The Resuscitaiton of the Boy Band: Take That- Back for Good.

I sit, I type, I await the ridicule (Bring it on Vox O'Malley- bring it on! Lily/ Gold Dust- I remember your dancing delight at Westlife- so bang goes your credibility)... I will however strive to avoid the gushy, overly enthusiastic: often accompanied by shrieking hyperbolic drivel, that fellow concert goers have endured since my recent encounters, with four men from my distant past .

I describe my musical tastes as ecletic (Pop Princess just doesn't work past the age of 25). I love to do the concert thing: the soul-altering U2 at Slane Castle, OXEGEN '05, Robbie at Croke, The Killers, Snow Patrol and even as far as Hyde Park, to the once-in-this-lifetime LIVE 8. I also feel, since we're in the general business of soul unburdening that I should confess that I've been to see Westlife close to ten times, I also saw Boyzone and try to catch Ronan Keating each time he comes to Belfast. Judge if you must...

but know this...if you haven't been to Take That concert, your judgement(of this particular pop product) is absolutely without substance- its NEVER just about the music. Their shows are truly a theatrical spectacle that could out Broadway Broadway. This 'Beautiful World' tour somehow managed to surpass all that had gone before (and not just because 'At the age of 39 Howard can still do a 'back-flip,' Jason can still break dance and Mark Owen still break a thousand hearts; in fact all the 'boys' look better than they ever did: oozing sex-appeal at the same power of their dazzling lights) this one boasted a string quartet, a grand piano, a historical tour of mankind, African influences and the best pop music you've heard in a deacde. And to those music purists who believe that 'the music should speak for itself, the light show, the gravity defying dancers, the mesmirising special FX are window dressing'; quite simply don't know what they're missing.

These boys (as they each are approaching 40- boys seems euphemistic: but in my mind boys they remain) are incredibly and charismatic, they somehow manage in an arena full to the rafters, to make you feel like the only girl in the room. The thousands disappear. Its just me and the boys. I've become the inspiration and the single recipient of one of their million love songs.


There is something almost spiritual about the live music 'arena' experience. . There is something about the collectively shared anticipation; the buying of the programme, the polite clapping at the often less than wonderful support act. Then its here. The moment. The lights go out, a feeling of sheer thrill spreads across stadium and through ever fibre of your being- the overwhelming stage lights blind you, the music begins changing the very rhythm of your heart. And in this instance: somewhere in your mind, tucked behind the forgotten school girl crushes, the bad 90s fashion choices, your first ever open-mouthed kiss; is every lyric to every song and the WHOLE crowd are singing along.

Take That were and are about more than making great pop music: they were a vital voice of my generation. I first encountered Mark, Robbie (gone but not forgotten; but never to return: we all realise - and probably did back in'93- that the 'star of those shows': that gorgeous boy from Stoke, had an ego so damaged by instantaneous, that NO band was the place for it to heal- I love him still), Gary, Jason and Howard when I first encountered boys in general: these five Mancunian lads were part of my (and my generation's) sexual awakening. But unlike their 'real-life' school boy counterparts: none of the fabulous five were ever going to hold me to public ridicule, break my heart or give my parent's 'potential teenage pregnancy' nightmares.

They are an indeliable part of my early teenage years: part of thpse first faltering steps towards independence. I was just discovering that weekends weren't just about no-school and Saturday morning cartoons; but instead about shopping trips for the top you would wear with your must have 501's, in preparation for even the smallest possibilities of a slow- dance (something of a discovery itself) at the local "Under 18's" disco that night. The boy of your dreams was just one song away; you would be married with three children by the time you were 25 and have made your first million by the age of 30.

Hold on just a rose-tinted minute: why oh why would anyone want to recapture their early teens? Puberty is so terribly unkind to us all: you're either a lingerie wearing trail blazer or THE LAST GIRL ON THE PLANET to need to wear a bra. You're a total prisoner to the molotov cocktail of hormones carousing around your rapidly changing body and no-one seems to understand just what you're going through.

And how can anyone be nostalgic for the early nineties? Operation Desert Storm was just beginning, LA was in flames of racial hatred after the Rodney King verdict and the humanitarian horrors of the Rwandan genocide was about to be ignored by the world.

My nostalgia however, is for a personally much simpler time: when all five of us sat around the family dinner table on a daily basis; my older sister yet to start the family tradition of 'taking off' to University, my Daddy still with us. I didn't worry in the least about what to make for dinner, how to pay my car insurance, or my mortgage; and contraception was merely a source of giggling. The 'only ' terrorism we faced was our horrifying homegrown variety, Manhattan still buzzed beneath the Twin Towers, London commuters only Tube fear was 'were they running on time?', the Iron Curtain had crumbled and Nelson Mandela had been granted 'Freedom at Last'. We by no means lived in a perfect world but somehow, to me at least, it seemed a less frightening place to be.

The Backstreet Boys (did they ever go away?), the Spice Girls, 911(who?) and East 17 are jumping upon the'Let's get the band back together again' band wagon. My unqualified prediction? It won't work: they don't have the ingredients that make Take That, Take That. They are missing: the talent; the charisma and the new-found mutually respecting musical harmony of the boys who so graced the Odyssey stage in Belfast for the last five nights. Take That are unashamedly both proud and deprecating about their teenage-angst driven past: their audience has matured as they did: we collectively bring our life experience to the music: they in the creating of it and we in the appreciation. And in doing so reach they a whole new generation who are just discovering a beautiful world.