My night with the Spice Girls...
...and 14,999 other screaming fans :-)
Dateline: Wednesday, April 8th, 1998
Location: Nynex Arena, Manchester, England
Well, it's over. I'm back in the familiar surrounds of Newcastle, sat in front
of my Amiga, about to type up the rough draft of the concert review I
scribbled down whilst on the train home. But before I start that, I thought
I should mention a few things.
1. It's not going to be a detailed blow-by-blow account of the show, because
quite simply I can't remember it all, and there was A LOT to remember. So
it's more of a general feelings write-up, which to be honest will probably
give you a far better idea of what the concerts are like anyway - who cares
about the details, you just wanna know it if was any good...
2. No matter what I write, and no matter how long I spend revising it, nothing
I say will truly do justice to the evening, so you'll have to use a bit of
imagination to fill in the gaps. In fact, I could cop out entirely and just
say right now that no matter how good your imagination is, the show is better
than you could possibly imagine. But hey, even though that'd save me a couple
of hours of typing and checking, I've already got the damn thing written out
on paper, so I might as well use it!
Anyway, without further ado, I present "Spiceworld: The Tour": The Review
It's 7pm, I'm in Manchester, and I'm headed out of the city centre towards the
Nynex Arena. And as I get closer, the streets leading up to the arena are
becoming more and more crowded with groups of parents and small children, maybe
half of which are dressed in the same style as their favourite Spice Girl (and
I'm not just talking about the little children here ;-). Arriving at the arena
entrance, the groups finally merge into what could best be described as a very
large, very very happy looking crowd, moving slowly but surely up the steps and
into the arena entrance hall.
A brief pause in the queue for programmes, another brief pause to collect the
thoughts, get into a frame of mind that seems appropriate for what is about to
come, and one last slightly longer pause to gaze around at the other people
around me, all of whom seem to be doing pretty much the same thing. Not
entirely surprised to see more than a small handful of "unaccompanied" adults,
or to note that probably half of this particular section of the audience
consists of men (so I didn't feel too conspicuous...), but even so it seemed
like the average age of the audience would have to work hard to break into
double figures.
Finally, it's time to get into the arena itself, and so out comes the small
rectangular piece of card I've been so careful to protect these last 8 months
since the postman delivered it back in September. Handing it over to the
ticket collector, he seemed to take far more care over removing his tear-off
section than you normally see - go to the local cinema and they just rip the
things any old way. Not here, the perforation was carefully bent back to give
a clean edge, and with a slow and careful motion of the hands, the two sections
were separated. I'M IN!
Walking down the corridor to the arena, I step out on what was almost the top
tier of the banked seating at the back of the hall. And from here, the place
looks like a vast cavern, much larger than I thought it would be. What's more,
the floor seems an awfully long way down, which is a pity, because that's where
my seat is... Much climbing down steps later, I'm finally at floor level.
Above me hangs a huge gantry, supporting 3 large video screens, which are
currently playing a Robbie Williams video, lovely... (remember, I'm a Melanie C
fan, so I don't just think of music when I think of Mr W). Indeed, all of the
music played in this pre-concert warmup seemed to be chosen specifically with
some aspect of Spice Girl life in mind, whether it was a piece by someone
linked with one of the Girls, or a piece that they knocked off the number 1
spot in the charts, or a piece that knocked them off the number 1 spot.
Intentional or accidental, who knows. And indeed, who cares, that's not what
we were all here for! So, a quick shake of the head at the video screen, and
time to find my seat. Block E, Row J, Seat 8, easy... OK, first question,
where's block E? A..B..C..H..huh? Oh, I see what they've done with the signs,
bit confusing but never mind. Right, off to block E. Next question, row J?
Mr Helpful Arena Assistant to the rescue :-) Finally, and you'd *think* this
would be the easy bit, where's seat 8? Ah, the numbers are written on the
bottom of the flip-up seat, in slightly hard to read yellow chinagraph pencil.
