Melanie C @ Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool
Septem... Februa... May 6th 2001

"Homecoming"


How long have we waited for this concert...  Originally scheduled for
September as part of the 2000 tour, the sudden illness of Fergus Gerrand
caused it to be cancelled with less than 12 hours notice.  Then, a couple of
weeks before the next attempt in February, Melanie picked up a throat
infection, causing the concert to be postponed once more.  It was beginning
to seem as if this concert was fated never to take place, but finally, 8
months later than planned, Liverpool rocked (in every sense of the word) to
the sounds of Melanie C, home at last.


It had been a pretty excellent weekend so far - I'd caught up with some
relatives I've not seen in almost a year, I finally met up with an e-friend
I've been waiting to see since, uhh, well, the first time this concert was
supposed to have taken place :-), the weather was unbelievably nice
considering the crap we'd been having so far this year, and it was the first
time I'd been to Liverpool in almost 20 years so I was taking the opportunity
to explore.  With this latter point, and memories of previous concerts in
mind, I didn't really want to spend all day queueing for the concert, even
though it'd mean I wouldn't be front/second row this time.  Thing is, if I'm
at the front, I feel obliged to take a load of photos (as anyone who's seen
the Wembley Arena gallery will know!), but for once I wanted to be able to
enjoy the concert for myself, watching it for real instead of through the
viewfinder of a camera, not having to concentrate on getting "just one more"
good shot of Melanie to add to the site.  So although I wanted to be close
enough to the front to be able to see what was going on, getting to the venue
for 12:30 as per previous concerts wasn't on my mind.  Having said that, I
did wander past at around this time, just to see how many people were already
there (and to listen to the ultra-familiar strains of I Turn To You and Never
Be The Same Again as a sound check was being performed inside), but the
weather was too nice to waste, so I went to the seaside for the afternoon :-)

Returning to the Royal Court a little after 5pm, the queue was about twice as
long, and security had put out the barriers, so I decided it was time for me
to join the line.  Good timing too, because about 15 minutes later Claire
arrived, looking as cool as ever, stopping quite happily to pose for photos
with fans (or at least the fans who noticed her - the Liverpool crowd didn't
seem quite so bothered about the bandmembers as the London crowds were), then
leaving 10 minutes later, skipping and jumping down the road, before
returning again, this time for good.  I think this is another reason (if we
ever needed any more) why Melanie attracts such loyalty and dedication from
her fans - she only seems to work with people who have the same friendly,
positive attitude towards us all as she does, and you can't really help but
admire that.

Anyway, after just under 2 hours of standing around in the bright sunshine
(first rain-free concert I've been to!), the security guys started to let us
in at 7pm.  After being less than complimentary in my previous reviews about
the organisational skills of London venue staff, I have to take time out here
to praise the Royal Court crew for having large quantities of clue when it
comes to crowd control.  Granted, the venue benefits from a quite large
pavement area outside, which allows a lot more room to organise the crowds,
but it's the little common sense things like making sure we all know exactly
where we ought to stand in order to be at the correct entrance, keeping the
queue in a single file all the way inside the building, and most of all not
treating us like cattle, which ought to be a standard feature of any venues
crowd control policy.  So on the off-chance that anyone from the Royal Court
is reading this (or if anyone reading this knows someone on the security
team), WELL DONE!


So, now that I'm inside, how does this venue compare to the others...
First impressions were "oooh, it's tiny!".  As a converted theatre, it was
always going to be more Shepherds Bush Empire than Wembley Arena, but the
Empire felt like an astrodome compared to this place.  The stage can't have
been any more than about 15m wide, so the front row was limited to 15-16
people, and although the floor area did widen out as you got further back,
there still wasn't an awful lot of room in there.  Having said that, even
turning up 5 hours later than I might normally have done, I still ended up in
the 4th or 5th row (depending on at what point in the concert you looked),
and since the security/press pit was quite narrow, it meant this was only
just (by about an arms-length) the furthest from the stage I've been at a
non-seated concert.  Not sure what the time was when the support act took to
the stage, or how long they performed, or even who they were...  I think you
could describe their music as rap meets RnB, which didn't sound quite so bad
as you may think based on that description :-)  Also in their favour, they
just got on with it, with one song blending straight into the next, with no
long pauses between tracks to try and chat with the crowd.  Unlike Sub-Circus
and Tomcat, this warmup act seemed to go on for a tolerable, rather than an
utterly INtolerable, length of time.  But like all support acts in the history
of Melanie C concerts (with the possible exception of Kelis), we just wanted
them off the stage ASAP so we could get on with the real concert!

Which, at about 9pm, we did.

