Spandau Ballet legend forges ahead with Australian tour after winery festival cancelled

The flights were booked, the band was ready to rock when former Spandau Ballet frontman Tony Hadley’s festival gigs were cancelled. So he came anyway.

Former Spandau Ballet frontman Tony Hadley is yet another victim of Australia’s failing festival market after the first Timeless Summer Tour of wineries due to start this weekend fell over.

Hadley was booked to play three mini-festivals alongside Boy George, Bonnie Tyler and Starship’s Mickey Thomas on the east coast.

He decided to add some of his own solo side shows in Adelaide, Perth and Hobart to make it a national run.

So when the promoter pulled the pin on the Timeless Summer shows, with flights and hotels booked, his band ready to rock and some of his own shows already sold out, Hadley decided to head to Australia and go on with the gigs.

Tony Hadley went ahead with his Australia tour plans after Timeless Summer shows were cancelled. Picture: Richard Dobson

“We couldn’t come over for just three shows so we added shows in Perth, Adelaide and Hobart so at least we’d have two weeks here,” he said.

“And then they cancelled the winery shows last month - I was so looking forward to doing the wineries - and by then, we’d booked all the flights and sold all the tickets for our shows, so we said we’ve got to do it.

“(The cancellation) is frustrating but it’s always great coming here.”

The Timeless Summer tour promoter posted a statement that the loss of two New Zealand venues on the run had forced the cancellation.

They plan to go ahead with the shows at indoor venues later in 2025 and are yet to offer refunds but Hadley said he is moving forward with plans for his own concerts in March next year in celebration of the 45th anniversary of Spandau Ballet’s debut album.

The Timeless Summer cancellation came ahead of Splendour in the Grass announcing they would not proceed in 2025 after pulling last year’s event only days after the line-up was revealed.

“In a time when many live music events are struggling to survive or folding under the pressure of the current financial climate, Timeless Summer Tour is not excluded from this situation,” the statement read.

Hadley was hugely supportive of another major music milestone last year as the 40th anniversary version of the Band Aid hit Do They Know It’s Christmas hit the top 10 in the UK.

Spandau Ballet starred in the original version and again featured in the anniversary mash-up which was criticised by Ed Sheeran who said he preferred his vocals hadn’t been used in the 2024 remake of the charity single because of criticisms the lyrics promoted out-dated stereotypes about Africa.

“For anyone to sort of denounce it in any way, shape of form, I’m sorry, I just think he’s wrong because we did what we thought was the right thing at the time,” Hadley said.

“It highlighted a big problem in Ethiopia, it raised lots of money. It’s still raising lots of money.”

Spandau Ballet first toured Australia in 1984. Picture: Supplied.

As the 40th anniversary of the historic 1985 Live Aid concerts approaches in July, Hadley said it would never happen in 2025.

“It was a unique, one-off event and it could never be the same again. The world just doesn’t work like that now,” he said.

It’s just as unlikely that Hadley will reunite with his former Spandau Ballet bandmates.

“I don’t think so. I resigned form the band in 2017 because I wasn’t happy with the way I was being treated,” he said.

“I look back with fondness. We had incredible times together, we really did, but there were tensions and sometimes it just gets to the point where, you know what, I can’t do this anymore.”

Hadley performs at the Gov, Adelaide on January 28, Odeon Theatre, Hobart on january 30 and Astor Theatre, Perth on February 1.

Originally published as Spandau Ballet legend forges ahead with Australian tour after winery festival cancelled