On December 4, it felt as though I was traveling back in time to a long ago land when I wore platform shoes and bell bottom pants, when a British girl group swept the nation. I was one of the lucky few (hundred thousand) who got to be at San Jose’s HP Pavilion for one of the few American stops on The Return of The Spice Girls world tour.
The evening started with my friend and I franticly rushed to get to the venue on time for the show, we were hindered by the fact that my home girl forgot the tickets at her house and we had to make it from Pacifica to San Jose in one hour during rush hour. Some how, and I don’t know how, we made it in fifty minutes, (yes we were going the speed limit.) there was just no traffic.
Outside the arena you could hear the crowd getting ready for the show, outside fans were laughing and singing lines from there favorite songs. The majority of the crowd were girls in their 20s and late teens, with a healthy smattering of “Spice Boys” which are basically the male Spice Girl fans, most of whom (my self included) had missed out on seeing the girls back in the day because of the break up.
I only had one complaint about the show, so I might as well get it out of the way now before I get to the awesome stuff. I damn near got trampled trying to get my tour t-shirt. This was no fault of the group but the fault of the HP Pavilion, it’s the second time at this venue that I have come close to being crushed at a concert because the venue lacked to organize the sale of the merch, which they tried to do one the crowd started to go a bit nutty, which after about 20 minutes finally did get the lines organized but resulted in a few of the shorter girls (coughs) getting painfully smooshed. But in the end I got my shirt and made my way to my seat, which I must thank a former EIC and current Spice Girls fan Giselle for giving me one of her extra tickets.
But anyway as I sat down in my seat I looked at my friend and said “I have been waiting for this moment since I was 12 years old.” She laughed and nodded at me not really understanding at this point the power of well: Girl Power!
When the lights went down and the music started, people around me started flipping out and screaming their favorite Spice Girls’ name, the music swelled and went into the intro for “Spice Up Your Life” and right after that went into my personal favorite “Stop”. The girls raised up form the floor of the stage and started what was an awesome performance complete with an awesome troop of male dancers. They played all their hits from there two year reign at the top of the pops.
During the show each of the spice girls took a moment to do their own thing, my favorites had to be Gerri’s (Ginger) and Mel B’s (Scary) performance. Mel B’s performance started with a huge latter being pushed out on to the stage, and her pulling a confused guy from the audience on to the stage; where he was tied to the latter. Then Mel B went into a cover of “Are You Gunna Go My Way” Where she danced up and down the latter and got a little personal with the guy.
Gerri’s performance seemed to going in a different direction with the male dancers rising from the center of the stage and dancing slowly to the sound of thunder and lighting, until Gerri started belting out her rendition of “It’s Raining Men” (Amen! Heh) and had the dancers dancing around in booty shorts.
I am glad to say that Posh realized that she isn’t that strong of a singer and didn’t do much for her solo bit but walked a cat walk and vogue.
They closed with “Goodbye” the last hit the girls had in the states before they finally fell off the radar. But this was a classic fake out because they had yet to perform their biggest hit “Wannabe” They closed the show as strong as they opened it. I have to say it was worth waiting 12 years to see the show and honestly the best part of all, my friend finally realized what Giselle and I love so much about these ladies.
