Londonist Live Review: The Spice Girls at O2

By Londonist Last edited 194 months ago
Londonist Live Review: The Spice Girls at O2
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It’s now over ten years since the Spice Girls entrenched themselves into the mindsets of teenyboppers around the world. Now all of those teenyboppers are in their early to mid-twenties and apparently desperate for a slice of retro-tastic cheese. Armed with plenty of alcohol in our system and a set of fuzzily fond memories we set off to the O2 to see the reunited Spice Girls in action.

A quick glance round the audience revealed surprisingly few children (let’s face it – they’d probably rather listen to My Chemical Romance than the Spice Girls) and a lot of rather ardent fans. Excitement went into overdrive when David sat in the royal box with the Beckham brood

Starting the show with the supremely ridiculous Spice Up Your Life before moving onto Stop and Say You’ll Be There, the Spices had people out of their seats, singing along and generally going ballistic. As expected, new single Headlines and Holler, their ill-advised foray into R&B, fell flat. Of the solo spots, Victoria’s fashion walk was by far the most hilarious and, oddly, perhaps the only moment where the Spice sense of humour really shone through. The big surprise was Wannabe. Rather predictably cranked out for their encore, the word ‘rabble-rousing’ doesn’t even begin to do it justice. The whole venue was up on their feet, swept away by memories of Union Jack dresses, Zig A Zig Ah’s and the idea that friendship never ends. Looking at it cynically as a money-making exercise this is all a colossal amount of tosh but standing there in front of Ginger, Sporty, Posh, Scary and Baby it was pretty difficult not to get carried away.

By Ben Fowler.

The Spice Girls are at the O2 till 22 January. Book tickets here.

Image courtesy of .Martin.'s Flicrkstream.

Last Updated 08 January 2008