Spice Girls do Wembley Stadium
Sunday, 20th September 1998
OK, I'll admit it. I was wrong. I thought the Girls were excellent at Nynex
in April. But next to the performance I witnessed earlier tonight, they were
nothing but fumbling amateurs. And considering that, in isolation, Nynex WAS
superb, this should tell you all a great deal about the quality of their 4-date
Backin' Britain tour. If you haven't figured it out, let me spell it out here
and now. They absolutely and positively were magnificent, each and every one
of them.
So, let's go back a few hours more to the beginning of the concert. After
spending the day looking round London, it was time for me to head on up to
Wembley. Getting onboard the tube, what do I find? Virtually an entire
trainload of Spice wannabes and parents (except for those wannabes who WERE the
parents :-). And then, as we arrived at Wembley Park station and made our way
towards the stadium, we're faced with a seething mass of humanity, all making
their way slowly but surely towards the twin towers and the concert within. A
brief stopover at one of the merchandise stalls to get myself a tour book
(better than the ones from the arena concerts) and a rather nice poster, and
then I resume my march towards the stadium.
I should point out to all the overseas visitors that Wembley is the national
football stadium here in England, so it's a place that is particularly special
to those of us who follow the game. And since this is the first time I've ever
been, I'm gazing round like a wide-eyed child, just trying to absorb as much of
the mystique and magic of the place as I can.
Anyway, after much absorbing and walking, I eventually arrived at turnstile M,
where I met up with Richard D who some of you will know from his Spice Station
site. Getting into the stadium was very easy, although once inside there was a
brief misunderstanding with the block layout, resulting in us setting off in
the opposite direction to our seats... So, a minute or two later than we
should have, we took our seats - block 226, row 10, seats 67 and 68. MUCH
further back from the stage than I was at Nynex (hard to judge exactly, but it
must have been at least 100 metres), but not too far off stage-centre - looking
directly ahead, we appeared to be right inline with the lefthand side of the
stage. So, although we're not anywhere close, at least we're not looking at
the stage from any appreciable angle. And even so far back, it's clear that
the audio system is more than capable of pounding us with waves of
earth-shaking bass, because as we're settling into position, the first support
act was just about halfway through one of their songs...
Excuse me, support act? Yes, unlike the SpiceWorld concerts, the Backin'
Britain ones included two support acts before the main feature (whoever they
might have been ;-). So, to start off the evening (or more precisely, late
afternoon, given that it was only half past five) we had Cleopatra, a
relatively new English 3-piece girl group. Whilst I'll freely admit to not
being a fan, proven by the fact that I didn't recognise the first 3 or 4 songs
they performed, the last 2 were really not bad at all. An above average
rendition of Life Ain't Easy led us into the bass-heavy Want You Back, which
was surprisingly good. And since they've only been around for something like 8
months, and haven't performed in such a large venue before, their performance
was all the more impressive. Nice one girls!
Following Cleopatra, and a break of about 20 minutes, the second act took to
the stage. Hands up anyone who's heard of ABBA. OK, hands up anyone who still
thinks their songs are good... Right, you lot would absolutely LOVE the second
support act, because fresh off the plane from Sweden (at least, that's what
they'd like you to believe :-) was the best known of all the ABBA tribute
bands, Bjorn Again. And did they give us value for money? Absolutely. In a
toe-tapping, arm-waving 30 minute blast of 70's pop, they got through:
Waterloo, Gimme Gimme Gimme, Super Trouper, SOS, Ring Ring, Money Money Money,
Take A Chance and Dancing Queen.
That's virtually half a concert right there, and when you add in the 5 or 6 (or
did we miss even more?) that Cleopatra did as well, even before the Spice Girls
took to the stage we'd easily seen and heard enough to justify most, if not
all, of the ticket price. Special mention must go to the mystery star of Ring
Ring - the bloke picked out by one of the camera operators as he talked away on
his cellphone (Ring Ring being a song about phone calls...). The cheer that
went up when he appeared on the large video screens either side of the stage,
and his totally clueless expression as he failed quite comprehensively to
realise what was going in, was just one of the many many highlights of the
evening. I should also give "Benny" an honourable mention, his antics behind
the keyboard suggested he'd been enjoying himself just a bit too much on the
freebie drinks backstage prior to their performance - what a complete nutter!
Think of the piano-playing dog from The Muppets, this guy acted and even looked
a bit like him...
Well, enough about the support acts, time to get down to business. Late as
usual, the Girls started their little bit of the show at about 7:25 with the
now quite familiar SpiceShip video sequence, though oddly enough the William
Shatner voiceover seemed to be missing - oddly because his name still appears
in the credits at the end of the show. Anyway, the ship landed, the doors
parted, and out stepped the Girls, straight into another kicking rendition of
If U Can't Dance, which gets better every time I hear it done live, making the
CD version seem even more awful! From here we went into Who Do You Think You
Are, and then into the first of what became several changes from the SpiceWorld
concerts. Instead of Do it, we got Something Kinda Funny, which is quite apt
considering this is the song I thought they HAD performed at Nynex... Pretty
decent it was too, although since there isn't any other live performance of it
to compare against, it's hard to tell if it was quite as good as the rest.
Following SKF, we THEN got Do It, then Too Much (another change here, Denying
used to be done between these two), both of which easily improved on their
Nynex performances. Something that remained the same, however, was the crowd
reaction to Melanie's sustained note at the end of her first "boy who thinks he
can" - spontaneous applause and cheers from all around the stadium, and
entirely deserved!
