Spandau Ballet: Soul Boys of the Western World: 3-disc Special Edition on Blu-ray – The DVDfever Review

Spandau Ballet: Soul Boys of the Western World starts in Islington, London in the early ’60s, showing the band – Tony Hadley (Vocals), Gary Kemp (Songwriter, Guitar), Martin Kemp (Bass Guitar), Steve Norman (Guitar, Percussion, Sax), John Keeble (Drums) – their family and the musical influences, the Kemps at the Anna Scher Children’s Theatre, their school years, an early version of the band before Martin joined (since he went to a different school from the rest), early gigs, many band name changes, loads of pictures and video footage, and even a recording of Gary Kemp performing a song at school.

Then they get to the winter of discontent, and on to late 1978 Soho, London where, after soul, rockabilly and punk, everyone was looking for the next big thing, and that was the New Romantic era of the ’80s, with some fantastic electro pop music.

We see their success, their falling out, ending up in court over royalties, and also their rivalry with Duran Duran, as well as a clip from BBC1’s Pop Quiz with Mike Read. It’s also fascinating to simply watch them age over the years, too.

This is a hell of a ride from start to finish and it shows that as well as climbing inexorably over the years as some bands do, there’s also going to be times when some bands come crashing down to the point where there’s nothing left to do, and as John Keeble says, there were times when he didn’t even know if he’d pick up a drumstick again, and how depressing that felt.

This is not only a must for Spandau Ballet fans, but also for fans of all music, and for any new bands starting out, as there’s a lot of lessons which can be learned.

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Full credit to the boys for getting all of this footage together, since they filmed themselves constantly over the years due to their obsession with image, and also for creating an engaging narrative out of it all.

There’s a lot of their music which I liked, although it didn’t feel cool to say you were a fan of Spandau Ballet back in the day and, quite frankly, tracks like True were played so often on the radio that, before too long, I was sick of them. However, after quite a long break with the occasional listen inbetween, hearing them today, they all sound so damn good, especially The Freeze, which I don’t recall hearing much back on its original release in 1981. The electro feel, with synth and bass just makes me want to dig out my air-bass guitar and join in!

Recently, even my local Manchester indie/rock club, 42nd Street, played Gold in the middle of a Friday night! Like a lot of ’80s tracks occasionally played in there, despite most of the people in there not being able to remember the songs first time round, it went down an absolute storm.

None of the band appear onscreen as they are now, but their names are displayed as they speak, to differentiate between them.

Go to page 2 for the presentation and the extras.

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For the film’s picture and sound, I’ve given them both an 8/10. Both are perfectly fine, but most of the film is archive 4:3 footage – thankfully all presented in the correct ratio, rather than zooming in to 16:9 – so it’s obviously not going to look as good as a modern feature film, but it does look exactly as you’d expect.

And while Blu-ray discs come in 1080p high defintion, there’s little here that’s in HD. In fact, I think only the clip from the 2010 Isle of Wight festival has that honour. Hence, if you’re watching this on DVD then overall you won’t lose out on anything. That said, at the time of release, Amazon has the 3-disc Blu-ray at £14.00, and the 3-disc DVD at £15.00!

Similarly, with the sound, the main thing for your ears is the music and that sounds spot-on, but it’s basic stereo audio and you wouldn’t expect anything else.

The extras are as follows, the recently-filmed parts of which are in HD, but sadly none of them are subtitled:

• Interview and behind the scenes footage: The following is a list of the extras on the disc, and they’re all a continuation of what we’ve seen in the main film. In fact, there’s bits of these spliced into the film itself as it all tells the story. The first four extras are on disc 2, and the rest are on disc 3.

  The Isle of Wight Festival concert is the only extra in HD, but they’re all essential viewing, and I like the To Cut A Long Story Short Time Machine Edit as it splices together clips of the same song performed over the years, including studio and live versions. It’s like the ultimate remix!

  I do think that, since disc one only contains the film, the extras could’ve been fitted onto two discs, for both Blu-ray and DVD, but spreading it onto three discs does enable Metrodome to issue separate 2-disc and 3-disc versions of each, which seems rather excessive, and rather a cash-in. They’re not the only company to do this, as a lot of big films issue 1-disc and 2-disc versions, but they really shouldn’t.

  Anyhoo, here are the extras:

  • BBC Nationwide Photoshoot for Axiom, 25th February 1981 (3:18)
    
  • BBC Nationwide Interview February 1981 (18:27)
    
  • Interview by Pat Wardsley at the Underground Club, New York 5th May, 1981 (28:42)
    
  • Never Seen Before Performance at the Underground Club, 6th May 1981 (56:26)
    
  • Isle of Wight Festival, 13th June 2010 (55:58)
    
  • To Cut A Long Story Short Time Machine Edit (3:39)
    
  • Theatrical Trailer (2:33)

As you put each disc in, the menu bursts into life with clips from the film and a different song (in turn – Chant No.1, Through The Barricades and Gold). Unfortunately, there are no subtitles, and when it comes to the chaptering, I feel one should come every five minutes on average. Arrow, like many other distributors, go for a low 12 however long the film. I would like them to increase that number.

Spandau Ballet: Soul Boys of the Western World: 3-disc Special Edition is out on Monday October 27th on Blu-ray and DVD, and check out the full-size cover by clicking on the packshot.

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FILM PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS	Gold! Er… I, mean 10! 8 8 6
OVERALL	8

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Detailed specs:
Cert:
Running time: 110 minutes
Year: 2014
Distributor: Metrodome Distribution
Released: October 27th 2014
Chapters: 12
Cat.no: MTDBD5944
Picture: 1080p High Definition
Sound: DTS 5.1 HD Master Audio, DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1
Languages: English
Subtitles: English
Aspect ratio: varies
Disc Format: 3*BD50

Director: George Hencken
Producers: Steve Dagger and Scott Millaney
Sound Dept: Dan Johnson (sound re-recording mixer/supervising sound editor) and Bernard O’Reilly (sound effects editor)

Cast:
Tony Hadley (Vocals)
Gary Kemp (Songwriter, Guitar)
Martin Kemp (Bass Guitar)
Steve Norman (Guitar, Percussion, Sax)
John Keeble (Drums)