It might have been a great number of years since they last graced Australian stages, but after reforming for ‘The Big Reunion’ TV and subsequent concert series in the UK earlier this year, British boyband 5ive were intent in making everybody get up on their Aussie greatest hits tour.
We sent our reviewer Brad along to the show to see if the boys still had what it took to rock the crowd when the lights go out…
5ive were arguably the biggest British boy band to break Australia in the late ’90s. They played arenas and had back to back hit singles before splitting up in 2001.
Now, 12 years later and one member down, 5ive were back for a nostalgia tour.
The mainly female crowd lapped up the 75 minute-long set, despite its many faults. For starters, whose choice was it to start with long forgotten B-Side ‘Battlestar’?
Thankfully they regained some steam with a rousing cover of ‘We Will Rock You’, but it was a bad sign of what was to come.
It soon became apparent that there was not enough preparation done for these shows. Many of the songs were either half-choreographed or not staged at all. The result of this was that the boys seemed lost on stage, unsure of what their next move should be. Abz and Sean even broke out some awkward dad dancing at some points, prompting me to ask… what happened to the bad boys of pop?
Another issue was that the crowd seemingly stopped buying 5ive records after 1999. Not even ‘Let’s Dance’, which got to No.3 in Australia back in 2001, could get much of a reaction.
Things hit a particular low point during their performance of ‘Invincible’. Abz literally took a micro nap on stage during its first verse!
That being said, when their moves and vocals were on point, such as during ‘When The Lights Go Out’ and ‘Everybody Get Up!’, the crowd went nuts!
However, when it came to the encore, one final issue became clear. The point of a concert is to replicate the CD experience live, right? You’d never see the lesser one/s from NSYNC take Justin’s lead in ‘Bye Bye Bye’, so why are Sean and Scott taking Abz’s lead from ‘If Ya Getting Down’? Abz was the only member of the band to release a solo album (2003’s underrated Abstract Theory), whilst Sean couldn’t even get a chair turned for him on ‘The Voice’ UK. This lyric swap made it feel like the boys were doing karaoke to their own songs.
At least they ended on a high note with “Keep On Movin’ and its simple choreography and sing-along chorus.
Ultimately, it was a great half hour show stretched thin and in need of much more work.
Australia's first stop for pop!