graphic screen

As part of my Christmas presents last year, mum bought me a ticket to see Steps with her, Ian and Jodie. We got into town early and grabbed a bite to eat:

Mum & Ian (1) – with Flash!	Mum & Ian (2) – without Flash.
Me being sophisticated drinking coffee. Later I spend some time peeing while the warm up artists were on. Luckily they were terrible and worth missing.	Me.
While Jodie’s off powdering her nose, me & Ian fight over her bag. We stop to pose for a quick photo.	Jodie’s back and posing for a photo with mum.
Mum, Jodie & Ian.	Mum, Me & Ian.
I decide to be cheeky and mess up mum’s & Ian’s hair (forgetting that Ian doesn’t have any). Mum retaliates as a photos taken.

We got to the Arena and took our seats. There were two warm up acts, both of which were shockingly bad.

Ian, Mum & Jodie.	The audience go wild as the Steps logo appears on the screens at either side of the stage.
Five tubes that Steps were rise up and into on their first appearance on stage.	A vault with countdown clock on. The graphic was completely on a back screen.
The vault opens.	Steps appear on stage.
The graphics screen at the back of the stage. The screen lit up, in combination with the lights made getting photos really difficult.	Steps appear on stage. We were treated to a few Steps classics with dance moves using the back screen as a Just Dance type game.
Steps – Dancing & Singing in boxes.	Backing Dancers – Playing with Fire, while Steps sing.

To give you a feel of the hyper-active, excited atmosphere of the audience, I took a short video:

Then each member of Steps did a solo song. First Lee, singing a mix of a few songs. His performance was excellent, and there were even screams when he ripped open his shirt:

(Lee performing with his shirt open.)

Next was Faye:

(Faye performing.)

‘H’ sang Don’t Stop Believing and did some clever stuff by making it look like he was interacting with the big graphic screen at the back of the stage:

(H performing. With his use of the graphic screen, I struggled to get a good photo.)

Lisa sang next, singing a mix of different songs including her track ‘Lately‘:

(Lisa performing.)

Claire sang her solo last. Claire had put on weight, but looked better for it. Unsuprisingly she sang an opera type song (having been on Popstar to Operastar):

Then it was time for my favorite Steps song: It’s The Way You Make Me Feel. I couldn’t help feel disappointed, rather than just having H singing the male lines of the song both H and Lee sang them. There voices didn’t feel like they became one. I would have preferred just H to sing to be honest. Still the costumes lived up to expectations, see below:

Lee in his mask and suit.	H in is costume. Claire, Faye and Lisa wore corset type costumes. All keeping in the theme of the orignal music video.
H closer, a photo of the side screen.	Steps then went on to sing Love’s Got A Hold On My Heart

Steps stopped to say Thank you’s – mostly to the audience for supporting them. They even posed for a photo:

Then they slowed things down with a few of their ballot type tracks. What amazed me was that the audience sang along, louder than Steps at some points. The audience singing in mass made me aware of how many people related to the words in Step’s songs.

(Steps sitting on the stage singing some of their slower tracks.)

Steps brought back the hyper-active, excited atmosphere of the audience with Stomp and some other songs. Here’s some photos:

Stage for Stomp.	Stage for another song.
Stage for another song.	Steps on Stage performing Dancing Queen.

Then it was time for Steps to take a bow and leave the stage:

For their encore they performed the only track they hadn’t performed so far: Tragedy :

(Leaving the audience on a high.)

For me it was a bit of nostalgia, re-living my teen years. But Steps stated that they were back – so they may well release some new music. I hope they do, I really enjoyed myself and had forgotten how much I enjoy a bit of cheesy pop.

I would like to apologise for quality and size and of the photos. I should have taken my camera rather than used my iPhone, this would have improved the quality of the photos. I’ve also had to significantly reduce the size of the photos to save on disk space (see More Disk Space). But if you’ve not got tickets to see Steps, don’t worry as the tour DVD is available to pre-order here: Steps – The Ultimate Tour Live [DVD]. Also you can order the live concerts on CD here: Steps Live! 2012 [CD].

Blog soon,

Antony

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