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Review: Spice Girls, Ashton Gate Stadium
Entrepreneurial vendors outside Ashton Gate Stadium were doing a brisk trade in ponchos on a Monday evening when the rain just didn’t stop falling.
On stage, Geri Horner (née Halliwell) and Emma Bunton were also wearing ponchos, although their versions looked a little more expensive than the two for £5 outfits being sold along Winterstoke Road.
It was only for the last number of the night, Wannabe, when Geri stripped off her poncho and bomber jacket as the Spice Girls performed their most famous song.
is needed now More than ever
In front of a huge sphere and two giant screens, Baby, Ginger, Scary and Sporty Spice opened their set with Spice Up Your Life.
Unlike Take That’s gig here last month where many of their most well-known songs had been reworked, most of the songs performed by the Spice Girls sounded just like the CDs you bought in the mid-90s.
Two football teams’ worth of backing dancers filled the gaps during the costume changes, with plenty of pyrotechnics lighting up the south Bristol skyline and some clever technology synching thousands of fans’ wristbands to flash in time with the music.
There was also plenty of scripted banter, with the four women looking back at their careers together.
The one missing member, Victoria Beckham, aka Posh, was not mentioned once – other than Mel B ad-libbing “where is she?” during the bit in Wannabe where easy V is revealed not to come for free.
Fans were given wristbands that flashed different colours in time to the music
With only three studio albums, this gig was most definitely not hit after hit. Only the most dedicated fans would have looked forward to Do It, and even a song they recorded for a Pepsi ad, Move Over, played briefly on the big screen.
But there were also a few well-chosen covers including Car Wash and We Are Family, and with a final five of Say You’ll Be There, 2 Become 1, Stop, Mama and Wannabe, the favourites were all here.
“I’ve spent a bit of time in Bristol and I tell you what, it’s one hell of a city,” said Mel C, whose vocal chords got the biggest workout of the night.
Massive Attack and Portishead got a shout-out from the stage, as did Dawn French, who was among the 30,000-strong sell-out crowd.
Living up to form, Mel B couldn’t resist an innuendo during the rainstorm: “I don’t think I’ve been this wet for a long long time.”
As Geri finally took off her poncho, she got wet for the first time in an evening that saw the biggest British band since The Beatles play in Bristol for the first and probably only time, providing a feast of pop nostalgia as the rain continued to fall.
Read more: Review: Take That, Ashton Gate Stadium
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