Hmm, probably easier to just count in from the end of the row... that's 1, 2
...so this is 8, right? (long stare at the scrawled number on the seat) Yeah,
this is it, at last.
OK, so I'm in seat E J 8, but what exactly does that mean? Well, it means
that I'm in a pretty good seat really. Just 15 or so rows back from the stage,
so I'm not staring at a tiny speck on the horizon (I pity those with seats
*right* at the back of the arena...), and more importantly, slap bang on the
centreline of the stage, so I can see as much of the stage set as the design is
supposed to let us see, rather than looking at it from one side and missing
out on bits here and there. Oh yes, and being centreline meant it was also
right inbetween the two huge speaker stacks hanging either side of the stage,
just perfect for getting the full audio experience that was to be the concert.
After about half an hour of sitting around, listening to the selection of music
the DJ seemed determined to inflict on us, and watching as the arena gradually
filled right up to, if not it's 15,000 capacity, then so close to it that I
couldn't see any empty seats, it was time for the lights to go out, which
meant...
...a power cut.
[Editor: Eh? I don't remember this, and I was sitting right next to you...]
OK, OK, just my feeble attempt at humour. What it really really meant was...
...THE GIRLS WERE READY!!!
Of course, it was right about now that I had the idea that a pen and paper
might be handy to have, to take notes on what songs were sung, and when, what
they were all wearing, other little things etc. etc. However, the only paper
I hand on me was the ticket and some banknotes, and in any case, I didn't have
a pen... So, given that I now had something far more interesting than the DJ's
selection of music to concentrate on, you'll forgive me if I now start to do
what I warned you about earlier on - lose the detail and go for the feeling...
...but not before giving you the playlist (in the order in which I remembered
them, which believe me bears little or no resemblance to the order in which
they appeared :-), and a short description of all the outfits I can remember
Melanie wearing throughout the evening.
We heard:
Wannabe
Say You'll Be There
2 Become 1
Naked
If U Can't Dance
Mama
Who Do You Think You Are
Something Kinda Funny
Spice Up Your Life
Too Much
Stop
Never Give Up On The Good Times
Viva Forever
Lady Is A Vamp
Move Over
Walk of Life (Manchester Version...)
Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves (Mel B/Melanie C duet)
We Are Family
Where Did All The Love Go (Emma solo)
[Ed: My memory was playing tricks on me, see the "Playlist Notes" comments
at the end of this review for details.]
and we saw (I'm sure I've forgotten at least one outfit though...):
A long white jacket and matching trousers
Black & white crop top and check/tartan trousers
Strapless turquoise top and matching trousers
Red sequinned jacket and trousers
Pale (white/yellow - hard to tell) crop top and pale blue trousers
"Naked"... (and no, they weren't, though it's getting harder to tell ;-)
Shiny dark blue waistcoat and trousers, white blouse
Liverpool change strip top and dark trousers.
Something to note for this last one, apart from the obvious point (when in
Manchester, wearing a Liverpool strip WILL get you booed, even if you're a
Spice Girl surrounded by Spice Girls fans :-), is that when she turned round,
the name and number on the back of the strip was that of a certain Mr
J.McAteer, Liverpool player and (so the media claim) latest love interest for
Melanie. Coincidence? Melanie having a bit of a joke about all these rumours?
Or a subtle hint? Don't bother mailing me for the answer, because I really
don't know!
Oh yes, musn't forget the most important thing...her hairstyle :-) Which gets
a double thumbs up from me, because it was that particular favourite of mine,
the red-streak ponytail...
And now, what for me, were the highlights of the evening.
Spice Up Your Life:
You may have now heard this one done several times "in concert" many many
times, thanks to the Istanbul video/TV broadcast and, of course, Spiceworld:
The Movie. But believe me, you haven't heard anything unless you've heard it
REALLY live, as in, with the Girls standing all of 25m in front of you, singing
and dancing away, while the audio system does its best to shake the entire
arena (and humans contained within) to bits with the killer bass beats :-) In
short, it absolutely kicks live.
