January:
Madness film the video for The Sweetest Girl.
January 27th: Birmingham Odeon
Madness join the Red Wedge tour featuring Billy Bragg / Lorna G / Stephen Duffy / The Communards / The Style Council / Junior / Tom Robinson / Madness / Lloyd Cole and The Commotions / Dee C. Lee. The Red-Wedge-tour was set up to help win votes for the Labour party and to create political awareness among the youth who are often can't be bothered to even vote. Now they get their chance as each concert is preceded by an open conversation.
The tour began in Manchester and two days later Madness joined up among the special guests. Most of the acts are playing 20 minute sets and Madness do likewise. Then Suggs, Chris, Mark and Seamus come up. "We haven't got a drummer so we brought Ron with us "says Suggs. Ron is actually a Roland drum machine as Woody didn't want to do the tour. And Lee is on holiday. Set: Alligator With A Stanley Knife / Perfect Place / Winter In Wonderland / Yesterday's Men / Madness.
February:
Sweetest Girl released [Zarjazz JAZZ 8]
Highest position 35. Weeks in chart 6.
March 1st: Madness perform The Sweetest Girl on the Saturday Live TV show.
March 24th: Madness make an appearance on Top Of The Pops performing The Sweetest Girl.
April:
Madness play three shows in France with Terry Disley and Seaumus Beaghen on keyboards duties.
Set: Keep Moving / Samantha / Take It Or Leave It / Precious One / Michael Caine / Grey Day / My Girl / Be Good Boy / Tomorrow's Dream / House Of Fun / Yesterday's Men / Nightboat To Cairo / Time / Natural Act / It Must Be Love / Burning The Boats / Shut Up / Uncle Sam /Embarrassment / I'll Compete / Our House Encores: 4BF / Madness.
April 4th: Leuven, Manhattan Club.
April 6th: Bourges Palais Des Congres.
April 8th: Paris Grand Rex
They then set off for a tour of Australia. The support act on most gigs is the The Allnighters
April 18th: Mildura, Bridge Hotel.
April 19th: Whyalla, Weslands Hotel.
April 20th: Adelaide, Thebarton Theatre.
April 22nd: Sydney, Sweethearts.
April 23rd: Sydney, Sweethearts.
April 24th: Sydney, Selinas
Support act The Allnighters plus Naughty Rhythms
April 25th: Sydney, Selinas
Support act The Allnighters plus Naughty Rhythms
April 26th: Shellharbour, Working Mens Club
April 27th: Newcastle Workers Club
Support act The Allnighters plus Bouncing Soles.
April 29th: Melbourne Palace
Madness realise that they are playing in a much smaller venues this time round. In fact they are in the shadow of the Melbourne Festival Hall which is where they played last time in more successful times. Tonight Barry Humphries is in the Festival Hall.
April 30th: Melbourne Palace
May 1st: Melbourne, Union Hall Latrobe Unversity
May 2nd: Melbourne, Monash University
May 3rd: Geelong, Deakin University
May 4th: Melbourne Union Hall, Melbourne University.
May 6th: Lismore Workers Club
May 7th: Surfers Paradise, Bombay Rock
May 8th: Brisbane, Mansfield Tavern
May 9th: Brisbane, Mansfield Tavern
May 10th: Quennsland, Mooloolaba Hotel
May 11th: Toowoomba Powerhouse
May 12th: Sydney, Selinas
May 13th: Madness fly to the USA.
May 15th: San Francisco, Fillmore
May 16th: Los Angeles, Hollywood Palladium.
May 17th: San Diego, UCSD
May 20th: Boston, Paradise Club
May 21st: Philadelphia, Trocadero
May 22nd: New York, The World
The owner of the World Club is a rather eccentric and frazzled Viet Vet type fellow who insists on introducing the band before they go on and is shall we say to put it mildly somewhat lacking in audience warming up skills. No, actually he was totally lacking in audience warming up skills. So on the second night after he had rambled on for about 3 hours introducing the band they get Lee to come on first who fares somewhat better at vibing up the audience [man]. Some months after this Chris is going to the Wag Club and the self same rambling Viet Vet chap is outside screaming to get in and saying "but I own the World". Needless to say the Wag club bouncers don't know what he's going on about and Chrissy Boy didn't enlighten them...
May 23rd: New York, The World
June 17th: Madness play at a festival in Rekjavic.
June 20th: Brixton Academy Madness play at a ANC benefit gig.
June 22nd: Glastonbury
Madness play at the Glastonbury Festival.
Other bands included The Cure / Simply Red / The Housemartins / The Waterboys / The Pogues and Level 42. £130,000 was raised for CND and local charities.
June 29th: Holland Parkpop
July 4th: Hartlepool Dock Rock Festival
July 5th: Madness play at the Roskilde Festival running order Eppu Normal / Claw Boys Claws / Madness / Sanne Salomonsen / The Cult and Giant Sand. This event turns out to be the to be the last Madness last gig ever.
Madness then started rehearsing and writing in the Liquidator studio with a view to making a new album. However things were not going well. Even though at least eleven tracks were demo-ed the age old chestnut of musical differances was beginning to surface.
Woody: "Bedders, myself and Seamus the keyboard player we were using, we were working really hard concentrating on the songs. We'd get together what we thought would be the right rhythm section or the right feel or beat and one by one the rest of the band would come in and it was like a Harry Enfield thing You don't wanna do it like this. You wanna do it like that."
"It was like we'd worked so hard and it was just this constant battle. We found ourselves being left more and more alone and eventually we got summoned upstairs and there was a meeting and it was like the rest of them had all sat down together and alledgedly said we've had enough. Let's call it a day."
"I mean Mark and I knew this was coming 'cos it wasn't fun anymore. It just wasn't fun and it just wasn't happening. It's kind of sad really 'cos we knew what they needed to do. The four of them needed to go off and do their own thing."
Suggs: "We'd all just got slightly different ideas then about what we should do. Chris I think and Lee maybe just wanted to get on with it and just get in the studio 'cos we had a studio which we didn't use half enough and just do some recording and get on with it. Carl had different ideas everyday about either getting a band and playing or doing it with machines or not doing it. I wasn't sure myself what we should do. I didn't have a clear enough idea where we were going. I didn't feel strong enough to lead in any direction and I didn't feel like I wanted to go in the direction that anyone else who was still in the band wanted to go. So that was it."
And that WAS it. In September 1986 a press release was issued announcing the end of Madness. October:
Waiting for the Ghost Train released [Zarjazz JAZZ 9] Highest position 18. Weeks in chart 8.
As one last farewell the band issued a final single. Waiting For The Ghost Train, a song Suggs had written during the final band rehearsals at Liquidator. The song was about Apartheid in South Africa. As a fitting tribute to the band even Mike Barson returned to play on the final track but didn't appear in the video.
So after 7 years, 23 singles, 6 albums and 3 managers... Madness finally split up.
[TO BE CONTINUED] |
