Sunday, December 11, 2005
So, Good!
We've not had time to watch last night's X Factor yet - though we have heard the result and we're not at all happy - so our review will have to wait a couple of days, but what, you might be asking yourself, though in all fairness it's quite unlikely, was more important than watching a handful of no marks making a desperate last ditch effort to win the love and respect of the Great British public? Watching Rachel Stevens making a desperate, last ditch effort to win the love and respect of the Great British public, of course! She was playing at a student night in Glasgow, and here's what we learnt from the gig:-
- Judging by the fact that her four dancers were male and attired in vest tops, we reckon that she more used to touting this set around the gay clubs.
- As one of said dancers was the first onto the stage, half the room could immediatly be heard muttering to each other "Blimey! She's let herself go a bit"
- Rachel herself, when she made her appearence, was wearing jeans, a purple waistcoat and long gloves which, if she was a more successful pop star, would have been studded with diamonds, as opposed to the plastic which was closer to her price range.
- She did look lovely though, and had the all important nice hair.
- As she arrived on stage, a sea of hands clutching camera phones rose up to meet her. There really is no better momento of a gig by a genuine, if unsuccessful, pop princess than a low resolution picture of a small, person shaped smudge surrounded by out of focus stage lights.
- First track was - A one-two-three-four - I Said Never Again (But Here We Are), with Rachel triumphantly pumping her fist as if it had been the massive chart smash it deserved to be and hadn't just vaguely flopped into the charts in the wilderness of the top 12.
- This was followed up by a run through of Negotiate With Love. She may have sung this one live, either that or the backing tape couldn't quite keep up with the "What is it you don't understand..." bit. She didn't ask them to turn the track down a bit either, probably for fear that the sound engineer might actually do it and she'd be left mouthing away like an attractive goldfish.
- At one point, in reference to the front row, she used the word "pissed". Rachel really shouldn't us bad language, it's like hearing a schoolteacher swear.
- Sweet Dreams My L-A-Ex was next, with the dancers clutching white bandages in a frankly embarrassing attempt to recreate the video. She wasn't so much tied-up, more mildly inconvenieced. Either that or she was auditioning for a role in a Carry On Egypt/Hospital cross-over.
- As dancing around for almost 10 minutes really does take it out of you, Rachel decided to slow things down a tad by doing album track, I Will Be There. Some of the audience took inspiration from this track, though for them the 'there' in question turned out to be either the bar or the toilet.
- With the dancers back on stage it was time for a magnificent version of So Good, though quite how magnificent it can be when it's essentially someone moving their lips vaguely in time to the single is a debate which can wait til another time, as she moves well and seemed to be enjoying herself. Besides, it seems churlish to complain when she's taken time out of her busy schedule to entertan us. Her CD collection won't alphabetise itself, you know.
- Finally, she leads us in a sing-a-along to the chorus of Some Girls before performing the track itself. By joining in, the audience sang more live vocals than Rachel herself, though our attempt to get her fee split between us all went unheeded. As it was a Christmas party, we briefly hoped that she might change the opening line to "My baby drives a sleigh". This, alas, nver happened, though given the subject matter of the song, it's probably best not to be picturing Rachel and Santa in that sorta way. She also gave us a very special Christmas present by not performing Funky Dory or More, More, More. She also never gave us anything from her S Club days, presumably because, even miming it, she still wouldn't quite have the voice to do it justice. Bless.
- And with that it was all over, Rachel vanished, presumably to count up her fee and work out whether she had enough left over to get a Ginsters pasty on the way home, the crowd dispersed, to continue drinking alcohol until the wee small hours of the morning or until they'd vomited up their own stomachs, whichever came first, and we went downstairs to dance to a Steps medley and have the piss taken out of us by a drag queen. In other words, a good night was had by all! Hooray! Except possibly those poor fools who went to see Edith 'Face Like a bag of Spanners' Bowman 'DJ' in one of the other rooms. Yes, it was a Christmas party, and undoubtedly a big part of the true Christmas spirit is abject misery, but you really shouldn't go around encouraging it.
