Ladies' Lunch 4th November 2005
Thank you to the girls at Tony's official fan club, I found out that Tony would be appearing at the Action Medical Research Ladies' Lunch at the Hilton Hotel in Glasgow. This has been an annual event for 21 years and has raised thousands of pounds for the charity. Tony is a big supporter, as this is the charity he does the jungle treks for.
Before going into the lunch, Tony was at the door of the dining room to meet and greet some of the guests and I got the chance to ask him about his forthcoming album "Passing Strangers". He is still in the middle of recording it and the day before had been recording his version of the David Cassidy song "How Can I Be Sure". He explained that this was not Sinatra type swing, but more sixties based with versions of songs originally recorded by the likes of Jack Jones and Frankie Vaughan. Two of the favourites from this tour with Martin Fry will be included: "Time In A Bottle" and "Wives and Lovers".
There were two guest speakers, a lady who had lost her baby due to complications after a premature birth gave a very moving speech and Sanjeev Kholi from the BBC Scotland comedy show "Still Game" amused the audience with a vey witty speech. He said he liked the idea of naming a band after a prison and a dance and would form a band called "Corton Vale Slosh".
After this a girl band called "The She" sang a couple of standard, singalong crowd pleasers. They had really strong vocals and then it was time for the main event.
After the performance he went out into the bar area for photos and to mingle with some of the guests. Here he revealed some of his plans for the coming year. During March and April he will do a short and intimate "By request" tour. He said that he had seen Hall and Oates do this and liked the format. This will a show in small venues, where the first half will be acoustic versions of the Spandau tracks and the second half will be "by request". As people go in they will be given a list of songs and they select which they'd like him to sing. The set will be picked from there and will therefore have the potential to be different every night.
"Passing Strangers" is due out in September and his orchestra tour will be after that. He was in a very chatty mood and even gave his opinion on each of the contestants on "The X Factor". He has also recently contributed to another TV show on "Most Embarrassing Moments Of the Eighties".
He said he would very much like to come back to this lunch again and I hope he does. When I left the room, and this was before the auction, they had raised well over £50,000 and I know that some of the auction items were going for lots of money.
It was a very worthwhile and enjoyable day. Tony looks relaxed and happy and I hope that he keeps this date in his calendar for future. I wish him well in his walk and look forward to the two very different tours in 2006.
