The Girls are back in town, joined in spirit by Sarah
Girls Aloud SSE Arena Belfast Touring until June 30
★★★★✩
Billie Eilish Hit Me Hard And Soft Out now
★★★★✩
If you ever need to defend democracy, you may want to mention Girls Aloud. The five original members of the band were thrown together in 2002 by the viewers of an ITV talent show, Popstars: The Rivals. They all turned out to be likeable, capable and even compatible.
They kept on having hits for seven years, took a break, returned for a reunion tour – and now here they go again. Their fans, for obvious reasons, are nearly all female. In a crowd of 11,000, I spot only one other unaccompanied man and he’s carrying a mop. Agewise, there’s more of a mix, with the inevitable thirtysomethings joined by teens, tweens, even kids from primary school. ‘It’s all about nostalgia, isn’t it?’ says Nadine Coyle at one point. Not for the six-year-old on my right, it isn’t. When you’re called Girls Aloud, you’re allowed to be girlish. Cheryl, Nicola, Nadine and Kimberley start the show in mid-air, each one a living doll on a plinth in a swirl of lace. They’re in silver and white, while the backdrop is the pinkest thing you’ve seen since Barbie.
All evening their outfits will be different but similar, moving from silver to pewter, then red-andblack and finally gold. Cheryl draws the biggest cheers early on, but by the end they’re all equally acclaimed, including fallen comrade Sarah Harding, who died of breast cancer in 2021, aged 39.
For Whole Lotta History, Sarah appears on video in black and white. As they walk off for a costume change, she’s still there, flashing her easy smile, making it all the sadder she has gone.
Later, she’s back on the screen, joining the others for their cover of The Pretenders’ I’ll Stand By You. The fans switch on their torches and sway. Sarah remains in monochrome, blue-and-white this time. Chrissie Hynde’s stirring chords ring out then recede as the women sing a capella. It’s a moving and dignified tribute.
Otherwise, the Girls just want to have fun. They make two more entrances as memorable as the first, flying above the pit on motorbikes,
then returning to the plinths, now hidden under voluminous red bustles. They sing wholeheartedly, with Nadine and Nicola shining and nobody hiding. And they dish up some filler but get away with it because the design is exhilarating and their biggest hits, from Something Kinda Ooooh to The Promise, still pack a punch.
Billie Eilish, the most interesting of today’s young superstars, has made another fearless album. The first half is witty electro-pop, pulsating with lust. The second is a bit of everything, from dub to prog, often weird and fitfully wonderful.