Really until you’ve witnessed first hand a Take That gig it’s difficult to comprehend the almost alien scene. Gaggles of mid-twenties girls in pink cowboy hats or illuminous playboy bunny ears, hyperactive and pissed off warm overpriced bottles of WKD wait in fervent anticipation for their boyish heroes. The sparsely numbered (straight) men (not very reluctantly) dragged along by their wide-eyed girlfriends watch in wonder as the baying throngs of women break into a contagious screaming frenzy at the mere suggestion that one of the Take That boys is sitting in the stands. In fact, it’s a fine credit to opener Beverly Knight that she manages to hold the audience’s attention with her unfeasibly powerful and actually darn impressive vocal range. Fair play to Ms Knight, although her songs in no shape or form float Gigwise’s boat, she can’t half belt it out and positively consumes this gargantuan stadium.
Prolonging the headliners and hence the estrogen-fuelled fervour yet further are those lovely Sugababes. The pouting, strutting girls rattle through all the hits like the sassy ‘Hole In The Head’, a sultry ‘Follow Me Home’, a feisty ‘Red Dress’ and a kitsch ‘Freak Like Me’. While most pop acts couldn’t sing live with a gun to their heads, it’s perhaps small testament to the ’Babes that they manage to hold their own. Quite why they chose to perennially massacre Arctic Monkeys’ ‘I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor’ we’ll never know. Suddenly, another deafening screaming clamour breaks out as rumour spreads that Take That are in the stadium. We’re really starting to worry about the ear-piercing reception there’s going to be when Gary, Jason, Mark and the dreadlocked one with a lisp appear for real. Fuck knows what will happen if Robbie actually turns up? The place may just implode.
Oh look, here’s Richard Fleeshman (y’know of Coronation Street and Soapstar Superstar fame?!) to come to sit on the same row as us. Excited women clamber for his autograph and ensure that he doesn’t get a minutes peace until the main act firmly steals his attention. We can’t quite work out whether to feel sorry for the lad or be jealous of him. Probably the latter... But, brace yourselves, here Take That are. The screaming reaches biblical proportions. A helicopter circles. A Matrix-esque video bursts onto the backdrop. And the pandemonium starts.
Opening with the lesser-known ‘Today I Watched You’ (correct us if we’re wrong, we had to ask a salivating fan next to me for the name), it’s a beguiling and slightly anticlimactic opener. Then, launching into ‘Pray’ the adulated foursome start throwing some daft dance moves and you start to get the feeling that if they did a David Brent dance the place would erupt. The genial, pixie faced Mark Owen (his image only has to pop onto the screens for a moment for mass hysteria to explode) beams straight after: “I feel like I’m Robbie Williams. I’m shitting myself!” Cue a long procession of clichés about how great the fans are and how lucky Take That are, especially from the number one culprit Jason Orange. Yawn.
Later, ‘It Only Takes A Minute’ gets a Latin makeover complete with exotic dancers, Mark Owen roles out more clichés, the crowd get their lighters out for an apparently poignant rendition of ‘Babe’, things take an even mushier turn with ‘A Million Love Songs’ and the whole stadium is absorbed in a soppy quagmire. Providing a brief respite, the lads bounce off stage, only to return to the circle in dapper red attire for a Beatles medley including the likes of ‘Hey Jude’, ‘She Loves You’ and ‘Get Back’ . Okay, don’t get us wrong, the foursome sing it well and all that - especially the ever rotund Mr Barlow - yet for some unfathomable reason there’s something wholly wrong and unnerving about it all. The crowd, of course, loves it but isolated, we sit down and shake our head in indignation. Hmph.
After a cringe-worthy Jason Orange speech about how God is looking down on him, how lucky he is and that there are so many more talented people out there (agreed), the second half takes a turn for the better. ‘So Sure’ gets a facelift into a hybrid of Gorillaz’ ‘Dirty Harry’ and the Take That original and actually works quite well, we get more ballads, then more weird video montages, before a rousing rendition of ‘Relight My Fire’ featuring the ever youthful Lulu. Only the staunchest cynic could deny that this a decent pop tune and tonight it was performed with plenty of vivacity.
After a ‘Let it Rain’ segue in which the Take Thaters get duly pissed on from above it’s straight into the first encore of ‘Back For Good’ and ‘Could It Be Magic?’. Then obligatory and apt finale comes courtesy of ‘Never Forget’. Belted out with passion and zeal by the forty thousand plus crammed into the stadium, it’s difficult not to get carried away with it all. I'll get me coat.
Photos by: Shirlaine Forrest
