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How does a boyband grow up? In many ways, Take That have been the canary down the mine: now 32 years, 12 number one singles and 45 million record sales into a career of poptastic highs and lows, the UK’s best have settled into their role as pop elder statesman.
Even with with their original five members down to just three for the past decade – with Gary Barlow, Howard Donald and Mark Owen present, and Robbie Williams and Jason Orange absent – they have now reached a third generation of fans: many present on the first of six nights at the O2 Arena weren’t even born when Take That first reformed in 2006.
Current album This Life, their first in six years, makes no real attempt to scale pop highs; songs are thoughtful, comfortable and tastefully put together. Live, it’s a different matter entirely. Past tours have delivered huge spectacles – the acrobatic Circus gala with its mechanical elephant springs to mind – and the This Life tour proves to be another extravaganza of song, dance and stagecraft.
They did begin with a touch of melodrama: for the opening new song “Keep Your Head Up”, an Imogen Heap-ish ballad, they appeared from inside a giant TV screen, excessively windswept and dressed in all black as if about to deliver a grave theatre production. But that soon gave way to a fun, knowingly silly, self-referential show that leaned into the inherent silliness of men in their fifties presenting pop music in such an OTT way.
We got everything from ticker tape to walkways that stretch the length of the arena; during “Shine”, an early, joyous highlight, a huge waterfall sprang from the front of the stage; for a wonderfully of-its-time dance-pop “Re-Light My Fire”, there were enough pyrotechnics to warm the whole of Greenwich. The spinning staircases the band cruised up and down made it look they were taking part in a 70s game show (“whose idea was it to have stairs?” Barlow joked). The band sang and danced to type – Barlow wittingly, Owen impishly, Donald imposingly – while various costume changes added to the sense of entertainment: at one point Donald wore a suit so yellow you couldn’t look directly at it for too long.
The thrust of the show came in its mid-section, where under the guise of presenting a TV show they ran through a potted history of Take That’s rise, fall and rise – think This Is Your Life meets 70s Saturday morning kids’ TV (it was an idea Barlow explored in his recent one-man show; strangely, Robbie Williams used this exact tactic on his last tour).
Though the commentary they gave direct to camera was often a bit cringe, it worked well as a device to run through the hits. For a jazzier take on “Sure”, they dusted off the old dance routine to huge cheers; “Patience” had everyone reaching for the notes on the chorus; even Robbie-less, “The Flood” was big and dramatic.
While eight new songs mostly held up – the synth-rock of “Days I Hate Myself” and “This Life”, a Randy Newman-esque piano ballad” were the pick of the bunch – they were politely received compared to the wild reception to the hits. Barlow sang “A Million Love Songs” at the piano with feeling; a late run of “Back for Good”, “Never Forget” and “Rule the World”, anthems all, brought the house down.
“Should we do it? Could we do it?” Barlow had asked earlier about the band’s decision to carry on as a three-piece. “Of course we could”! He wasn’t wrong.