Wannabe:
Though it might not be one of my fave songs on the CDs, it really comes to life
in concert. Aided, in no small way, by the Girls persuading the entire
audience (and I mean entire) to get up and sing along in the choruses. You
ain't lived until you've seen and joined in with 5000 other people of all ages
singing "I wanna huh, I wanna huh, I wanna huh, I wanna huh, I wanna really
really really wanna ZIG-A-ZIG-AH!" Of course, if you'd been in one of the
seats to the left or right of the stage, you'd have been joining in with 5000
others doing either the "So tell me what you want..." or "I'll tell you what I
want..." bits instead, but no matter which bit they had you singing, you'd have
had a grin on your face so wide you could drive the Spicebus through it :-)
If U Can't Dance:
I hate this song. I loathe it. On the album... In concert, on the other
hand, it takes on an entirely new persona, and becomes one of the best songs of
the evening. Which is just as well, given that it's the opening number...
Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves:
"WAIT!", I hear you cry, "that isn't a Spice Girls song!!!". True enough, but
although it may not have been written specifically with them in mind, it still
works just fine. Especially when you let Melanie and Mel do it... One of the
loudest songs of the evening, one of the punchiest, and almost certainly the
most energetic - I dunno where Melanie finds the energy, she was all over the
stage during the song, and if she spent more than half the song with her feet
actually touching the stage, I'd be surprised :-) No idea whether Mel was just
as mobile, I only have one pair of eyes, and they were fixed on Melanie for the
entire song...
Stop:
Saving the best till last, I defy anyone hearing this live to even begin to
suggest that it didn't get to number 1 because it simply isn't a good song. Of
all the singles they've released, this is probably the one that actually
deserved to hit the top spot based purely on quality. Still, though it may
have been denied its place in chart history, it'll be remembered forever by
everyone who's privileged to witness it in concert. Quite simply, it was the
best song of the evening by a LONG way. Superb, just superb.
But hey, it's a 2 hour show (if you ignore the half hour break in the middle),
so it can't ALL have been top-notch entertainment, can it? Well, no, there
were 3 songs that I thought failed, to varying degrees, in the live setting.
I mean, I've just gone and said If U Can't Dance is reborn when done live, so
it's not that crazy to suggest that some of their songs would do the opposite,
work beautifully on the CDs but fall apart in concert. Given the nature of the
3, which I'll now reveal to be Too Much, 2 Become 1 and Mama, this is perhaps
to be expected. They're all slower, more intimate songs, and quite simply
don't have what it takes to fill a venue as large as Nynex. I'd LOVE to hear
them performed in a cosy little club, with just a hundred or so fans huddled
round the Girls, all close and friendly, but until the Girls decide to stop
playing to arenas and stadia, we'll just have to listen to the CD in our
bedrooms/studies/dens/cars/other confined spaces if we want to recreate the
sort of atmosphere these particular songs demand.
Still, 3 out of 19 isn't that bad a miss rate, and remember, this is just MY
opinion - ask someone else who was there and they might rave about these 3
tracks before wondering why I've gone crazy over Stop or Wannabe, for instance.
You don't have to agree with, or even believe, everything I say, you know ;-)
As far as their performances in general were concerned, they seemed to be near
flawless. Indeed, the only moment I can recall that wasn't up to scratch was
in one of the early numbers (either the 1st or 2nd song), where Emma seemed
to disappear completely aurally - you could *see* her singing, but hearing her
was another matter. However, this was the only such moment in the entire
show, and it lasted for maybe 10 seconds, so did it ruin the evening, or for
that matter, that particular song? Not unless you were demanding absolute and
total perfection from them, and I wasn't. Don't misunderstand me, I'd be
hammering them right now if they'd made any sort of unforgivable errors, so
although I didn't expect perfection, I expected a very high quality
performance, and that is what we got. Indeed, if I hadn't been so intent on
trying to remember as much about the event as possible so I could write this
review, I'd probably have forgotten about this one tiny slip-up already, if
not sooner... In any case, she more than redeemed herself with a beautiful
solo performance of Where Did All The Love Go. It has been said by some that,
at other concerts earlier in the tour, her voice sounded a bit rough during
her solo, but whether this is true or not, one thing is for certain. On this
night, during this performance, she got it just right. Nice one Emma!
