What you really, really wanna know
The reviews are in, and everyone is agreed on one thing - the backing dancers were wonderful. “A marvel to watch,” according to the Toronto Star. “Ten incredible male dancers”, gasped «www.Vancouver.24hrs.ca». “When those men took off their shirts, you could hear the entire audience go, ‘Ooo!’”, the Vancouver Province announced.
Oh, and the Spice Girls didn’t fare too badly either during their first performance on the reunion tour trail in Vancouver on Sunday. Though some reviewers appeared to damn the two-hour, 22-song set with faint praise (”A masterpiece of pacing”, said one; “Best described as pure spectacle”, summarised another), the quintet’s energy, good humour and Roberto Cavalli costuming won most over.
The show began with a video of five young Spicealike girls surrounded by butterflies and dreaming of growing up to be pop stars, and lo! the lepidoptera burst forth on stage, clad in shimmering gold outfits that made at least one of them look like C-3PO, albeit with a lower body-fat percentage.
They whirled through all their greatest hits to wild audience enthusiasm, though this didn’t spill over into a rapturous reception for their new song Headlines (”As lacklustre live as recorded” - Metro Canada) and all pulled off solo numbers with aplomb. Except Posh, who was confined to strutting down a catwalk in aviator sunglasses to some Madonna because, as the kindly writer at «zurinainretrospect.blogspot.com» understandingly put it: “We all know that she can’t really sing.” A less kindly reviewer in the Globe and Mail said: “Most [of the group] displayed a maturity and comfort level that may not have been there … a decade ago. The stand-out exception was Victoria Beckham who looked uncomfortable … and at at least one point started to sing a line before it was time (not that you could hear her; her voice is not very strong).”
Perhaps fortunately, the fans were not there entirely for the music but for the timewarp factor. What is sauce for the Take That goose clearly works as well for the Spicey gander. “It was so good … like being reminded of when you were a little girl dancing in your room,” said 19-year-old Nicola Bride of Kenora, Ontario. “They’ve still totally got it!” averred Sarah Davies, 40, who attended the concert with her eight- and 11-year-old daughters.
The girls, the outfits and the abs, the dancers, the candy-cane stripper poles, feathered fans, three-storey laser-lit stage, confetti snowball and other delights come to the UK on December 15. If you wannabe there, you’d better start queuing for returns now. The tickets sold out within 38 seconds in October.
