For a fading pop star, one of the consolations ought to be that you can say goodbye to the arenas and get back to playing your music in venues vaguely suited to the purpose. But who cares about that when you have one last chance to hear 10,000 people singing your song? The Here And Now Tour reunites a bunch of chart acts from the far-off days when legwarmers stalked the land. As at all reunions, a few people can't make it. Adam Ant unfortunately cannot be with us tonight as he has been sectioned a fate even worse than seeing your Greatest Hits in the GBP 2.99 bin at Toddington services. Instead we get a range of Eighties stars, from acts whose songs you struggle to name (China Crisis), to acts whose name you struggle to utter with a straight face (Howard Jones), to acts that can't use their name because two-fifths of them aren't here (Spandau Ballet). Despite this, the remaining Spands and their hired hands are topping the bill. The other acts get around 15 minutes each, which, by an amazing coincidence, is the exact amount of fame most of them enjoyed. There are clear signs that this is no ordinary gig. T-shirts are two for the price of one. Normally at arenas, it's the other way round. And when Howard Jones takes off his coat, he eschews the standard flamboyant fling in favour of parking it neatly, the way you do when you don't have three more in your dressing room. Most bizarrely, the show begins on time. China Crisis come and go while most punters are still on the North Circular. I made it just in time to hear Toyah tear into I Want To Be Free. A song about being bored and wanting to dye your hair could have a whole new meaning now that Toyah is 43, but she plays it straight and youthful, like the seasoned pantomime artist she is. Go West mount a strong bid for Least Energetic Act Of The Evening, and then comes the moment Howard Jones fans have been waiting for. For the rest of us, though, there is some uncertainty as to who this man is. His hair, once a two-tone tropical plant, is now a yellow carpet square. But the persona gives it away: he is still the mad professor, stabbing playfully at his bank of synthesisers. Surprisingly, he has plenty of charisma left in the tank. His body language convinces you that he really did crack America, as the programme claims. New Song may be about as new as the Wembley snack menu but it still tastes fresh. Things Can Only Get Better is funky as well as catchy and What Is Love sounds quite like the new single from Moby. There couldn't be room for two vegetarian, oddball synth stars in the charts, could there? After Howard, Belinda Carlisle is a comedown. She wears ivory silk pyjamas and threatens to put the crowd to sleep with her sluggish soft rock. Circle In The Sand is just square. But she has more hits than most of these acts and knows what order to play them in. Leave A Light On and (We Want) The Same Thing set it up nicely, and Heaven Is A Place Back to the future? Pantomimer Toyah is back on the Wembley stage at the age of 43 and still wanting to dye her hair while, far left, Spandau Ballet's Tony Hadley takes the new out of New Romantic and looks 'like a fund manager tumbling out of All Bar One' On Earth is a triumphant punchline. Martin Fry of ABC comes on in a shiny purple suit, like a Quality Street. Debonair, corny and likeable, he could be a fictional rock star on telly, played by Bill Nighy. In a neat twist on the Eighties, his backing singers wear big jackets but no skirts. Fry brings only chocolate creams Poison Arrow, Tears Are Not Enough, When Smokey Sings, All Of My Heart, The Look Of Love and he shares them with unfaded relish. The non-critics in my row left at this point, very wisely. Whatever magic Spandau Ballet once had must have gone with the Kemps. Tony Hadley still has the big voice but he stomps and sweats in his pinstripe suit like a fund manager tumbling out of All Bar One on a Friday night. Only the Spandau ballads stand the test of time. True persuades the married couples in the house to get a little romantic again, and one brave soul even gets her lighter out. If this tour had taken place three years ago, Kylie might have been on the bill. So there is hope for everyone even Go West.
(Tim De Lisle)

Thanks to Colin Dew-Parry for this review.
 

London Evening Standard (26-04-02)

Guided by the increasingly strong smell of Kouros, Wembley's Eighties pop fest is simple enough to locate. Here we have a game of mutual deception, as both the audience and the seven acts pretend the ageing process abruptly halted in 1987. Some are playing it better than others. Few of the large groups of women, each mouthing over every familiar lyric with religous zeal, need reminded how good it was before men, mortgage advisers and children stole their liberty.

However, most are hard pressed to reacall Eighties art rockers and concert openers China Crisis, and odd choice for a concert that boasts no album tracks, no fillers, just hits!

"You can say you looked up the skirt of a 43 year old tomorrow", laughs a micro-skirted Toyah Willcox. The lisping blonde, in a typical display of pop theatre, lifts the audience to their feet with her early girl power rant I Wanna Be Free. Duo Go West reap the rewards of this upsurge as they rush the stage armed with a quartet of hits featuring their trademark white soul timbre.

This cabaret charade doesn't suit Howard Jones and - by way of protest - Your Song is given a more sombre arrangement, and there's even a latin piano flourish at one stage. Belinda Carlisle's ivory satin pyjamas, an interesting choice of stagewear, are emplyed by the former hell-raising Go Go to accurately illustrate her soporific set.

