FORMER Spandau Ballet singer Tony Hadley is set to celebrate 40 years of performing with a show in Carlisle.

The ‘Through the Barricades’ crooner will perform at the Sands Centre on Thursday, May 26.

Asked if he has any experiences performing in the area, Tony answered: “Most of the time you’re literally travelling overnight or during the day, then arrive at the venue and do your soundcheck then the show and you’re off again. But Cumbria is such a beautiful part of the country with stunning countryside.

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“When people ask, ‘you’ve been around the world, what’s your favourite place?’ I’ll say the places I go on holiday not the places I perform in. I am looking forward to performing up there though, it’s a lovely area.”

The 61-year-old is in the process of releasing a new solo album and treats audiences to three new songs during the performance. Discussing how fans have taken to the recent releases, Tony continued: “Really well actually. We released the first single from the new album during lockdown and it’s all about people coming together.

 

 

“Our second single ‘Because of You’ has had a tremendous response with people singing along to it.

“The new songs have done really well and the old ones obviously go down a storm, but we also ask people to send us requests for some of the more obscure songs for us to play so there will be some old Spandau numbers in there that don’t normally feature on the set.

“There’ll be some covers too, some Frank Sinatra songs, it’s a little musical journey and I speak about my time at Ronnie Scott’s when I first went solo. All in all, it’s going down really well.”

Tony then shared what songs are the ones that audiences love the most. He said: “Obviously ‘True’ goes down well with audiences, it was the first love song we recorded. Then there’s ‘Gold’ which has everyone up on their feet, I don’t even need to sing it!

“It’s the one song we didn’t perform at Live Aid because we didn’t think we could reproduce the orchestral sound, even with synthesisers. We must have been the thickest set of lads around!”

Tickets for the show are available on Ticketmaster.

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