup> October.<\/p>\n

The show opened with the superbly energetic Take Back Everything<\/em>, the first track of the new album. Whilst receiving a very good reception, it was clear that most of the audience were there primarily for the classics. This theory was proven by the unmistakable synthesised introduction to Spandau\u2019s To Cut a Long Story Short<\/em>; the atmosphere of the hall turned on a dime, the entire audience were suddenly on their feet, dancing in the aisles, screaming, and having a ball all round. The clear difference in attitude towards songs new and old was not a problem for our host. During a break between songs, Hadley acknowledged the wide-ranging desire to hear Spandau Ballet\u2019s eighties classics, and graciously obliged whilst also appreciating the very warm reception of the new album, a reception which only grew stronger the more originals he performed. These included Skin Deep<\/em>, a ballad about inner beauty, which Hadley related to the age of social media and the current climate of obsession around physical and superficial beauty, Accident Waiting to Happen<\/em> and Killer Blow<\/em>, both providing a punchier, more intense antithesis to the softer tone of Skin Deep<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And then came the classics. Peppered throughout the set were the songs that made Spandau Ballet an eighties sensation. Through the Barricades<\/em> featured the powerhouse vocals of percussionist Lily Gonzalez, Round and Round<\/em>, Only When You Leave, Chant No. 1, Lifeline <\/em>and Highly Strung <\/em>all featured maximum audience participation, as did a stripped back, acoustic rendition of I\u2019ll Fly for You<\/em>. A surprise anomaly came next in the shape of Queen\u2019s Somebody To Love<\/em>, and whilst it wasn\u2019t quite Mercury-standard, it was yet more proof that age has in no way had an affect on Hadley\u2019s voice. The set concluded with the ever-beautiful True<\/em>. After two minutes of teasing, the audience becoming rowdier and rowdier with requests for One More Song, their wishes were granted with the long-awaited Gold<\/em>, followed by the closing track of Talking to the Moon<\/em>, entitled What Am I?, <\/em>a semi-autobiographical ballad with personal sentiment regarding Hadley\u2019s decision to leave Spandau Ballet. As the cheering died down, the night ended with a rendition of Sinatra\u2019s That\u2019s Life, <\/em>momentarily transforming Manchester Opera House into a 1930s New York jazz club.<\/p>\n

Any artist worries about audience reception to new music. Of all of them, Tony Hadley needn\u2019t concern himself in the slightest; I have rarely been to a concert where the artist was wrapped in such a warm, accepting and encouraging atmosphere. Every song was like an encore – these were fans who had grown up with Spandau Ballet\u2019s music and given Tony Hadley\u2019s very apparent credentials as all-round Lovely Man, and his gift for showmanship, there was no danger of his new album being greeted with anything less than sheer joy, a joy which stems from an all-encompassing love for the artist himself. Tony Hadley has still got it, and he\u2019s got the fans to match.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the end of October, I toddled off to see Tony Hadley at the Manchester Opera House, and reviewed the gig for the Mancunion, our university’s newspaper. The following review was subsequently published on the paper’s website here: https:\/\/mancunion.com\/2018\/10\/31\/live-review-tony-hadley-a-night-at-the-opera-house\/ \u00a0 Tony Hadley has left life in Spandau Ballet behind to embark on a solo tour … Continue reading Tony Hadley: A Night at the Opera (House)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive-3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicmuses.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicmuses.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicmuses.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicmuses.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicmuses.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=335"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/musicmuses.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":338,"href":"https:\/\/musicmuses.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335\/revisions\/338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicmuses.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicmuses.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicmuses.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}