It's A Spice World And We're All Just Living In It

Catherine beat me to a lengthy post about The Greatest Show On Earth, but it bears repeating: The Spice Girls extravapalooza was the most fun I've ever had at a concert. It was layer upon layer of flamboyantly gay camp, combined with awesome outfits and the songs I've known the words to and bopped to on the treadmill ever since "Wannabe" came out 12 years ago. It was perfect -- like a giant, non-sweaty, non-invasive nightclub party, but with confetti cannons.

Our girl Catherine was obviously born under a particularly spicy star, since she managed to get us floor seats for the show. We were in such a good spot that we didn't even really need to look at the monitors for closer views, although right at the end I did and I caught a glimpse of something you don't see every day: Posh, crying.

At the three-quarters mark or so, after one number ends, Ginger gets sucked down below and the four remaining girls sing "Holler," which was their post-Geri single. Then Posh disappears and the other three sing "Let Love Lead The Way," and then Vicky and Geri return and the five girls link arms and walk slowly toward the crowd, representing their reunion. The crowd goes nuts, and the cameraman did slow, close-up pans across all their faces; it caught my eye so I looked up in time to see Posh wiping tears away from her cheeks. Mel B was teary-eyed, too. It was sort of sweet. Perhaps it was anticipatory crying, because right then, they broke into "Mama," which they did as an homage to their mothers and children by showing a long slideshow of family photographs from grandmothers through to their own children. Even the hardened among us (read: me) had to admit it was pretty touching. I mean, who doesn't love mothers?

In addition to sitting right behind the delightful Dave, who was so cute I wanted to take him home and talk about boys and clothes and which Spice looked the hottest (the answer: all of them, actually, although Ginger is way too thin and it's having an effect on her face), we also had a man behind us clad in a Union Jack tank top and a feather boa, weeping uncontrollably, and a friendly, excitable midget dancing on her seat in front of us and screaming, "I HAVE WAITED MY WHOLE LIFE FOR THIS. LIKE, ELEVEN YEARS!!" Dave, who is attending every U.S. concert, sang along to every song, boogied, spent slower numbers with his hands held to his face and swaying slightly, and often gently mimicked the choreography in that proud, almost inadvertent way that stage mothers do when their precious baby is on-stage performing a routine they both know by heart. And, as Carol pointed out in Catherine's comments, there was a rather tall and corpulent man in the third row up in the regular stadium section to our left, dancing his heart out and singing every line and having the time of his life. He seemed so out of visual place -- one of those "one of these things is not like the other" moments -- that we decided that he's a high-powered attorney in his regular life and that nobody at his firm has any idea about his secret predilection for Posh. Shine on, Secret Professional. Shine on.

Good thing the Pussycat Dolls were there, and headed backstage after (sans Asia, the TV series winner, because I believe she refused a deal with the group -- I think the group is doing nothing until Nicole's solo album comes out and that just got pushed again), because they could use some pointers on how it's REALLY done. Overall the show is just high-spirited and fun, with just the right amount of pageantry and self-awareness on the part of the girls. Where the other four each get a solo song, Posh just does a saucy catwalk; I love that she is basically like, "Let's not pretend we don't all know that singing is not my thing." Although she did have solos she actually performed -- they did a lot of their own live singing, which was surprising and great, because you never do know.

And the people watching... the night had pretty much paid for itself before the concert even started. A highlight was the girl in fuschia tights and chartreuse panties over top -- and no other bottoms to speak of -- waddling around at a snail's pace in apparently painful silver heels and violated by her exposed control-top ribbing. Homemade t-shirts abounded.  There were bad wigs all over the place, and a collection of girls in tiny skirts and foot-crippling high heels who were NOT trying to ape any particular Spice Girl but just apparently felt that they needed to look super overdresssed in case David Beckham saw them and spontaneously decided to leave his wife.

In all, as Catherine put it, that was a major highlight in the history of Me.

Comments

[Rach]

I don't think I've ever been this jealous of anybody.

[French Laundry at Home]

Now that I've recovered from the trauma of thinking were were going to die in the Great Riser Collapse of 2007 when the show began, I'm still cracking up about Male Ginger (not to be confused of course with Ging-er County in England, the McCormick of the UK which your t-shirt so beautifully represents), as he strutted his fierce ass down the runway in the Union Jack flag shirt, short shorts and tube socks.

I wonder how the interaction backstage went between Robin and the Spice Girls. I'm thinking it was like this:

Robin: You guys were so great, right girls?!?!?
PCD: WHOOOOOOOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOO!!!!
Robin: You were fierce, and really were almost about empowerment as my girls are, right girls???
PCD: WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
Robin: (silent, smiling hopefully, expecting just ONE of the Spice Girls to return the compliment)
PCD: (staring at their fingernails, playing with each other's split ends, jutting their hips, applying more Mystic Tan, having a collective IQ of 12)
Spice Girls: (uncomfortable silence)
Geri: Who the fuck is this stupid twat?
Mel B: Dumb bint.
>aaaand, scene<

[Jessica]

Heather and I were just saying -- okay, I was saying, and Heather was listening to me rant politely -- that it makes me sad that the girls of today have the PCD as their girl group. Don't get me wrong, I love The Pussycat Dolls Present The Pussycat Dolls Search For the Next Next Pussycat Doll, but the whole Girl Power thing seems so quaint now, which is sort of sad. None of the Spices would ever flash her hoo ha to that paps.

[Jessica]

"to THE paps," I mean. Oy.

[Catherine]

I might have been born under a spicy star ticket-wise, but I am never going to recover from the sadness of my camera dying on me at the beginning of the show and thus NOT HAVING ANY PICTURES OF THE BEST CONCERT EVER.

Oh, the dancing corpulent man! He will never know how he danced his way into our hearts. Stay gold, Ponyboy.

And I'm totally feeling what Jessica is saying about Girl Power seeming quaint nowadays. Remember how shocking it was when Ginger wore her Union Jack dress with the front hem that was two inches higher than the back hem, thus revealing her hulahey? Her completely-covered-in-opaque-black-knickers hulahey? That wouldn't even raise an eyebrow today. Seriously.

[kel]

I was there on Friday night and I concur. It was the MOST FUN I've EVER had at a concert. Our seats were way up in the rafters, but it totally didn't matter. We were surrounded by costumes. Two girls next to us were in homemade Union Jack minidresses and rocking out.

I was looking around and I saw rows of girls, probably about 22 or 23 who were having the time of their life. They were, you know, 12, when the Girls hit it big the first time and now they were enjoying them with a Gin and Tonic.

I wish I could see them again.