Melanie C absolutely smashed it out of the park to a packed out O2 Ritz in Manchester this Valentine’s Day, taking to the stage in a checkerboard suit, sporting her trademark racer back top.
Her set consists of massive LED panels, which are constantly changing patterns and colours throughout the show, giving the stage a lively and energetic vibe, and contrasting with her monochromatic checkerboard get up.
One song in and already the jacket gets whipped off to whistles from the crowd. Melanie C is one for the banter on stage, getting chatty with the crowd between songs, giving the performance a real feeling of intimacy, which it’s clear she absolutely loves. Announcing that Manchester to her playing her home stage, she goes on to describe the confusion over where she’s from, and how people are often surprised about how nice and down to earth she is… to which she replies “I’m just Northern!”.
As the photographers leave the photo pit after 3 songs, Melanie asks if she’s safe now, before exclaiming “Shoes off, guts out, it’s business time!” before asking for her trainers so she can get comfy for the rest of the performance. “Instagram vs reality!” she announces as she changes footwear.
Promising that her song Escape was the darkest moment of the evening, that we’ve all had enough darkness in our lives, she asks the crowd if they want to have a little dance for In And Out Of Love. Melanie clearly has such a passion and love for her music, which is apart throughout the gig, and especially so when she starts her song Into You, but stops after a few seconds, declaring she wanted to start again, she wasn’t fully prepared and she wanted to do her songs justice!
As she performs Touch Me, we’re really struck by the house music vibes that are coming our way tonight. Melanie announces that she’s feeling slightly unhinged with the adrenaline of the performance, and goes on to ask if it was anyone’s first Mel C gig, following it up with “and how’s it going?!”, which to her relief got a whopper response, joking that she was dicing with death centre stage asking that.
We get some more fantastically candid and down to earth snippets between songs, such as rocking her brand new spray tan, but also now she “fucking stinks of biscuits!”
Bringing it down now for an acoustic moment, Melanie talks about her song Northern Star, and how she’s going to dedicate it actually to herself. She describes the new meaning of the song to her, as if she’s singing it to her younger self. She proclaims “I’m so fucking proud to be from the North West!”
Describing “when I was in that band” when they didn’t have camera phones, she asks the crowd to put away their phones for Northern Star, and to just be in the room with her. The song clearly radiates through the room and Mel C, as well as half the crowd, are left tearful throughout the applause.
After an acoustic rendition of When You’re Gone, Mel C announced it’s time to get them moving again. “Are there any Spice Girls fans in the house?!”, clearly there are! Mel C tells everyone that it’s hard to sing these songs when you’re missing 4 others, and for everyone to pick their favourite Spice Girl, that we all clearly know the words, and let’s do this. Starting with 2 Become 1, and then launching into Who Do You Think You Are, the crowd was dancing in a whirl of 90s nostalgia. Your reviewer got a bit swept up here and didn’t make a whole lot of notes…
Joking that she doesn’t like to wait for encores and just comes straight back out again, Mel C tells us to end on a high as she brings it home with High Heels, and I Turn To You. The floor literally shaking as Mel leads the entire venue in a last big dance.
Review by Reilly (@photoreilly)
