Date: Fri 10-Jul-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Quick Words:

Spice-Girls-Meadows-Hartford

Full Text:

(rev Spice Girls @Meadows Music Theatre)

Concert Review--

Maiden Spice Voyage Into CT Sinks Like A Rock

(with cuts)

BY SHANNON HICKS

HARTFORD -- What is it about the Spice Girls??!

The Girls don't dress alike, they are definitely not the best singers in the

world, and they don't even dance well. But when the Girls announced plans for

their first tour of the United States earlier this year, tickets for a number

of venues sold out so quickly there was talk of illegal doings. It turned out

there wasn't anything being done wrong by the ticket vendors or promoters...

people just bought Spice Girls tickets at an obscene rate.

Connecticut fans did not quite inundate the box office in April when a July 11

concert was announced for the Meadows Music Theatre in Hartford. But by Friday

night, over 25,000 people had purchased tickets for the group's first-ever

appearance in Connecticut, according to a representative from the

30,000-capacity theatre.

Has it really been less than 18 months since Baby Spice, Ginger Spice, Posh

Spice, Scary Spice and Sporty Spice left their birth identities in the dust

and emerged in one glittering, hair-sprayed, polished (somewhat), fully

choreographed unit called Spice Girls? Yes -- Spice , the Girls' first album,

was released in February 1997; the seemingly-immediate follow-up, Spiceworld ,

came out in November. With near-daily news bites and video clips, it sure

feels like they've been around so much longer.

In the meantime, the company called Spice Unlimited had managed to sell 30

million albums by the beginning of this year. Spice Girl products and tie-ins

have sold to the tune of another $15 million worldwide (sadly, Britain, the

Girls' home land, accounts for only $3 million of that merchandise figure).

Certainly a nice chunk of that change was spent locally before the July 3

concert at the Meadows.

Young fans of the band, now a foursome after the departure of Ginger Spice

last month, turned out in everything Spice last week to welcome the group to

Hartford. There were Spice purses, Spice T-shirts, and Spice notebooks. There

were even a few Spice dolls spotted in the crowd, being held aloft in tiny

hands like an homage to some weird God of Fashion. Along with the shrill

screams that started before the lights went down to open the show Friday

night, there were homemade banners and flowers to give to the performers when

some fan felt lucky enough to find her way close enough to the stage to

deliver said flowers.

A few songs into the show, a stunned feeling began enveloping part of the

audience. While the average age of the Spice fans (or Spice Cadets, as they

are called) was 12 or 13, there was a number of parents and chaperones who had

to endure sitting through the show along with their assigned wards. What was

going through the minds of most adults at the show by this point was a

combination of They aren't very good at all and We paid HOW MUCH for these

tickets?

Tickets for Hartford ranged from $22.50 for general admission seats on the

lawn to $38 and $48 for pavilion seats. That money probably goes towards the

elaborate wardrobes each Girl has. Each Girl has an extensive one, allowing

for costume changes between every song performed.

The money probably also pays for the musicians who actually play the music the

Girls are singing to, and the salaries for the dancers, called Spice Boys,

that accompany the Spice Girls on the stage for many numbers.

What ticket money most certainly is not being used for are vocal lessons, nor

dance lessons. For all the money that went into forming this glamorous girl

group of singers and dancers, the presentation is just not there.

The stage setup is pretty impressive -- complete with large video screens at

the back of the stage, a set of steps that was flanked by stands to look like

something out of a 1940 black-and-white dance film, and the aforementioned

Spice Boys -- but the concert last week felt flat.

Fortunately, the Spice Girls are a harmless fad. And fads fade.

The set list for the July 11 concert at the Meadows was as follows: "If U

Can't Dance," "Who Do You Think You Are," "Do It," "Denying," "Too Much,"

"Stop," "Where Did Our Love Go," "Move Over" (interlude), "The Lady Is A

Vamp," "Say You'll Be There," "Naked," "2 Become 1/Walk Of Life," "Sisters,"

"Wannabe," "Spice Up Your Life," "Mama," (encore) "Viva Forever," "Never Give

Up On A Good Thing" and "We Are Family."