From the Sheffield Star:

My EXTREMELY long Mel C concert review

By Michael Dodson

..Well, I could start by telling you about everything that happened before the concert, like the unbearable excitement and not actually being able to find the place where it was being held, but that would make this post even longer than it already will be, so I’ll start off with the eventual arrival at the DeMontfort Hall, Leicester. After driving around for ten minutes outside the Hall, not being able to find us a parking space, my dad eventually parked me and my Spice-mad mate Tim five minutes away from the building. We got out of the car and briskly walked up to the Hall, where we joined a very long queue, which went down surprisingly fast. Upon arriving at the door, the thing I’d been dreading the most happened: the bouncer took the two tickets, looked at them for fifteen seconds, then asked, ‘What’s this?’ Now, the day I got the tickets through the post someone (Mum has always said it wasn’t her, but I still think it was) through them in the bin, where they got ripped and stained before being rescued by me. ‘Why are the tickets different colours?’ asked the man. He was right. After being left on the shelf near the sun for months, one of the tickets had been bleached. I explained what happened, and after giving me a funny look and telling me to look after them in the future, he let us in, without a word about the rips and food stains! We got into the Hall where there was a crowd of people milling around in the entrance, and some others filing into the actual concert Hall itself. Still not knowing how the standing arrangements would work, Tim and I followed them, not knowing how close we would actually be to the stage. The room itself was a lot smaller than I’d imagined, with a stage with a black curtain and a Tomcat sign on it at the front. The seats were all high up, and I felt sorry for those who booked tickets early and asked for seating, because they were quite far away from the stage compared to those standing. The best bit of it, though, was the fact that there were only one hundred or so people in the hall, so Tim and I were about ten metres form the stage! I’d never have thought I’d have been so close, because when I went to see the five of the Girls in Birmingham, they were little more than dots on a faraway platform. The only problem was that when we got into a position, the two tallest people in the room were about a metre in front of us, which kind of blocked our view a bit. Never mind, if we moved our heads to the left or the right we could still see the stage well enough. (We were just off centre, to the right.) After about twenty-five minutes of listening to awful dance music pumping out of the speakers, the room went dark. A quick glimpse behind me showed that the room was only about 40% packed, which I thought Mel would see as a bit of a let down. Tomcat arrived on stage to the sounds of girly screams and whistles, where they played five terrible songs, and one not-quite so terrible one (Crazy). I don’t think the audience thought much of them either, because during the set we were all just standing there, occasionally clapping, and swaying our arms when the guys on the stage made us do it. We were all glad when they went off, and everyone got ready to see Melanie. It was a very long wait though. In all, there was a forty-five minute gap between Tomcat and Melanie, during which the audience were getting more and more agitated. One good thing about the wait was that Tim and I managed to get about a metre forward, and slightly to the left, so we were dead centre, straight in front of the microphone. The tall lady had disappeared, too, so the only person blocking our view was the tall man. At 8.45 the room got dark, and the girly screams were almost deafening. At that point I was seriously worried that I would collapse during the performance. Not exactly being in the peak of physical fitness, by the time the room darkened my back ached and my legs were rather wobbly. The sound system stopped playing the dance music, and started playing clips from the four singles. The curtain went up, and so did the volume of screams. We still couldn’t see anything on the stage. Drum beats started, accompanied by a man (probably the drummer) shouting ‘GO’ every few seconds. By now, the room was bout 75% full. The lights came on, and there was Melanie, looking as stunning as ever, who then started singing, ‘I gotta go-o-o.. and find another direction..’ I started singing along, and was surprised to find that even when yelling at my loudest, I couldn’t hear my own voice. Another strange thing, I thought, that most of the hoard of sixteen-ish year old girls weren’t singing along at all. I decided they must be Never Be The Same Again / I Turn To You lovers. Now, if you knew me, you’d know that I’m an incredibly quiet, boring, self-conscious sort of person, who doesn’t like talking in class or making and idiot out of himself. During Go! this was what I was like, and the only movement I was daring to make was head height clapping. Once she finished this song, she went into Something's Gonna Happen, and by the looks of things, a lot of the audience didn’t know this one. I was still there clapping and singing along, though. Another great performance. The next one was Northern Star, which was the first to really get the crowd singing along. During the chorus a group of girls in front of me started waving madly, to which Melanie waved back. Before long, everyone had their hands in the air, swaying along to the chorus. Out of all the songs she sang, this was the only one through which I could hear myself singing! Next came Be The One. When I first heard this a year ago I really didn’t like it, but after hearing it on the I Turn To You B-side, it became one of my favourite live songs. This was almost perfect, and the only thing that could have made it better would have been having the trumpet à la the MTV live performance. Next came Closer, which was probably my least favourite of the evening. It was still good, but it just seemed a bit out of place with all the rocky songs. I really liked her singing along to the instrumental part, just like the end of the CD version, with the really high notes and the ‘na na nas’. More audience arm waving. After