New Romantics and Take That

At the last minute today, the Sweetie informed about a screening of Soul Boys of the Western World, a doc about Spandau Ballet with the band in attendance for a Q&A afterwards. I was never as big a fan of Spandau as I was of Duran Duran or The Police, but I'm totally a child of the '80s and have a huge soft spot for True, so with the Sweetie's indulgence I had to go. The doc was great fun, and a fascinating look at the scene that spawned the band and the New Romantics movement. And because I got there only 30 minutes ahead of the screening, there were only seats left in the front two rows, which meant a bit of neck craning during the screening, but put me right in front of the band for the Q&A. The Q&A was 45 minutes, and fascinating. Martin Kemp is still a very fine looking man, and the rest of them are smart and funny. I was very pleased when Gary Kemp took down the local DJ who was interviewing them for suggesting the '80s were a very "me" decade, when the doc had shown the effect of Thatcher on England and the working class lives they were all escaping, not to mention Band Aid and Live Aid.

Now I'm seriously considering grabbing a ticket to see the band tonight. Hmmmm.

There were also Take That hijinks in our household this weekend.

First I found a few pics of a small secret gig that band did on Friday.


Which led to this conversation.

Me: Wow, Howard looks like he just did a gig in his jammies.
Sweetie: Let me see! ::looks a pic:: You go Howard! ::said very admiringly::

Then on Saturday I followed a link on Tumblr to a gallery of Take That pictures from the past 25 years. Ros insisted on going through all of them and seeing if she could identify the boys. She consistently got Mark ("because he's the shortest") and Howard, mostly got Robbie, but regularly mixed up Jason and Gary. I am sort of disturbed that she managed to successfully identify both Howard and Jason in ( this picture )

FYI, Howard's in the orange; Jason's in the blue.

The Sweetie decided he was going to get in on the game, and successfully managed to identify all five members of Take That in ( this picture )

In order he managed to get Howard ("because he's a handsome, handsome man"), Mark ("because he looks like a waif that a strong wind would blow away"), Robbie ("because c'mon, he's Robbie"), Gary ("because he looks like a jerk"), and Jason ("because he's the only one left"). He loses points for the Jason jab. (ETA: Okay, he loses a little for the Gary jab, too. Though I have to admit that while I don't think Gary is really a jerk, I can never entirely warm to someone who's an avowed Tory supporter.) He also ended with this comment:

Sweetie: I'm blaming you for the fact that I can now identify all of Take That.

Heh.