Another excellent run through Stop led us to Emma's solo piece, which she
seemed to perform with more confidence than before - hardly surprising given
that this was the 70th time she's now performed it since the last time I heard
it :-) Next up, another change, and another new song - Love Thing replacing
Move Over. Not one of their songs that I absolutely love to bits, but it's one
that I like quite a lot, and this live version did it justice. Back to the
expected order with Lady Is a Vamp, Say You'll Be There, Naked and 2 Become 1.
Dropping Walk Of Life (odd really, considering it's about London...), we then
arrived at what is, without any doubt, my favourite part of their show, both
here and at Nynex - Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves. Guess what. It was
even better than before (spot a trend here? You should :-). The performance
itself was better, even though Mel B was taking it just a bit easier
physically - not QUITE so much running around the stage as previously, but
considering she's now running for two, we can forgive her. But what really
made this performance special was that, during their pre-song chat with the
audience, Melanie was wearing a Liverpool change top.
Umm, Chris, that isn't particularly special, is it?
No, you're right. What was special, however, was when she walked down to the
front of the stage and wondered if anyone wanted it... Proceeding to take it
off, revealing that black mesh top (as seen in the Bruce Willis photos) and
bikini top, she then attempted to throw it out into the crowd. Melanie, you
throw like a girl! OK, so you are a girl, but I mean, really, that was just
sad :-) Or to put it another way, her arm went back, whipped forward, and the
shirt went sailing out for all of, ooh, 5 metres, before fluttering to the
ground, well in front of the security barriers at the front of the crowd...
Showing her how it should have been done, one of the stadium stewards recovered
it and flung it onwards into about the 5th or 6th row. Someone ended up with
more than just fond memories to take home at the end of the night, the lucky
so and so!!!
After that, the playlist stuck to the script, with Wannabe, Spice Up Your Life,
Mama, Viva Forever, Never Give Up On The Good Times and We Are Family bringing
us to the end of the show.
Now, I know some of you are probably thinking that I must be losing my ability
to give an honest appraisal of things, because I keep going on about how much
better it was than the Nynex concert. But the simple truth is, they were
waaaay better, in just about every possible sense. And if there had still been
5 of them on stage, to make their stage presence look just that bit more
balanced, then it would ALL have been better. Evidently all the shows they've
done since Nynex have allowed them to polish off the few rough edges, leaving a
near-perfect, solid and professional show.
And to anyone who's thinking "so, you're saying they're better without Geri",
you're wrong. I'm saying that they're better than they were 5 months ago,
which is more than enough time for them all (yes, ALL, even Melanie has made
improvements) to have learned which bits of their performances weren't as good
as they could have been, and to rectify the faults. If Geri had still been in
the group, I don't doubt that she'd have done the same, and the concert would
probably have been even better.
But since we've now got Geri on our minds, it seems a good point to run through
the changes they've made to accommodate her absence.
If U Can't Dance
She still performs her Spanish rap, via tape...
Lady Is A Vamp
Victoria gets all of her lines
Say You'll Be There
Somewhat confusingly, Melanie gets to sing Geri's lines, which means Emma has
to then sing those lines of Melanie's that she used to sing in harmony with
Geri... So now we get Melanie singing "If you put 2 and 2 together you will"
with Emma joining in with the "see what our friendship is for" bit, and so on.
Naked
All taken on by Mel B/G/whatever :-)
Unless you're specifically listening out for the changes, you might not notice
anything, they've done a good covering job.
Other notable changes to the programme included the omission of a lot of the
SpiceBoy stuff, including the original "pod" introduction - they now make their
initial appearance quite normally during one of the early songs. No bad thing,
really, how many people actually care about the Boys...
And aside from the songs that were dropped (Denying, Move Over and Walk of
Life) and added (Something Kinda Funny and Love Thing), most of those that
survived the transition from SpiceWorld to Backin' Britain have been rearranged
a bit, so they don't sound QUITE the same. In some cases, notably Viva
Forever, they've been altered quite a bit - they repeated the central part of
Viva at least once, with slightly different lyrics each time, "viva forever"
turning into "Spice Girls forever" at one point, for instance. And another
Viva change was to bring on some members of the Chicken Shed Theatre Company,
to provide a choral-type accompaniment during the choruses. And who are the
CSTC? Remember Christmas 1997... Remember how the Girls delayed releasing Too
Much by a week to avoid it entering the charts at the same time as a charity
record, giving this a chance to reach number one? That was the record released
by the CSTC, so it seemed like a rather nice touch to invite them to take part
in the concert, even for just a short time.
Oh yes, there was just one other minor, insignificant, hardly worth mentioning
really, change to the show. No halftime break...
Yes, you heard, no break. From the first note of If U Can't Dance to the last
note of We Are Family, they went through the entire set with the only breaks
being a minute or two here and there for costume changes. One long non-stop
sense pounding orgy of live pop, and the difference it made is far greater than
you might think. Losing the 30 minute interlude makes the show feel a lot
tighter, better paced and just so much more exciting - there's no let up at
all, no time to relax, you feel part of the show from start to finish.
So, to summarise. The Nynex show was excellent, no question about it. But
this was almost indescribably superb, comfortably beating Nynex into a very
sad and distant looking second place. Whatever else the Girls did in the USA
(and whatever it was, it's made Melanie look even more gorgeous) they
definitely learned how to put on a show to eclipse all others. Brilliant!
Oh yeah, I wonder who it was that threw a toy leopard onto the stage for Mel
B... aaaaahhh :-)
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