Closer, the room went dark, and the intro for Why started. This was excellent live – I don’t know why she didn’t do it last year. One funny bit was after the ‘but I can’t pick up the phone’ line, when a screaming guitar mimicked a telephone ringing. Next up was one of the evening’s highlights – Independence Day. During this one I heard snippits of myself singing, and was surprised to hear how out of tune I was. Normally I’m quite a good singer – I obviously need to be able to hear myself to do it properly! After that I tended to mime along to the words rather than sing! By this time I had developed past just clapping, and during the chorus I was punching the air like mad. I was really enjoying myself, and I had changed into a completely different person to who I usually am. Although I thought I saw Melanie looking at me a few times during the night, I’m sure she looked right at me during this one, and gave me a smile saying ‘Hey! He knows all the words to an unreleased song!’ After that was I Want You Back. This is my favourite Melanie C song, and I was looking forward to hearing it live. This was probably my biggest disappointment of the night. Although I still loved it, she’d made it a bit too rocky. It makes a good acoustic song on the CD, but it doesn’t really work rocked up, like I Wonder What it Would Be Like when she sang it last year. After this I managed to move about a metre forward again, so that I was right next to the tall man, and I had a perfect view of the stage. Any closer and I’d’ve had to crain my neck up to see her, so I had the perfect position. There, I was actually standing in someone’s fizzy drink that they’d spilled, and my trainers were all sticky, but I didn’t care. Next was If That Were Me. More arm waving. This was better than the CD version because it was rocked up a very little bit more. As she sang the line ‘spare bit of change..’ someone at the front threw some coins onto the stage, which was soon followed by roses, teddy bears, and a mini garden fork! ‘I’ve not had one of these in a while!’ said Melanie after the song finished, groping herself with the fork. After that was Feel The Sun, which was a lot better live than on the CD, with bigger drum beats and cymbal crashes. ‘So, are you ready to rock?’ she asked. Cue screaming audience and a brilliant version of Goin’ Down. More air punching by me. ‘With all this bad luck I’ve had, my karma must be sh*t!’ made me laugh. Next was Ga Ga. I’m not normally a fan of this one, but, like Be The One, it was brilliant live. I upgraded from air punching to full on jumping air clapping here, something I, nor Tim, thought we’d never see me do! My favourite song on the album came next: Suddenly Monday. The audience gave a huge cheer as the intro started, and we were all jumping and punching the air during it. Like Independence Day, I was pleased with myself for knowing all the words to the extended version, what with the ‘you gave me the sign, and now you are mine’ and the ‘you’re making me, yeah you’re making me, you know you’re making me high, oh baby’ bits. After this song, she told us that if we sing well enough in this next one, she’d come on and do one more afterwards. It was Never Be The Same Again. The audience all loved this, and we were all singing along and clapping. After she finished, she walked offstage, while we were all shouting and clapping away. The drums and a guitar started up again, playing Never Be The Same Again, while the blonde guitarist with the sunglasses ran up to the front and started doing big air claps, and singing the chorus. We all joined in, and by the last chorus, it was just us singing a cappella. Brilliant. I never said much about this guitarist before. She’s easily my favourite member of the band, (behind Melanie, of course) and I was really looking forward to seeing her in the flesh, even more than I was looking forward to seeing Tomcat. She was great during all the songs, and during one of them, possibly Suddenly Monday, she started a playfight with Mel! After Never Be The Same Again had finished, the band started playing I Turn To You, and Melanie came on wearing a headband. We were all jumping like mad in this one, and it was the only song where I actually elbowed someone in the head! Oh, by the way, I still think she sings ‘when fear tells me to turn and run’ during the last chorus – I listened especially at this point! After she finished, she threw her headband into the audience, and it landed about three or four metres away from me, behind and to my right. If I’d stayed where I was at the beginning I’d’ve been about a metre away, and would’ve got really annoyed at being so close, but missing it. Where I ended up, though, I didn’t have a chance. She sang the chorus to I Turn To You a few times again, then went off. The crowd cheered and the light went up. Tim and I walked up to the door, both agreeing that it had been absolutely fantastic, and he said he couldn’t believe how mad I was going! I asked him how many pictures he’d taken, and he said he’d only taken six or seven! Throughout the performance I was shouting at him to take more, or give it to me because I had a better view, but he wouldn’t. Now I don’t have a clue when he’ll finish the film and get it developed. I only wish that I’d taken a camera. We went and got a bottle of water each, and I downed it straight away – during the concert I was well aware that I was the sweatiest I’d ever been, and that my armpits stank – it was absolutely boiling! I don’t know how Tim coped – he had a jacket on throughout the performance! After our drinks we went and had a look at the souvenirs, and being the mugs we are, I bought a little book, and he bought a book with an ‘I Love Melanie C’ mug. They were very expensive and not really worth it – the book was just full of pictures – not even of Melanie – and lines from her songs. At about 10.15 we walked out into the refreshingly cold air, where we met my dad, and bought a £1 poster from outside the gates. (Obviously unofficial, but they’d run out of official ones inside.) In the car on the way back, Tim, a long time Emma lover, admitted that Melanie was now his favourite, and we agreed that none of the other three could ever put on a show like that. It was fantastic, and the audience loved it. Ten out of ten.