NME

New Musical Express – Page 3 – 28th August 1982
“Tour off, rumours of split
BLONDIE SHAMBLES”
BLONDIE’S tour of the UK and Europe, scheduled to get underway at Glasgow’s Apollo on September 1, has been cancelled. “Ticket sales have not been as good as we hoped,” confessed tour promoter Mick Cater. “We sold more tickets than most bands could hope to in the UK at the moment but it wasn’t enough to cover the huge costs involved. “Blondie had a great show planned but it wouldn’t have been economically viable to go ahead. Blondie are not the only band to suffer bad ticket sales recently – even The Police failed to swell out their recent gig on home turf. “In the current economic climate, people do not have the money to buy concert tickets. The Stones tour took so much money out of the market that everybody is suffering.” The cancellation marks a new low on the Blondie progress chart. The band’s recent album took a critical hammering and failed to sell as well as expected – currently it’s at 184 in the US charts – while Debbie Harry’s solo LP, despite a flurry of hype, also bombed out. Reports from the States suggest that Blondie have generally fallen from favour on the concert circuit and rumours suggest that the band are about to split in the wake of Jimmy Destri’s departure, the court injunction by guitarist Frank Infante, who tried to stop the band performing without him, and onstage reprimands of roadies and soundmen by Debbie Harry. The better news is that ticket holders for the projected UK tour should have no problem getting their money back. Tickets should be returned to the point of sale where a refund will be made. And those who bought tickets by postal application are advised to send their tickets, along with their names and addresses, to Blondie Box Office, PO Box, 281, London N15 5LW.