Hopping on stage in a cropped gray hoodie and saggy blue sweatpants, Melanie C arrives on the first evening of her solo UK tour like she’s getting into the ring. Bouncing from foot to foot, the pop star greatest remembered as Sporty Spice launches with fierce depth into Who I Am, the disco-inflected opener from her 2020 self-titled album.
At 48, Melanie C retains the power that bestowed her her 90s band nickname. Flanked by drums and keys, she pounces throughout the stage, including prospers of fist pumps, shimmies and leaping jacks to her high-energy tracks about self-love. “It’s a going out album, not a sitting in album,” she chides. It’s not lengthy earlier than her hoodie is flung off – in addition to her footwear – and he or she takes an adoring viewers again in time with a rendition of her 2000 No 1 hit, By no means Be the Identical Once more.
In entrance of a pulsing display screen of neon pinks and blues, Melanie C weaves with nimble ease between her early R&B solo singles and the invigorating nu-disco of her most up-to-date album. Accompanied by minimal onstage instrumentation, she sings over a backing monitor; it’s a disgrace she’s not on tour with supporting singers to higher intensify her personal vocal efficiency. However the intimacy of a club-night set fits the pop star’s queer icon standing and feelgood pop advocacy. Right here, an extravagant Todd Terry remix of her tune, Overload, with its lyrics of empowerment (“I’m not gonna be your acceptable model of me”), transcends cliche as an inclusive rallying cry.
“I’ve acquired an essential query to ask … are there any Spice Ladies followers right here?” she asks with a theatrical wink, to roaring cheers. She brings the evening to a detailed with the singalong 90s duo 2 Change into 1 and Who Do You Assume You Are. Regardless of some acknowledged early tour nerves, the singer declares that she is strictly the place she desires to be: on stage with a mic in hand. A performer with British lady group star legacy, Melanie C has nothing she must show – which is why the sinewy pop punch of her set is all of the extra spectacular.
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