Summer Pops 2001, 20th July, Kings Dock Arena, Liverpool

aka

Homecoming II


Those of you who've read my Wembley Arena review will probably
experience an attack of deja-vu as you read this one, because it's
going to sound remarkably similar.  And that's because Wembley Arena
was to Shepherds Bush what Kings Dock was to the Royal Court...
a larger venue and a different support act, but essentially the
same concert - same versions of the same songs performed in the same
order.  So as I did in the Wembley review, I suggest you step back one
review and re-read the Royal Court one if you're interested in what
songs were performed.  The only things to point out were that although
she made a comment about losing her voice again during Closer, I didn't
notice anything wrong during the song itself - if she was having
problems they weren't anything like as bad as they were just up the
road at the Royal Court!  And during Never Be The Same Again we managed
to get the words right this time, yay us :-)

So, that covers the singing.  What else is there to talk about...


Atomic Kitten.  Didn't quite manage to replace Kelis as my fave
support act Melanie has worked with so far, but they came close.
Their performance ran to 8 songs, which was pretty good - would have
been nicer if they'd performed a few more of their own songs though,
I'm sure at least 3, possibly 4, of them were covers.  I don't mind
one or two covers, but when they took up half the performance I had
to wonder why they weren't showcasing more of their own material...

However, they more or less redeemed themselves by making Whole Again
one of the remaining songs in their set - if they hadn't sung that I
think there'd have been a lot of long faces in the crowd (quite a lot
of whom seemed just as keen to see the Kittens as they were to see
Melanie (I'd noticed more than a few people wandering around wearing
Atomic Kitten t-shirts before the concert started).  But sing it they
most certainly did, and pretty much the entire arena joined in, sweet
:-)  Based purely on the quality of their performance I'd give them a
solid 8/10, but overall they drop a few points for relying so much on
covers - 6/10



The Marriage Proposal.  Hands up anyone who's proposed to their
partner at a Melanie C concert before?  OK, keep your hands up if you
got up *on stage* alongside Melanie to do it...  Not a bad way to get
to meet Melanie, if only I had a girlfriend ;-)  Wasn't quite sure
what was happening at first, when Melanie said there was someone
called Paul she wanted to introduce to us, I thought "huh, he's
already on stage just behind Kim..."  But she wasn't talking about
Paul Gendler (one of her band, for those of you still yet to visit
the Band Members section of the site :-), she was talking about Paul
from the front row of the audience, who'd somehow arranged to get up
on stage to propose to his girlfriend Elizabeth, also in the front
row.  And did she say yes?  Well, would you say no in front of an
arena-sized crowd...  No, neither did she!

Oh yeah, and although it had nothing to do with the proposal (though
there are probably a few of us reading this, and one of us writing
this, who'd like to propose to her ;-), note the mention of Kim just
there... I thought she probably would still be in the band by the time
this concert arrived, but the rate at which Melanie changes bass
players, I wasn't *sure*!



Melanie.  The photos elsewhere on the site ought to describe far
better than I could here what she looked like, what she was wearing,
what her hair was like etc. etc.  All I'll add to the visuals is one
comment.  The moment I saw her first walk out onto the stage, it was
like looking at the Melanie of old.  No, she wasn't clad head to toe
in Adidas, no she hadn't dyed her hair black again.  But she looked
so fit, so healthy, so mmmmmmmmmmmhmmmmmmmmmmm lovely, it reminded me
of the first time I saw her.  If anyone (particularly the tabloid
media...) continues to suggest that Melanie is in any way overweight,
you have my permission to bang their head against the nearest hard
surface until they see sense.  She looked stunning.



In summary, it was another excellent performance, and not a bad way to
spend my birthday, but given that it's the same (or virtually the same)
set as she's been performing ever since she started touring, it becomes
harder and harder to think of things to say about each concert.  How
many times can I go on about how much fun Suddenly Monday was, or how
beautifully she performed Closer...  Hopefully next time we get the
chance to see her in concert in the UK, it'll be with a new collection
of songs, and that's something I'm looking forward to quite a lot :-)