Saturday 17/06/06 Take That, Sugababes @ City of Manchester Stadium

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. **** 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.