The event has happened and it's now officially over. Some said they wouldn't last long enough to get to this point, others say it's just the beginning.
The Spice Girls have now officially proven to the city of Toronto that they can play live, and with a band. No overdubs, no backing tapes, just pure and unadulterated Girl Power.
For a band criticized for over-commercialization, Saturday night at the Molson Amphitheatre was all about the music.. mostly. The Spice Girls managed to wow and amaze the sold-out audience of 17,000 through 17 songs, a three song encore, and a half-hour intermission - added to squeeze in another impulse t-shirt purchase.
NO GINGER
The biggest question for the tour was how the band would handle Geri's recent departure. The extra vocal parts were all handled perfectly by the remaining four. The video screens still showed the odd close up and the posters, t-shirts and tour book still all featured photos of Ginger. Take it for what it is, but it's nice to see the rest of the band felt they didn't have to rewrite history just because one member quit.
Musically, most of the material closely resembled the arrangements and mixed featured on the albums. The musicians would strike up instrumental verses or add percussion breaks occasionally, to cover for costume changes.
For '
Say You'll Be There', the girls missed a great opportunity to break from 'playing the album version' syndrome. The mix they performed in Spice World: The Movie, under the watchful eye of Jools Holland, would have fit perfectly on their current tour. Tempting the male members of the audience, at the beginning of '
Naked', the band pondered the question: "Do you think we should we take our clothes off?" To which another member yells, "It's time for everyone to get naked." Unfortunately, at this point the video screen wasn't ladened with one of Ginger's numerous 'artful photo shots'. The girls, instead, arranged themselves 'naked', behind chairs and sang the whole song from that position at the top of the stage. The fact that their outfits weren't skin coloured only helped ruin the nudity illusion.
AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION
The audience participation took quite a while to work up.
During her solo rendition of 'Where Did Our Love Go?', Baby - who dedicated the song to "all her babies in the audience" - managed to dance with a male member of the audience who looked either over-awed or over-embarrassed, depending on who you ask.
Just after the new song, the reggae sounding '
Walk of Life', the group engaged in what could only be described as English pantomime - which, considering the target audience's age, is wholly understandable. First, there was the pre-requisite, 'which side's louder', then the two Mels - Scary and Sporty - went missing, with Posh and Baby egging the audience on to find them. "Where's Melanie? Is she over there?" As Posh and Baby left the stage for a costume change, Mel and Mel eventually found their way back to the stage, and proceeded to blow the audience away with an excellent cover of the Aretha-Annie Lennox tune 'Sisters (Are doing it for themselves)', complete with guitar solo. It was one of the sole non- choreographed moments of the evening where the two Mels looked at ease.
This left the audience whooping, yelling, and finally up on their feet. The girls managed to maintain the momentum through the next number, '
Spice Up Your Life', with introduction by Scary Spice : "It's ten o'clock, that means it's time to get my horns on. It's also time to spice up your life". For some reason, after working so hard to get the audience 'into it', they decided to slow things down and followed up with the ballad, '
Mama'. The encore consisted of the new single '
Viva Forever' which was voice-over introduced with a Blade Runner quote: "The light that burns twice as strong lasts half as long, and you have burned so very strong.". 'Never Give Up on the Good Times' followed and a rousing cover of Sister Sledge's 'We Are Family' closed the night, with the Fab Four hugging and kissing each other. One of the high points of the evening was the guy on the video screens performing sign language to all the songs. He provided constant amusement through the course of the evening, dancing and swinging and making faces through the proceedings.
The Spice Girls have done it. They have entered the realm of legitimate band. However, the show felt like it was too slickly produced and at times seemed stiffly choreographed. Regardless, the inevitable live album and live video of the 1998 Spice Girls tour will no doubt sell bucket loads and will give those who missed the live show a change to see what it was all about.
SET LIST
If you can't dance
Who do you think you are?
Do it
Denying
Too much
Stop
Where did our love go?
Move over
-- intermission --
Lady is a vamp
Say you'll be there
Naked
2 Become 1
Walk of Life
Sisters (Are doing it for themselves)
Wannabe
Spice Up Your Life
Mama
ENCORE
Viva Forever
Never Give Up on the Good Times
We are family
Running Time: 1 h 45 m + 30 m intermission