Thankfully, ABC's Martin Fry provides some technicolour relief in a very dapper purple suit and slick cuts from the Eighties pop yardstick that was Lexicon Of Love. Against the clock, Tony Hadley's sizeable lungs blow through Spandau Ballet's back catalogue as a lonely lighter flickers for school disco standard True. Outside, in a fitting tribute to Eighties excess, six stretch limos ferry cackling parties back to the 21st century.
(Paul Clark)

Thanks to Michael Cooney & Paul Johnson for providing this review:)

AS THE HERE AND NOW TOUR HITS TOWN, 80A NOSTALGIA BRINGS OUT THOSE DODGY TUNES AND DODGIER CLOTHES

This week has been a bit of a trip down memory lane. It started with the Here And Now Tour at Wembley Arena where some of the hottest stars of the '80s took to the stage to perform their biggest hits. China Crisis kicked off the show and I was immediately regretting not bringing my earplugs. With it being an older crowd, I thought the music wouldn't be too loud. Wishful Thinking on my part.

The ever colourful Toyah came bouncing on
   in a bizarre but daring outfit. The 43 year old's skirt was so short she made Kylie look like a nun. Coupled with groin-high boots, I reckon there were a few front rowers getting rather hot under the collar. As for her metallic bra, why would anyone want to wear metal boob-caps? It's A Mystery.

Decidedly dazzled by Toyah's boobs and boots, it was time for Go West. By now the whole audience was up on its feet. I boogied away as Howard Jones - who was dressed from head to toe in white (including his hair) - and Belinda Carlisle, who still has a fair amont of Go Go in her, did their turn.

As ABC frontman Martin Fry brightened up the stage in a Jonathan Ross - style shiny purple suit, I was caught short. I popped to the bathroom and returned to find him wearing a gold sequined number. Rather good going for the old timer, managing an entire costume change in the time it took me to spend a penny.

I'm sure I could still hear him belting out When Smokey Sings while I was in the loo, so I don't know how he managed that one. Perhaps he stripped off on stage. In that case, I definitely chose the right time to wander off. Spandau Ballet's Hadley, Norman And Keeble then provided the grand finale.
(By Sam Mann)

The Times (29-04-02)

IF YOU remember the Sixties you may indeed have been elsewhere, but if you recall the Eighties it's just bad luck. Such is the fashionable thinking about the decade of synths and stiff hair, but thousands of takers for the second Here & Now tour within five months are singing many different songs. All of these turns have managed to maintain some self-preservation since their heyday, although people would also have paid to see poor Adam Ant, who was origin- ally intended for this parade. The bill still boasted seven acts with 31 top ten hits between them. "All killer, no fil-ler" might be putting it a bit strongly; "just whistle, no gristle", perhaps. Easy to mock, but easier still to appreciate the harmless nostalgia here. The view from the bottom of the bill may have been a little different for China Crisis, especially as many of us were still waiting to get in as Wishful Thinking wafted out into the evening air and mixed with the Wembley burger smells. Toyah, in a black fetish number with thigh-length boots and silver breastplates, gamely revisited such horrid old clinkers as I Want To Be Free and Thunder In The Mountains, but came over like a children's TV presenter on a naughty night out. And there is something of the Norma Desmond about Belinda Carlisle, surprisingly since her chart currency outdated anyone else's. Go West played on the first of these packages last winter, and Peter Cox and Richard Drummie made a real virtue of the return booking, thanks to Cox's superior, energetic vocal guidance. The duo always had the writing chops to deserve longer in the sun, and Call Me and We Close Our Eyes had real vitality. Howard Jones came on in a mac that made him look like the venue janitor, and still marches behind his keyboards like an electronic cheerleader. But he managed to sneak some artful new arrangements into the crowd-pleasers, reggaeing up New Song a little and shaking some salsa sauce over Things Can Only Get Better. The flash of electric blue could only be the dazzling threads of ABC's Martin Fry, looking and sounding polished on Poison Arrow, When Smokey Sings and the rest. He even effected an encore so he could reappear in gold lame for The Look Of Love, recal-ling those days before glamour and theatricality were frowned out of business. To finish we had Hadley, Norman & Keeble, the Spandau three, freed to perform but not under the band name. They simply peeled off the hits, putting the night to bed with the old one-two of True and Gold.
(Paul Sexton)
 

I got to see Toyah last night - got a ticket off a mate for £20 - £5 a song - well worth it. She looked fabulous and sounded wonderful. The only downer was I got told to sit down by security - me and this girl were the only 2 people standing - you can't see Toyah sitting down - if I'd have known i'd bought my slippers!! Still she got everybody standing by the last song - in time for Go West to come on, at which point I promptly left!!

(Russell Eden - Toyah fan)

I went to see the Here & Now tour in Birmingham last weekend - Toyah best thing on by far!!!!

(Anna-Louise Pickering - Toyah fan)

Then it was Toyah's turn. Diving onto the stage in her usual, sprightly style, Toyah warmed up the crowd with a critically short set of 80's classics, wearing what can only be described as a copper bra, which looked like it had been nicked from the set of Lord Of The Rings. Ms Willcox looked amazing and even retorted to the crowd that the male members of the audience would have a right laugh going into the office the following day, saying they had been looking up the skirt of a 43 year old. She always did have a great sense of humour.

(Phil Marriot - Toyah fan)

Visit Phil's website - PhilMarriot.com