Whipping the audience into a mad frenzy of pure excitement was the now
traditional "Melanie C Radio" tape, with the same song clips as before.  And
just as before, the tape gave way to the band doing their best to rip the
speakers to shreds with the booming intro to the only song that could
possibly open a concert (OK, apart from on her first tour... but let's not
get picky :-), Go!  Following this was Northern Star, dedicated to all the
"original Northern Stars" out there in the audience that night...  Hey, how
did she know I was there :-)  Which song would be the one to follow this?
Uhh, well, Be The One seems appropriate!

Staying with the slow and gentle tracks, next up was Closer, which was made
slower and gentler by virtue of the intro being almost twice as long - I was
beginning to wonder if this was going to be an instrumental...  Though it
seemed as if she was having some trouble during this one, missing out the "how
tight can you hold me" at the start of the third verse, replacing it with some
hastily improvised oooooh'ing, and picking up the lyrics with "how long can we
stay awake", and at the end she did comment that she was getting so excited
she was losing her voice (or f***ing voice as she actually put it ;-)  But to
be honest, I thought it sounded pretty sweet - Closer is one of those songs
you almost feel like just humming along to, rather than actually singing the
lyrics, and it wasn't really that obvious that she'd make a little slip-up.
Anyway, one of the nice things about small uber-cosy venues like the Royal
Court is that the gentler, more intimate songs like Closer seem to work so
much better.  Probably because, being such a small and cosy venue, the entire
audience ends up having a near-intimate experience with one another anyway!!!


New for 2001 (see, there are benefits to having the concert postponed...) was
a rocking solo performance of When You're Gone.  For all those people who
used to comment that they could never hear Melanie's voice on the original
single, this song is just for you!  Mind you, with the audience singing
along at full volume, it still wasn't *that* easy to hear Melanie :-)  I've
always loved this song, and although there have been a few less than stellar
live performances of it over the years, this wasn't one of them.

A typically upbeat performance of I Want You Back followed, and then we were
allowed to chill out a bit with Why and If That Were Me.  And then it was
time to rock - and we all know what THAT means!!!  Goin' Down took us into
Ga Ga, and then Suddenly Monday was upon us...  I have to admit, during this
song I always find it difficult to concentrate on Melanie - Claire seems to
enjoy this song more than anyone else on the stage, and watching her dancing,
jumping, running etc. etc. around is just too much fun to ignore.


Another newbie now, or at least a totally different version of an oldie, with
the dance remix of Feel The Sun.  Damn, this is GOOD!  The *only* thing I can
possibly think of to complain about compared to the original is that, being
so much faster paced, she doesn't have as much time to show off her belly...

...and if that's the only thing I can find to dislike about this remix, then
it can't be doing too badly!  There have been times when a song I've loved
has been totally wrecked by the "attentions" of the remix team, but not this
time.  I'd say that I hoped to see it as a b-side sometime, but to be honest
it deserves an a-side release.  Still, I'd definitely love to see it on a CD
somewhere.


Onto the home straight now, with the fast sprint that is I Turn To You
getting us soooo close to the finish.  At Shepherds Bush we ended up doing a
football-style chant to persuade her back on stage for the encore, so what
else could we do in Liverpool but sing You'll Never Walk Alone?  That, without
any doubt, was the single most amazing moment I've had at any of the concerts.
To hear the cheering, whistling and yelling die down completely, to be
replaced with the entire audience singing as one... spine tingling is the best
way of describing it.

And so, the encore, which was a bit different to last year, so that's
probably why it was called Never Be The Same Again...  (Look, it's almost the
end of the review, just put up with one last dodgy song-related pun!).  Bit
of an oops from the audience here - almost to the last person we (and yes, I
shamefully include myself in this "we") managed to completely forget about the
last 3 lines of the first verse, so off we went straight into the chorus
leaving Melanie wondering wtf was going on :-) Ah dear...


And that was that.  Other points to mention - no Something's Gonna Happen, no
Independence Day, and yet another new bass player...  Last year's tour
replaced Midus with Beth, and now this year we see Beth replaced with Kim
Khahn - whos CV includes working with Crispian Mills (ex of Kula Shaker),
PowerChild and Stingray.  Although I wasn't planning to take many photos, I
obviously had to sneak in one or two of her, so you can all see what she
looks like :-)

Now for what seems to be a slightly controversial comment...  I thought this
concert was the best I've been to, *including* the near-legendary Astoria gig.
Having stated this on the MSN community, the comments I've heard in response
run along the lines of "you sure you were at the same concert as me?".  So,
anyone who was at this concert AND at least one of the others I've been to
(Astoria, Shepherds Bush Empire and Wembley Arena), please mail me with your
thoughts on how this one compared to them.  I'd really like to know if I'm in
the minority here, and why there seems to be this feeling amongst some people
that the Liverpool gig wasn't all it ought to have been.