But this is 100% Melanie C, so what about our fave Spice? Well, what do you
expect? We know she's got the best voice in the group, and she does nothing
to prove otherwise. But then, because we expect this from her, when we get it,
it's not exactly notable. Now, if she'd been off-key all evening, or been
quieter than a church mouse, THEN we'd have something to get our teeth into.
But no, what sounded like a faultless display of vocal talent from Melanie
means I can't find anything particular to say about it... Still, I'd rather
have her on top form, than have an extra paragraph or two in this review!
So, what else?
About 30 seconds into the opening number, there I am, sitting watching them
up on the stage, and I'm thinking:
"Hmm, this looks just like the Istanbul video...".
And then, quietly but firmly, another voice in my head points out that:
"Umm, excuse me, but I should just remind you that you're not sitting in a
comfy armchair at home, watching a bunch of coloured dots on a TV screen jump
about. You are, in fact, sitting in the Nynex Arena, and those five women on
the stage in front of you are, not to put too fine a point on it or anything,
THE SPICE GIRLS!!!"
At which point it's like someone has thrown a switch inside my head, and for
the first time that night I truly realise what it means to be here. What I
said back at the start about getting into the right frame of mind, it didn't
work. Nothing, and I mean nothing, will prepare you for the feeling of
actually being there, sat in front of the stage, with the Girls up there doing
their thing for real, no VCRs or CD players involved.
Suffice it to say, once you do let it sink in that the Girls ARE real, they do
actually exist beyond the confines of the TV screen, magazine or website page
and so on, and they can hack it live, then and only then are you in the RIGHT
frame of mind to truly enjoy the show. And you will enjoy it, oh yes...
After the concert had finished, and we were all streaming out of the arena at
just after 11pm, with the closing number (an excellent rendition of We Are
Family) still ringing literally and metaphorically in my ears, I felt the same
way I might feel after a particularly good evening in a restaurant - entirely
satisfied, and wondering just how long it'd be before I had the chance to do it
all over again...
An unexpected side-effect of the concert became apparent on the train home
the following day. There I was, listening to Spiceworld, and about halfway
through track 1, I found my throat starting to get a bit sore and my eyes
starting to feel a little bit gritty. All the signs, in fact, of impending
tears (and having recently watched Titanic, I'm quite familiar with these
signs...) Thinking about it for a while (in a fortunately successful attempt
to avoid any waterworks), I decided that, having now seen them doing it all
live, it wasn't going to get any better than that, and from now on the CDs, the
videos, the books and stuff just weren't going to be quite the same. There was
also the feeling that I'd finally got as close to Melanie as I was ever likely
to get, which was ever so slightly depressing...
However, an hour or so later, whilst listening to it again, I then found myself
being hit by wave after wave of, for want of a better word, positivity, as the
music stirred up all the memories of precisely how good the night was, and how
lucky I was to have got a ticket.
OK, we're on the home straight now, it's time to conclude this little (actually
not so little, now I look at the line count!) review.
If you've got a ticket for one of the remaining dates in the tour, you should
be feeling very very pleased with yourself, because no matter what it
eventually costs you to attend the concert (ticket price, travel expenses etc.
etc.), you won't regret it for one instant. And as I sat on the train, writing
the rough draft of this bit, just a few miles from home, I felt a little bit
sad that it was over, but a lot happy because I'd been part of it all.
It was, quite simply, an outstanding event.
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