The Seekers

Various lineups, some featuring Durham, continue to tour as a nostalgia act in Australia and overseas. Recently, the band have managed to put their differences behind them and a reunion tour has been mentioned; however, the success of Martin Kemp's acting career means that plans remain on hold. They were very successful and lasted until 1975, at which point Potger got together again with Athol Guy and Bruce Woodley as the Seekers. The three non-Kemp members toured as a trio, but as Gary Kemp owned the rights to the name of Spandau Ballet, they had to go under the less-than-catchy moniker of 'Hadley, Keeble and Norman, ex-Spandau Ballet'. As they and their older, conservative fans proceeded largely oblivious to the Swinging Sixties happening around them, they continued to tour and release albums for years afterwards. After the break-up of the original Seekers in 1968, one of its members, Keith Potger, created The New Seekers, a British group which bore little resemblance to the original. As a result, Hadley in particular was left very short of money, and he ended up entertaining troops and taking part in the reality show Reborn in the USA. The scale of their poularity in Australia can be judged from fact that the legendary Woodstock Festival in the United States in 1969 drew about 500,000 people, and that at the time of the Seekers' Melbourne concert, Australia's population was only around 12 million people. In the 1990s, Hadley, Keeble and Norman launched a failed court case against Gary Kemp for a share of royalties which they claimed they were due.

This is believed to be the largest audience ever assembled for an Australian concert event. Gary Kemp did a little more acting, appearing in a supporting role in the Kevin Costner hit The Bodyguard, and in 1996 released a critically praised solo album, Little Bruises. In recognition of their achievements, the group was named Australians of the Year for 1967 and in March that year they returned to Australia for a triumphant homecoming tour, which included a record-breaking concert at the Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne which was attended by over 200,000 people. Martin Kemp went on to land an acting role in the UK soap opera Eastenders, while Tony Hadley floundered trying to establish a solo career. Their chart success peaked with the movie theme song Georgy Girl, written by Jim Dale, which reached #1 on the US and Australian charts and #3 on the UK charts in 1967, and sold 3.5 million copies worldwide. The album bombed and Spandau Ballet — from whom Gary Kemp was already feeling estranged — split up for good. Bruce Woodley also co-wrote the song Red Rubber Ball with Simon. After a hiatus from recording during which the Kemps established themselves as credible actors in the gangster film The Krays, the band released Heart Like a Sky in 1989.

This was Simon's first UK success as a writer, and his first hit as a composer outside of his work with Simon & Garfunkel. The title track was a big hit in the UK, but the album did nothing in America. In 1965 they recorded a cover of Paul Simon’s Someday, Oneday, which reached #4 in Australia and #11 in the UK. In 1986 Spandau Ballet signed to Epic Records and released Through the Barricades, which saw the band trying to move away from the pop/soul influences of True and Parade and more towards rock. It shot to #1 in Australia and the UK, and #4 in the USA and went on to sell 1.75 million copies worldwide, making them the first Australian pop group to have a Top 5 hit in all three countries simultaneously, and the first to sell over a million copies of a single. At the end of 1984, the band performed on the Band Aid charity single, with Hadley taking a prominent lead vocal role; and in 1985, they performed at the Wembley end of Live Aid. After signing with Lew Grade's Grade Agency and EMI's Columbia Records imprint, they released their version of Springfield’s I'll Never Find Another You in November 1964. Its opening single "Only When You Leave" became their last American hit.

The distinctive soprano voice of lead singer Judith Durham, their sweet harmonies, memorable songs, and non-threatening image (encouraging the BBC to give them exposure) made them appealing to a broad cross-section of the pop audience, and they enjoyed a remarkable string of Top Ten albums and singles in Britain, America and Australia between 1964 and 1968. But the followup, Parade (1984), was critically drubbed for failing to move the band's sound forward. He produced all of their most successful records and wrote or co-wrote many of their hits. The album topped the charts on the both sides of the Atlantic and launched several hit singles such as "Gold" and the aforementioned title cut. After a brief career in Australia, the group travelled to the UK in early 1964, where they were discovered by songwriter-producer Tom Springfield, the brother of pop star Dusty Springfield. It was at this point that Norman became the band's sax player. They were the first Australian popular music group to achieve significant chart and sales success in the United Kingdom and the United States. The image changed too - the cossack outfits and make-up of New Romanticism (which was dying as a fad in 1983 anyway) had been replaced by smart suits and well-scrubbed faces.

The Seekers were a group of Australian folk-influenced popular musicians which was formed in Melbourne in 1963. With newfound confidence and a cleaner, radio-friendly sound, Spandau Ballet finally broke into the mainstream with True (1983), an album whose title cut was a six-minute opus paying tribute to the Motown sound (and in some respects, Marvin Gaye). It was a massive hit. Horn also took the Diamond album track "Instinction" and gave it a bombastic dance remix that sounded not unlike the work he would later do for Frankie Goes to Hollywood. The followup album Diamond performed poorly, despite a big hit with "Chant No.1", and the band met with veteran producer Trevor Horn, who advised them on how to revamp their image and sound.

This was followed by "The Freeze" and "Musclebound" and the well-received album Journeys to Glory. The band eventually signed to Island Records and released "To Cut a Long Story Short", a British hit in 1980. They began performing and generating positive buzz around London as the house band at the Blitz nightclub, which became regarded as the birthplace of a new 1980s music and fashion phenomenon called New Romanticism. The band were initially called 'The Makers', but changed their name after a visit to Berlin, the inspiration from graffiti on the walls of Spandau Prison.

Guitarist and songwriter Gary Kemp and his brother, bassist Martin Kemp formed the band in 1979, with drummer John Keeble, lead vocalist Tony Hadley and Steve Norman, who initially played guitar but later switched to saxophone when the band changed musical direction. As with their poppier rivals Duran Duran they 'broke America', albeit briefly. Initially inspired by a mixture of funk, synthpop and New Romantic, they eventually mellowed into a mainstream AOR pop act. Spandau Ballet was a popular band of the 1980s.