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\u201cIt went down a storm so I thought I\u2019d take it on the road,\u201d Dave tells me, with an echo of his native Sunderland in his gruff voice. \u201cThen Covid hit. But after Annie and I were inducted into the Rock \u2018n\u2019 Roll Hall Of Fame, I thought **** it, it\u2019s now or never!\u201d<\/p>\n
Stewart, 71, and his Eurythmics co-star Annie Lennox performed the still stupendous Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) at the Los Angeles induction ceremony last November, but she isn\u2019t involved in the tour.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been asked to play together for 25years. We\u2019ve been offered everything, as you can imagine, but Annie doesn\u2019t like touring. She found it gruelling.\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead, he\u2019ll perform with an all-woman group of virtuoso musicians and three singers \u201cwho are also brilliant,\u201d he enthuses. \u201cIt\u2019s just like seeing the Eurythmics. You\u2019ll hear all of your favourite songs live for the first time since 1999.\u201d<\/p>\n
The duo\u2019s magical alchemy spawned a string of unforgettable 80s hits \u2013 Who\u2019s That Girl, Here Comes The Rain Again, There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart)\u2026<\/p>\n
Their recipe of gospel, Krautrock and psychedelia, enhanced by Annie\u2019s haunting vocals, sold more than 100million albums.<\/p>\n
Stewart has \u2018Stardust\u2019, tattooed across his knuckles, symbolising dreams becoming reality.\u00a0But if young Dave\u2019s boyhood ambitions had come true, he\u2019d have found a very different kind of fame \u2013 playing in the red and white striped strip of Sunderland Athletic FC.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up dreaming of playing for Sunderland. I played football for my school team, I played in three different teams, I played on our cobbled street every night. From six years old to 13, football was my obsession.\u00a0My dad used to take me to Roker Park \u2013 the roar of the crowd, the small of the peanuts\u2026every match was an occasion. Then I broke my left knee.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember the doctor saying \u2018You\u2019ll be able to play football in a year\u2019. I was devastated.\u201d<\/p>\n
READ MORE: <\/strong> Sunderland Brit pop singer Faye Fantarrow dies from rare illness aged 21<\/strong><\/p>\n His cousin sent presents from Memphis, including Robert Johnson\u2019s album, King Of The Delta Blues Singers. \u201cI put it on and went into a trance, it affected me so much.\u201d<\/p>\n Using his older brother\u2019s Spanish guitar, Dave found it surprisingly easy to pick out melody lines. When his mother left his accountant father, Stewart escaped into pop \u2013 \u201cI couldn\u2019t think of anything else. I told the careers officer I wanted to work in music. He handed me an offer to work at the Pyrex factory.\u201d<\/p>\n At 16 he dropped out of Bede Grammar School and joined a prog-folk combo called Amazing Blondel, by hiding in the back of their van and leaping out, guitar in hand, when they reached Scunthorpe.<\/p>\n Moving to London, Dave spent most of the 70s playing with forgotten folk-rockers Longdancer, frittering away money on recreational drugs.<\/p>\n He met Aberdeen-born Lennox in 1977. She was working as a waitress in a Hampstead restaurant \u2013 almost a Human League song \u2013 after dropping out of the Royal Academy Of Music. It was love Stress over debt split them up, but Dave and Annie still shared a squat and she even helped him quit his drug addiction.<\/p>\n Dave finally got clean at 28, after a car crash punctured a lung.<\/p>\n During the long recovery period he threw himself into writing songs that became the Eurythmics\u2019 life-changing 1983 album, Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This).<\/p>\n We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info<\/p>\n Don’t miss… <\/strong> When the duo arrived in America there was already a huge buzz about them.<\/p>\n \u201cA DJ in Cleveland had got hold of a white label of Sweet Dreams and was playing it. Eventually the record company realised it was us.\u201d They got a US manager and played Forest Hills Stadium, NY, with the B-52s.