Take That - the manband

Here we go, yet another post that has been in my drafts since December ;-P

For those who don't know, Take That was a British boyband that was immensely popular in the early and mid 90s (Robbie Williams was part of it until 1995) and I managed to get hooked on them when I was about 12 - I think it was March-April 1996 (they split in February 1996). As you see I had terrific timing with when I chose to get hooked (but hey - uptil I was 11-12 I thought all modern music was crap and classical was the only thing worth listening to so there really was no opportunity to get hooked before that ;-P).
Anyway, they were a pop band that was particularly famous for their live shows. And I really do believe that there is no pop band or pop singer ever that did shows which were as spectacular to watch. I think there may have been quite a few boybands that made a bigger name for themselves worldwide like The Backstreet Boys, The New Kids on the Block and perhaps even Boyzone, but none of these boybands had the dancing skills, physical fitness or frankly even sense of humour and creativity to be able to pull off shows to the standard of Take That (btw, the choreography and ideas for Take That's shows came from within the band - another aspect not typically to be found in most pop acts).
Just to demonstrate what I mean, here's one of Take That's live performances at the Wembley Arena (their first arena tour) in 1992:

Apart from very energetic dance routines they also did very cheeky TV appearances, which were another thing of theirs that I loved (hey, I think it's quite obvious from this blog that I like cheeky TV appearances ;-P). Here's one that had me laughing for a whole weekend (from Italian TV I think and this was their last single so it must have been late 1995 or early 1996 - no Robbie Williams just the four of them):


And here's the bizzarre part - 10 years later Take That have decided to make a comeback. Many doubted this would work out. Take That's whole image was built on things which seem very difficult to recreate by men aged 35-38. Many also thought that they wouldn't manage without Robbie Williams (though I hardly thought it would be an issue - they managed without him very well after he left the band in the 90s).
But it seems like everybody was wrong ;-P In fact Take That are getting more impressive results in the charts than they did the first time round! They did an amazingly successful comeback tour, which sold out in a few hours. They managed their first ever chart double (no.1 single and no.1 album in the same week). "Patience", their first single was no.1 in the charts for 4 weeks. Their new album was no.1 for five weeks and after the release of their second single, "Shine" (which was no.1 for two weeks) the album has gone back to the no.1 spot on the charts, which so far makes a total of 7 weeks (more than any other of their previous albums!). Their second tour since their reunion sold out even faster than their first. And they made the most spectacular comeback in the history of the Brit Awards - winning Best Single for Patience. You can see them getting the award in the video below (I guess I put it in mainly because I was amused by the Valentine kissing bit ;) but the whole thing is rather sweet ;) ):

It's quite an amazing story considering all that happened to them after they split up. Robbie Williams was the only member who commercially survived the break up. Gary's solo career started better than Robbie's but once it went wrong it went wrong drastically. Mark although his career never went as low as Gary's also ended up losing his record deal. He got back into the public eye after winning Celebrity Big Brother, but his solo career really couldn't be called particularly successful. Howard's solo material never even got released and he ended up doing DJ work. Jason never even tried for a solo career...
And then all of a sudden they get together again and they're even more successful than they were the first time round - it's a strange business, isn't it? ;)

Anyway, I love their new live performances as much if not more than their old ones, so I'll just fill the rest of this post with youtube videos ;-P
I think my favourite performance of theirs is what they did to "It Only Takes a Minute Girl" which was a very early single of theirs (probably about 1991 or so) and it's a veeeery primitive kind of tune which I think they rightly decided they couldn't perform the way they used to. But for you to really get the "joke" I think you need to hear the original tune first, so check out this live performance from Manchester in 1995 (I think the staging of this one is great but if you don't then trust me - the modern one is drastically different ;)):

In contrast this is what the same song looked and sounded like on the 2006 reunion tour lol:


Take That apart from managing all sorts of firsts in the charts did a different sort of "first" in a TV program in December. You can read up on the concept of the "Audience With" program here. Take That are the first ever band to do the program live. And I'm going to put a youtube video (or rather playlist) of the whole thing below. I think the opening is particularly good, but otherwise just watch whatever you like - I couldn't really make my mind up so I just decided to put the whole thing into the post ;-P If you're wondering what Jason and Lulu are talking about in clip no.3 - well the whole comeback thing actually started out because of a documentary. It rekindled a lot of interest in Take That. In that documentary it was implied that Jason and Lulu had at some point slept with each other... Anyway, here's the program :) :


Finally, for the figure skating fans - you might like to see a clip of Take That performing on Dancing on Ice with Torvill and Dean. Check it out here