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Bonnie Tyler

 

Hide Your Heart Tour 1988


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'The Hide Your Heart Tour' of May 1988 was Bonnie's last tour of the UK to date. It has been her ambition ever since to do it again, but she says she won't do a 'nostalgia tour' and is intent on waiting until she has another few UK hits. 

Bonnie, live in 1988

Bonnie Tyler
Hammersmith Odeon, London; 11.05.88


'Bonnie's Back!' proclaimed the tour poster, yet even after a nine year absence from touring there was plenty to suggest that Ms Tyler's pulling power had been seriously over estimated. the Odeon was only two-thirds full, and having witnessed many ringside stampedes over the years it came as quite a shock to encounter such an over-whelmingly 'polite' response.

No one was on their feet (possibly an unprecedented occurrence within these walls?) and who could blame them. Bonnie's own breed of middle-aged rock attracts the sort of people who would probably fall apart if they tried to move. A man of at least 60 sat directly in front of me, whilst a fair proportion of the rest had seemingly lost their way en route to the Saturday matinee.

Munching popcorn and butter-scotch to the decayed rhythms of 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' and other song titles too long to repeat, it was sad more than anything to watch 'ol gravel voice in the twilight of her career. But such is the fragility of the rock 'n' rawl business buddy.

Ah well, pass me another orange cream dear. - Chris Twomey

  BONNIE TYLER


Dominion Theatre, London
1.2.89
Verdict: Forget her dodgy past, Bonnie's a rocker at heart!

BEFORE THE lights go down, the PA entertains us with music by Magnum, AC/DC and ‘Big Generator’-era Yes - and already the Yuppies in the stalls are shifting uncomfortably in their seats.
Show-time arrives and the band strike up a loping, distant beat that gradually mutates into a Survivor-style groove with a vague disco-fied edge. This is not what we’d been expecting.
Bonnie Tyler makes a dramatic entrance a few moments later and rasps out the opening lines of a song that, unless I’m mistaken, is called ‘So Ravishing’, but her voice is so gravelly and throaty that she could equally have been singing about the radishes she ate earlier in the evening. This lady sounds like she’s been the victim of a larynx transplant with Motörhead’s Lemmy as the donor, but she can certainly sing.
For the next hour-and-a-half, Bonnie and her five-piece backing band stampede through 15 quality songs which flit across Hard Rock, beefy Blues, catchy US-style AOR and out-and-out Pop. In the UK she’s known mainly for tunes like ‘Lost In France' - fortunately omitted from tonight’s proceedings - plus ‘It’s A Heartache’ and her No. One hit Total Eclipse Of The Heart’. These days she’s valiantly trying to put the embarrassing teen mania’ years behind her, concentrating on something more wholesome.
As anybody who bought last year’s patchy yet brilliant ‘Hide Your Heart’ LP will testify, Bonnie has grown into a fully-fledged rocker with the assistance of some highly credible cohorts. The album had several top-notch tunes, and
Bonnie played most of ‘em tonight; the Desmond Child/Paul Stanley/Holly Knight composition ‘Hide Your Heart’, a dynamite song with powerful guitar stabs that must have caused some Yuppies to drop their Filofaxes in astonishment; the heart-
wrenching ‘Save Up All Your Tears', another song penned by Child in a vein that John Waite carries off so well; new single ‘Notes From America’; the emotive ‘Streets Of Little Italy’; plus the wonderful Jim Steinman-penned pair of ‘Total Eclipse and ‘Faster Than The Speed Of Night’. To my dismay the excellent ‘Take Another Look At Your Heart’ (written once again by Child and the mega-talented Michael Bolton) was passed over, but then you can’t have everything.

Bonnie, live in 1989, not part of the tour...but hey!

However, Bonnie is held back by her lacklustre stage presence. When she played at last year’s Reading Festival she came across as a ferocious tiger, snarling and spitting out the ‘F’ word every time she was hit by a plastic bottle
or a can, but without the motivation of that barrage of objects she tended to appear static and nervous. It wasn’t until the frantic applause awarded ‘Total Eclipse...‘ that she discarded the mike stand and began to show off a little.
All the same, this was a dramatic show from an artist who adds new dimensions to the term 'unfashionable’. It’s easy to make criticisms when you bear in mind that Bonnie’s best songs were all written by other people, but you simply can’t knock a show like this in terms of the quality in every tune.
Manufactured she might well be, but at least it’s not to the standards of British workmanship!

DAVE LING for RAW (heavy metal!) Magazine.

The front cover of the tour book (88461 bytes)

Hide Your Heart Tour Book - 1988


Bonnie Tyler is about to embark on her first UK tour for nine years. She is currently putting the finishing touches to her third album for CBS entitled 'Hide Your Heart' to be released on 9th of May

"These are the best songs I've ever recorded" announces Bonnie Tyler "my voice has never been better. It's definitely my best album yet…".
That's a fairly impressive claim to make - especially from someone who's career includes 'Faster Than The Speed Of Night', an LP that shot straight to No. 1 in the UK charts and went platinum in the USA, Sweden, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Switzerland. But Bonnie Tyler reckons that her 1988 LP 'Hide Your Heart' is even better.

