I realized I better get blogging faster, as I just came back from Hawaii and will probably have to blog about that, and it has now been two months since my London trip.
Before I get into the Spice Girls show, let it be known that the Spice Girls are my favorite band ever, bar none. Music snobs, you can spare me your lectures about why you think the Spice Girls suck or they aren’t real artists, or that Destiny’s Child, the Pussycat Dolls, the Supremes, TLC, (or insert whatever girl group name here) is better.
The Spice Girls are the biggest girl group in history in recent memory – facts. You can’t argue with data. Supposedly the Andrews Sisters (who rose to fame int he 1920s) have recently reclaimed the title, but let’s look at it from this perspective: the Spice Girls were a huge moment in pop music in the late 90s, who together with the Backstreet Boys arguably opened the doors for the next big pop movement consisting of Britney Spears, N’Sync, Christina Aguilera, Mandy Moore, 98 Degrees, so on and so forth. Collectively, they have sold more records than any of the above girl groups – more impressively, they sold the vast majority of those records in two short years with two albums.
So yeah, haters – the Spice Girls are kind of a big deal. They also don’t reunite very often. So when Ginger left in 1998, and the remaining four toured the United States, it was only a matter of time before the Spice bubble burst. As a 10 year old, my chances of seeing them were non-existent.
In 2007, Ginger (Geri Halliwell) decided to rejoin the girls, and after years of rifts finally got back on the same page and launched a massive reunion tour. Being 21 at the time, I was not about to miss out on that opportunity, and I saw them twice – once in San Jose and the other in Las Vegas.
After the tour was over, they did a few projects as a group to keep their legacy alive, most notably a failed Westend Musical created by the same woman who did Mamma Mia and a critically acclaimed performance at the London Olympics. But after 2012, it was more or less dead in Spice World – with the girls continuing their solo projects.
Cut to now. The girls decided to reunite – 25 years later since they started. Victoria decided to sit out of this tour, which I was fine with (she seems like she’s been mentally checked out of being a Spice Girl since 2012 anyway). As I mentioned in the previous blog entries for London, I convinced my cousins to go and we made a vacation out of it.
The Night of the Show:
We started the evening by quickly getting ready after some gallivanting through London. My three cousins, Jackie, Kriselle & Chrizia opted to wear custom girl power tanks that Chrizia had made by Piedmont High School in San Jose. I opted to wear a vintage tee from their last reunion tour, and my Spice World hoodie I had purchased prior to the show from their online store (a whopping 80 USD).
We took the tube, and started the walk to Wembley Stadium. We grabbed a quick meal, (I forget what the cuisine was, but I had steak. Freaking good!) and continued on our journey. Walking over, it was very clear there was a Spice Girls show everyone was en route to. Girls and guys alike were decked out in Spice Girls costumes – pig tails, pony tails, sports wear, leopard print, union jacks galore. Conservatively dressed folks (there’s a phrase I thought I’d never use to describe myself) opted for Spice Girls graphic tees.
Upon arrival at the stadium – it was insane to look back over my shoulder and see a literal army of tens of thousands of Spice Girls fans all walking in the same direction. I had completely forgotten that we had a mission to complete first, which was to find the original Spice Girls bus used in Spice World the movie. I couldn’t spot it on my own and I had to ask multiple stadium employees about its location. To my frustration, none of them knew what the hell I was talking about, which was so odd because it’s a damn double decker bus, plastered with the union jack all over it… it’s kind of hard to miss. After some investigative work, we were able to find it parked outside the stadium about half a block down – surrounded by Spice fans taking pictures of course. I found a nice gay couple to take my photo. 🙂
Once we actually got into the venue, it was packed. Jess Glynn opened for the girls – whom I actually like a lot. We unfortunately missed her entire portion though because we were desperate to get our Spice merch before they sold out of things. I may have gotten carried away. My cousin Jackie surprised us all by buying us Spice World drawstring bags (thanks Jack!) We also got VIP package merch that came with the tickets we bought.
When we actually got to our seats, it all began to sink in that the girls were about to hit the stage! Once their dancers came out, I nearly lost my shit. Once the screens lit up and started teasing us with vintage photos and the opening bars to “Spice Up Your Life” started, the stadium roared. They went through all their major singles with little to no breaks. Mel B and Mel C in particular were in top form, physically and vocally. Emma held her own and Geri… was Geri (basically uncoordinated and confused as she’s always been – hey its part of her charm). The one thing missing from Geri was her loud personality – I suppose marriage has tamed her down. While I would have loved Victoria to be there, you quickly forgot she was missing within a few minutes.
Everything about the show was amazing. I want to say it was possibly even the best and biggest show they’ve ever done. It being a stadium tour versus arenas in itself says something about the magnitude of the show. Wembley Stadium specifically could house 90,000 people!
The theme of the whole show played heavily into 90s nostalgia with bright colors on all the designs of their props, costumes and screen videos. Their costumes specifically played heavily into their Spice Girl personas and holistically looked bad ass. The girls took advantage of the show being open air and launched fireworks several times throughout the show in addition to smoke and confetti. The stage design featured the theme of a globe to remind us of the Spice World theme and featured a humongous ring to tie in the “Spice Ring” from their first album. The ring also had the ability to change designs and acted as another screen.
I also attached the video of the moment before their encore, where they each had a confessional to talk the audience about what being a Spice Girl means, and what we as fans meant to them. It was a moment where I wanted to bawl like a baby (pretty sure everyone felt the same way) as it encapsulated every possible thing I’ve ever felt about the band since I was a kid. I filmed the entire segment which can be viewed below.
As the show went on, the sun began to set, and we were given little wristlets that would light up and sync to their music. That was also a nice touch. I could go through the entire set list and meticulously detail everything that had happened, but there is really no point. Instead, I compiled a highlight video from the footage I captured during the show which can be viewed below!
