Story & research by Mr. Beekvelt.
Pictures provided by Mr. Beekvelt & A. Van Hall.

 

5 Star - The True Story,
PART II:

"R.S.V.P.":

Right from the early days of their career Five Star were always at their best Live on stage. Until 1986 Denise only sung Live once during a Promo-Tour in America. But then in September 1986, with "Rain Or Shine" at number 2 in the English chart, Five Star was ready to hit the road. After just one week of rehearsals at the Brixton Academy in London, Five Star kicked off their 22 date British Tour with a performance in "Poole", on September 14th 1986. The "Crunchie Tour" was about to start!

guest5crunchie.jpg (59427 bytes)
Picture is taken from the 1986 ltd. edition Crunchie-Tour picture disc.

 During the rehearsals Five Star had to learn how to orchestrate the backing-band, how to handle the microphones, how to handle themselves on stage and so much more, and this was the time to bring everything they had learned into practice. The Tour was completely sold out, and at that time the Five Star-Tour was the most popular in the market. Each performance was a two hour mix of singing and dancing, show, and the dance-routines were breathtaking! The seven-strong backing band was personally hand-picked by Buster Pearson, including a three-man horn section. The Tour ended in October with five performances at London's prestigious "Hammersmith Odeon". After the Tour Denise bought the keyboards and the microphone (still covered with her lipstick) that were used during the Tour as souvenirs.
In July 1987 Five Star held a Press Conference at the "Waldorf Hotel" in London to announce their plans for a Worldtour; the "Ultrabrite-Children Of The Night" Tour. But shortly after the Press Conference it became clear that the Worldtour was cancelled and only the British dates went ahead. This was due to a difference of opinion between Buster Pearson and RCA-Records and Buster refused to go on a Worldtour while Five Star was still at RCA. Part of the problems were caused because RCA released Five Star's new album "Between The Lines" at the same time Michael Jackson released his long-awaited "Bad"-album, so Five Star became overshadowed and missed out on good promotion and press-reviews. During that time I've noticed that the commercials to promote the Worldtour were still running on television. After I brought that to Buster's attention they were taken off the air...

On October the fifth 1987 the "Ultrabrite Tour" kicked off with a performance in Dublin at the RDS Stadium. The 90 minute performances was Five Star at their best! Although Denise didn't had anything to prove, it was clear that she sung fully Live, and because of that her dance-routine was alittle different from the others, to save her energy for her singing. Her voice sounded brilliant and never sounded that war, emotional and pure before! This time Five Star's backing-band was made up out of 10 of the best musicians. Their stage was especially designed and made for them and they had more time to prepare and rehearse the Tour. From Dublin they went to Belfast and from Belfast they went back to Britain to finish their Tour with 15 performances, of which 4 of them were at London's prestigious "Wembly Arena".




During one of the performances at Wembley an over-excited male fan pulled Denise off the stage. Denise managed to get back on stage and finished the performance, but for Denise this was surely an experience she will never forget!
After the Wembley-performances fans were offered a bootleg-tape for sale of the Tour, the same thing happened also during the "Crunchie Tour". Those bootleg-tapes are highly collected now and are worth a small fortune.
During 1989 another Worldtour was announced, which would last from 1990 until 1992. A flexidisc was given away for free with "Number One Magazine" to promote the Tour. Merchandise was made and already sold as promotion and the first Tour-dates were announced. A kick-off on March the 4th 1990 in Edingburgh "Playhouse" Britain, then 21 more performances in Britain including; Manchester, Nothingham, Birmingham, Liverpool and 4 performances at London's Wembley Arena, with the last British performance at the "B.I.C." in Bournemouth, March the 13th. On April the seventh they would have toured Scandinavia with performances in Sweden, in the "Scandinavium" in Gothenburg, as the opening of the Europeanleg of their Tour. From there on to Stockholm, Sweden, at the "Glode", Denmark at the "Valbyhallen" and on to the mainland of Europe, Holland "de Doelen" in Rotterdam, Belgium "Foret National" in Brussels, six performances in Germany, one in Australia, one in Switzerland and a last one in France at the "Olympia" in Paris. But while the backing-band was rehearsing for the Tour, Buster Pearson cancelled it for still unknown reasons.
In 1991 Five Star gave their first ever American performances, with one also in Las Vegas. 1995 saw Five Star coming back to Britain to promote their album "Heart & Soul". They did two live performances in clubs, one of them being in a London nightclub.
A thirth performance at the "Lakeside International Club" in Frimley Green got cancelled for unknown reasons. At that moment the performance was almost sold-out. A proposed Tour to Holland and Belgium also didn't happen. The most likely reason to cancel the performances might have been Denise's pregnancy, because around that time she was set to have labor.
The proposed Clubtour to promote the new album "Eclipse" for the year 2000 started in America with a performance at the "Democratic National Convention" at the New Staples Centre in LA, August 14th. On the 20th of October they planned to have a performance in the legendary "B.B. King Blues Club", owned by B.B. King himself, in Hollywood. Unfortunately this was cancelled, but Five Star was still in the publicity with an interview for "Exclusive-TV". They "comfort" their fans by inviting them to the 360 Club in LA, joining the interview.
The goal of Five Star is to continue their Tour and go across the sea to Europe, Japan and Scandinavia some time in 2001.

Click here for PART III:
more stories & pictures on next page!