Live Review: Spice Girls Display Vegas Style
“So how do you like rock concerts?” the 30-something mom asked her
maybe-8-year-old daughter. “Awesome!” chirped the girl,
straightening the folds of her Spice World Tour T-shirt.
It was intermission time at the Spice Girls’ Chicago-area
concert, held July 27 at the New World Music Theatre in Tinley
Park, Ill. Every square foot of the outdoor venue was slathered
with grade-school girls and their mothers; a few dads and brothers
were also in attendance, along with knots of
old-enough-to-drive-themselves teens.
Mostly, though, it was the itty bitty Spicettes, the Brittanys
and Tiffanys and all their friends, screaming their tender larynxes
out for their four heroines. Girl power or peer pressure? Little of
both, most likely. In any case, the rabid Spice lovers got what
they wanted from Baby, Posh, Sporty and Scary.
More Vegas-style revue than rock show (no surprise there), the
Spice Girls’ concert was predictably lavish from a technical
standpoint. The multilevel, sci-fi themed set used three video
screens as backdrops, projecting live Spicy close-ups as well as
pre-recorded montages. Instead of the customary videotape, though,
the live feed was on film, which had the curious effect of making
it look pre-recorded as well.
There were nearly a dozen costume changes, and during the brief
intervals while the girls were doing their thing with wardrobe, out
came a crew of dancing Spice Boys. Music was performed by a live
band (augmented by tape, one figured), and the sound quality was as
snazzy as money could buy. The girls looked fabulous, of course,
and sounded fine, in particular Sporty (the most emotive of the
four) and Scary. The recently departed Ginger (whose face still
adorned videos and concert gear) did not appear to be missed. The
Spice Girls performed just about all theirbest-known tunes —
“Wannabe,” “If You Can’t Dance,” “Colours of the World” — songs
that anyone with a preteen girl in the house can sing in their
sleep.
One number, though, showed questionable judgment, considering
that the average age of attendees was maybe 10. Declaring Chicago a
hot town, the Spices announced they wanted to take off their
clothes — to beat the heat, they said. Out came some opaque
screens, courtesy of the Spice Boys, and when they were removed,
there were the apparently unclothed Baby, Posh, Sporty, and Scary
straddling chairs in reverse, torsos coyly (and barely) hidden
behind the chair backs, singing “Naked.” The relative silence that
fell on the crowd during this little exhibition indicated that more
than a few of the thousands of grade-schoolers in attendance, not
to mention their parents, didn’t quite know what to make of it. On
the other end of the spectrum was their tribute to motherhood,
“Mama,” during which home movies of the Spices as wee things were
shown (oddly enough, no footage of their mums).
Really, what can you say about a Spice Girls concert? It was
what it was, nothing more and nothing less. If you went there with
your daughter, it was worth it to see her delighted face, though
you knew she was drinking in bland commercial pop put out by
Barbie-doll singers. Still, there are female rockers with true girl
power — Liz Phair, Luscious Jackson, Elastica — and it’s not
unreasonable to think that at least some of the Spice-crazed
daughters will, in time, gravitate toward the real thing.