<\/p>\n \u201cRolling Stone magazine wanted to put us on their cover. Our eureka moment came in San Francisco. We got a phone call saying, \u2018You\u2019re number one\u2019. Annie and I jumped up and down on the bed, then sat down and thought, what does it mean?\u201d<\/p>\n It meant queues around the block from that night on. They packed out arenas all over the globe. \u201cWe played the Reichstag in Berlin in 1987 and there were riots \u2013 East Berliners were fighting the police, trying to get over the wall.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was the night Bowie played and it was all going off on the other side\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Pop can be a hot and sticky business, never more so than when Dave ordered clam chowder in a fancy New York hotel at the height of the Eurythmics\u2019 fame. \u201cI was in the shower when it arrived, so I wrapped a towel around me and put the bowl on the leaf of the table while I loosened the towel.<\/p>\n \u201cThe leaf collapsed and the clam chowder spilled where you don\u2019t want it to go. It was boiling hot and sticky. I had second-degree burns. It\u2019s one of most painful memories in my life. I couldn\u2019t eat soup for years.\u201d<\/p>\n Dave was partly responsible for one of my most painful memories \u2013 when I ended up boxing world welterweight champ Lloyd Honeyghan at the Eurythmics\u2019 end of tour party in December, 1986.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was the Revenge tour,\u201d he recalls. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t meant to happen. It got out of hand.\u201d<\/p>\n He apologises unnecessarily, because I enjoyed every moment. Once the pain subsided. Futuristic Eurythmics\u2019 hits came with videos full of then exotic gender-fluid imagery, like Annie\u2019s business suit in Sweet Dreams and her multiple costume changes in Love Is A Stranger.<\/p>\n \u201cAs we started writing songs together, I learnt how to record and produce. I also wrote the video scripts, three and a half minute surreal films, that were quite strange compared to other people\u2019s videos.<\/p>\n \u201cSweet Dreams is a massive anthem. You still hear it everywhere \u2013 string quartets, EDM festivals\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n urythmics\u2019 albums were in the UK charts for nine years. \u201cWe had hits in pretty much every country, including South Korea, India and Malaysia. But different songs topped the chart in different territories.<\/p>\n \u201cPoland went for The Miracle Of Love, Australia preferred Would I Lie To You.\u201d<\/p>\n Dave recalls an ill-fated show in New Zealand. \u201cA cyclone came across the football stadium and fans were getting blown away. That also happened in Virginia.\u201d<\/p>\n Jack Nicholson, a fan who became a friend, taught them how to get maximum effect from minimal effort.<\/p>\n \u201cHe told us when you go back on stage, stand together holding hands and stare at the audience.<\/p>\n \u201cWe did, and they went crazier than I\u2019ve ever seen them go before.\u201d<\/p>\n Dave and Annie are still friends and talk often, he says. \u201cWe\u2019ve had disagreements but never a row.\u201d<\/p>\n Three-times-married Dave has two sons with second wife Siobhan Fahey of Bananarama and Shakespeare\u2019s Sister; and two daughters with his Dutch wife, photographer Anoushka Fisz.<\/p>\n Author, film-maker, hotelier, charity fundraiser\u2026multi-award-winning Dave was nicknamed \u201cthe wasp\u201d as a child because he was always buzzing with energy.<\/p>\n He wrote the songs for The Time Traveller\u2019s Wife musical, which has just opened at London\u2019s Apollo Theatre, with Stewart claims he aims to \u201ccollapse and chill out\u201d after this tour, but he\u2019s already planning gigs for next year.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to keep playing live, I\u2019ve always loved playing guitar. The world is my stage.\u201d<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/cdn.images.express.co.uk\/img\/dynamic\/35\/590x\/secondary\/5013013.jpg?r=1697363909269\")
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at first sight. They were a couple for five years, living in a squat and performing in Peet Coombes\u2019s The Tourists who had two
Top Ten hits, including a cover of I Only Wanna Be With You, before folding, owing the record company \u00a335,000.<\/p>\n
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Joss Stone. (Before that came Barbarella and Ghost: The Musical).<\/p>\n