Italy 1984
Matt Fretton, friend of the Modes for many years, opened for the band in 1984 four times (3 in England, 1 in Italy).  He had gained quite a bad reputation as a opening act in Italy.  During his appearance there, he was thrown food, cans, and anything in reach. When he reached his one and only slow song, Matt thought this song was appropriate for the romantic Italians and announced it as "Song for All Italians". If he had known that Italians love "ram-ram" disco songs as well, he would have easily guessed this song to be a failure.  The whistles and "booooos" from this song alone were so embarrassingly loud and inescapably audible, that Matt had to cry the soul out just to be heard over the audience.  In addition, it was even more embarrassing that Matt thanked the audience after each Song for their good behaviour (what good behaviour?) with an amusing word, which sounded something like " Griese " (it probably should have been "Grazie" ).
Remember that  Talk Talk managed to say something small in Italian correctly when they were in Florence (Mark  Hollis: " Questa canzone è molto importante per me et per te, si chiama " La mia vita ").
Then again, Dave's foreign language performance was not much better. Even the advertising assistants of DM`s italian disk company CGD Milano  nearly got crazy by teaching him the word "Grazie", Dave thanked the audience after individual Songs and at the conclusion of the gig, in spanish(!) with "Gracias"!
Dave is so forgetful...