Same photo as the free poster in 'The Best' box set (56185 bytes) Bonnie, opening a door looking a bit wind-swept! (80167 bytes) Bonnie "I don't use my tits for any sort of image" Tyler! (35719 bytes) Bonnie on a rooftop in NYC (97440 bytes)

Like so many great rock singers Bonnie served an apprenticeship: hers was spent singing six nights a week in clubs and pubs after winning a talent contest as a 17 year old. It was that experience which first taught her how to use the remarkable hard-edged voice that was first brought to our ears when 'Lost In France' shot into the top 10 back in November 1976. Two years later and she'd cracked the States too, with another ballad 'It's A Heartache', but it wasn't until five years later when she teamed up with producer Jim Steinman that she began to record the classic rock songs that most people know her for. It was the epic 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' that really made the world sit up and listen.

After the runaway success of the LP that song was taken from, 'Faster Than The Speed Of Night', Bonnie teamed up again with Jim for 1986's LP 'Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire' which brought us the number two single 'Holding Out For A Hero' and her duet with Todd Rundgren 'Loving You's A Dirty Job (But Somebody's Gotta Do It)'. But last year, when Bonnie had to make up her mind whether she was going to make a third LP with Steinman, Bonnie decided against it - despite the fact that he was already writing new material for her. She had, she admits, been frustrated by the length of time it had taken to make 'Secret Dreams…' and besides, more importantly, it was time for a change…

Bonnie with her collar pulled up (37017 bytes) Bonnie with Little Steven and Jon Bon Jovi, after a Bon Jovi gig in Madison Square Gardens, Aug 1986 (63109 bytes) Bonnie with the Statue of Liberty in the bcakground (32823 bytes) Bonnie, wearing denim with her hands on her hips (82774 bytes)

Initially, the plan was that she'd record her new LP with four or five producers. She flew out to New York to meet Desmond Child. He'd already written two songs for her, which had appeared on her last LP, but now she wanted him to try his hand at producing her. Bonnie spent five weeks in the studio with him and came back with 10 almost complete tracks.

The title track of the LP 'Hide Your Heart', is a song that was specially written for Bonnie by Paul Stanley of Kiss - other tracks include a brilliantly raucous voiced reworking of the Bee Gee's song 'To Love Somebody', along with 'Notes From America', a classic Bonnie Tyler song recorded with fifty people they pulled in off the street to sing the chorus with her. Interestingly, there's an old Janis Joplin blues song in there as well, which was the result of a 2am 'jam session' with the gravel voiced Australian vocalist Jimmy Barnes.

Bonnie...again (25456 bytes) Bonnie standing in a doorway with a guitar (83853 bytes) Bonnie with Jon Bon Jovi (20274 bytes) Same photo as the cover of Hide Your Heart (76675 bytes)

From the moment she'd arrived at the Bearsville Studio, near Woodstock, where they recorded the LP, Bonnie had been struck by the fact that this was where tragic '60s rock star Janis has also recorded: in fact Bonnie was staying on the road where Janis used to stay. "When I was 15 she was who I used to listen to. I've always loved Janis so much, so we decided to play 'Turtle Blues' one night. Jimmy started to sing and the atmosphere was just incredible. We did the whole thing in three takes…"

This year, 1988, promises to be an eventful year for Tyler. "Yeah", she laughs, "and my stars say it's going to be pretty incredible too."


Bonnie's Top Ten

  1. Born To Run - Bruce Springsteen

  2. Me & Bobby McGee - Janis Joplin

  3. Who's Loving Who - Terence Trent D'Arby

  4. River Deep, Mountain High - Ike & Tina Turner

  5. Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For  - U2

  6. Bullet The Blue Sky - U2

  7. Bat Out Of Hell - Meatloaf

  8. Midnight Hour - Wilson Picket

  9. Oh Well - Fleetwood Mac

  10. These Dreams - Heart

 

Newspaper cutting advertising a gig!

 

This is the concert schedule for May 1988 - so please don't show up at the venues expecting Bonnie to be there too!
Monday 2nd Portsmouth Guildhall
Tuesday 3rd Folkestone Leas Cliff Hall
Saturday 7th Gloucester Leisure Centre
Sunday 8th Cornwall Coliseum
Tuesday 10th Guildford Civic Hall
Wednesday 11th Hammersmith Odeon
Thursday 12th Tunbridge Wells Assembly Rooms
Saturday 14th Poole Arts Centre
Sunday 15th Cardiff St. David's Hall
Tuesday 17th Derby Assembly Rooms
Wednesday 18th Nottingham Royal Concert Hall
Saturday 21st Aberdeen Capitol Theatre
Sunday 22nd Livingston Forum
Tuesday 24th Newcastle City Hall
Wednesday 25th Llandudno Arcadia
Friday 27th Liverpool Royal Court Theatre
Saturday 28th Bristol Hippodrome
Monday 30th Sheffield City Hall
Tuesday 31st Manchester Apollo

If you were at any of the above concerts and would like to share your memories with other fans - please mail me!


The typical set list for the tour was as follows:

  1. Ravishing

  2. Shy With You

  3. Hide Your Heart

  4. Save Up All Your Tears

  5. Don't Turn Around

  6. Streets Of Little Italy

  7. Total Eclipse Of The Heart

  8. Under Suspicion

  9. Notes From America

  10. Faster Than The Speed Of Night

  11. Holding Out For A Hero

  12. It's A Heartache

  13. The Other Side Of The World

  14. Turtle Blues

  15. Back In The U.S.S.R.


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