Back to the 80s

Please don’t panic, I’m not telling you tale of my teenage years, this episode was sometime in 2005, unfortunately I can’t for the life of remember when it happened, but it doesn’t really matter. Ads appeared in the local press for “Living in the 80” this turned out to be a gig in Dubai. Now I loved the 80s, I grew up then, and I still enjoy listening to the music of the decade. The line up was Tony Hadley of Spandau Ballet, Go west and of Martin Fry of ABC fame. I’d seen Go West a few years earlier in The Chicago Rock Café in St Helens with my mate Helen. We’d had a fabulous night and they were very entertaining, so I was very keen to go to this gig. His nibs would rather eat his own tongue, so I went with Pam and some friends from work.

Around 10 of us arrived at Al Bustan Rotana Hotel, as you can imagine the majority of the clientele were in the 30s and 40s, so much booze was consumed. For once the organisation of a concert here was good, and as it’s indoors, the only sweating done was due to exuberant dancing rather than the humidity. We found ourselves a little camp in the cavernous hall and waited for the first act. On came Martin Fry in a hideous shiny, gold suit. I’d been struggling to remember any ABC tracks except ‘the look of love’, but was amazed that I knew so many from his set, ‘poison arrow’ ‘when smokey sings’ amongst others brought back memories and got the toe tapping started.

Go West were on next, and Peter Cox was looking much trimmer than he did at The Chicago Rock Café. Thankfully dropping the new romantic wardrobe he was dressed in a tight black tee-shirt and jeans; he looked very sexy. Boy can that man sing! He has the most fantastic voice and I danced my heart out to ‘don’t look down’ ‘we close our eyes’ and ‘king of wishful thinking’ etc. I thought they were the best of the 3 truth be told, and from the reaction of most of the crowd I think they agreed. I’m actually listening to them as I type, great memories.

Tony Hadley was headlining so he came on last, sadly back to the bad clothes in a purple suit! Still his set was great ‘through the baracades’ is my favourite Spandaux ballet tune and he did a great rendition. The finale was of course ‘gold’ and the crowd sang along, most with their eyes closed, well it was an 80 revival. All in all a great night, everyone enjoyed themselves, though one of our friends from Bahrain struggled to stand at the end of the evening!