[Harry!]

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/Guardian/1,,,00.html

Shall we start with the nadir? It is the third night of the Spice Girls' 17-date tenure at London's O2 Arena and their final performance of 2007. ('This is our New Year's Eve party!' squeals Mel B, unconvincingly, towards the end.) You think it can't get any worse than a medley of 'We Are Family', 'That's The Way I Like It' and 'Celebration', filler that exposes the dearth of Spice material. But it can.

At the close of 'Mama' - the Girls' ode to umbilical cords - the Spice Mummies bring their children onstage. Gorgeous Phoenix Chi, eldest of Scary Spice Mel B, smiles shyly. The cute Beckham boys strike confident poses. The youngest Beckham, Cruz, eventually retreats to his mum's hip, only to find it has never existed. Posh only does artificial hips, darling, tailored by Roberto Cavalli. He is the tour's costume designer and Posh gushes that he is in the audience tonight.
It is well past sleepy time, but even the tiniest Spice Babies are torn from the embraces of their nannies, handed to some frightened-looking male dancers and thrust on to a garish stage set. People are shrieking as though a lion were about to tuck into Christian sweetbreads.

Geri Halliwell introduces the Spice brood as 'our proudest achievement'. She is right. The Spice Girls' recorded catalogue is largely piffle and their performances hoofy. But let's hope their kids will grow up to be well-adjusted bright young things - vets or pilots or what have you - unscarred by the Heat-induced madness of their mothers' line of work.

Or - now - possibly not. You don't expect Beckham, Brown, Bunton, Chisholm and Halliwell to have studied Noel Coward. But his line - 'Don't put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington' - is surely just common sense if they are infants. The youngest are all wearing the junior ear protectors modelled by Apple Martin a couple of festival seasons ago, but still. Why do they have to drag the kids into this?

It's not as if the Spices have that much to brag about. They might have sold out their first London date in 38 seconds, but the stalls here are all fitted with seats, which is cheating a little. Their comeback set is a strangely monotonous two-ish hours of strobing visuals, costume changes, lap-dancing, solo turns, dated hits and several misses. 'Headlines', their comeback ballad, is so unworthy of headlines that not even their fans have bought it.

Theirs is a mediocre facsimile of great pop, trotted out on a 45-date reunion tour that began in Vancouver at the beginning of December. The Spices were going to bow out at the end of the tour, but the clamour for more means they may make another album. So we are stuck with them.

Unlike with pop ideologues such as Madonna, or twinkly marionettes like Kylie, you are not in the presence of artistry with the Spice Girls. The O2 stage set is reassuringly expensive, with hydraulic platforms going up and down like pistons, but the set design is woefully short on ideas. There is nothing so sophisticated as a theme running through any of the visuals. And what of Girl Power? Has there ever been a redder herring? Girl Power was a strangely elastic phrase that meant nothing more or less than the machinations of five young women to get famous and stay that way.

It all begins with a short film of five little girls larking about in a bedroom, dreaming not of ponies but of fame and sleb babyfathers. There is a half-baked attempt in the intro to portray the Spices as robots, on an important pop mission. This is actually a steal from Take That's reunion tour-opening wheeze of last year, which handled the whole idea of being manufactured with more panache.

The wit and style of someone like Gwen Stefani are like a foreign country to the Spice Girls, who perform a conga at the end of their set. The Girls' only suit is their five personas, revisited on 'Who Do You Think You Are'. Geri is in her Union Jack dress, Mel C in her midriff-baring tracksuit. Mel B's African ancestry means she gets to wear a lot of animal prints and wield a whip.

She also performs a solo cover of Lenny Kravitz's 'Are You Gonna Go My Way' in which a hapless bloke in a suit is caged in some medieval-looking instrument of torture while Brown gyrates all over it. This is the oldest bit of soft porn stagecraft in the book, seen on Janet Jackson tours as far back as 1998. Christina Aguilera does it. Everybody does it. Brown adds nothing new to the form.

As the Spices are women of some means now, they have subcontracted most of the dancing out to 10 lithe young men. The Girls just vogue, with injured Emma Bunton gamely skipping along despite her strapped-up ankle.

Instead of a solo number, Victoria Beckham struts the length of the catwalk to the sound of Madonna's 'Like a Virgin' in shades so big they look like they will topple her. The multiple Warholian, pink-saturated images of Posh on the screens behind her are the gig's only lurch towards art. Parading the kids was a questionable act, but perhaps the most depressing aspect of the set is the unironic cheering for Victoria Beckham's every move, line or wave.

We don't pay the Spice Girls to dance, of course, much less sing. The Girls are far more postmodern than that - the embodiment of a rapacious will-to-fame quite distinct from any of that old-fashioned talent stuff. Girls Aloud are just as post-talented but at least they have some superb digital pop backing them up. The least awful Spice hits - 'Spice Up Your Life', '2 Become 1', 'Wannabe' - are just not worth shrieking for. Their burlesque treatments of bad songs like 'Lady Is a Vamp' don't make them any better - they just make the Spice Girls look like they're auditioning for Chicago

The fabrication of fabulousness is a very important job. It is being handled badly, by five women whose ordinariness was mistakenly touted as their biggest asset. They are just ordinary, full stop.

[Captain.Remy]

Their return is a flop, they have to admit it to themselves.

[Harry!]

Originally posted by sunshine30
Their return is a flop, they have to admit it to themselves.

I LOVED there single,
I LOVED there tour,
and I LOVED the greatest hits album so its all great!

[Captain.Remy]

Message original : Posting_Spice

I LOVED there single,
I LOVED there tour,
and I LOVED the greatest hits album so its all great!

They haven't been number 1,
They sing with play-back songs,
Nobody wants them to perform on TV,
and when they perform ona tv stage, one of the songs is removed.

[Harry!]

Originally posted by sunshine30

They haven't been number 1,
They sing with play-back songs,
Nobody wants them to perform on TV,
and when they perform ona tv stage, one of the songs is removed.

im confused with 2 and 4

[Captain.Remy]

Message original : Posting_Spice

Im confused with 2 and 4

First they don't sing themselves during their performances, many fans did complain about it.
And finally the only show they have been was the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.

[Harry!]

Originally posted by sunshine30

First they don't sing themselves during their performances, many fans did complain about it.
And finally the only show they have been was the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.

they preformed on children in need and stricly come dancing.

[Captain.Remy]

Message original : Posting_Spice

they preformed on children in need and stricly come dancing.

Wooo 3 shows ! I have nothing against them cause I loved them when I was 9 but they aren't "in" anymore. They shouldn't have come back 'cause now they will leave in a bad way.

[Harry!]

Originally posted by sunshine30

Wooo 3 shows ! I have nothing against them cause I loved them when I was 9 but they aren't "in" anymore. They shouldn't have come back 'cause now they will leave in a bad way.

the tickets sold out in 38 secs

[Captain.Remy]

Message original : Posting_Spice

the tickets sold out in 38 secs

I know and that was obvious. They are legends of course but a big number of fans are disapointed by them, they didn't find that "spice" factor which made them famous.