****
FRIDAY night at Hampden Park and who cares what the score might be in Boston, it’s clear that in Glasgow this is going to be a walkover right from kick-off.
As a litany of clowns, dressed in cloud-covered suits Rene Magritte would be jealous of, accompany a balloon-covered wagon from the A stage to the B stage we already know what the balloons are concealing. But anticipation is half the fun of anything, right?
And suddenly there they are, three middle-aged men, once the lust objects of thousands of screaming girls (well, two of them at least), now once again soaking up the applause as they launch into the screamingly obvious but nonetheless effective opening number, Greatest Day.
What follows is a two-hour spectacle in which Take That’s greatest hits are filtered and magnified by a Circus-themed framework that throws everything plus the kitchen sink at the audience.
The whole razzle dazzle of it is worth two stars on its own. I’ve now seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Firebreathers, tightrope walkers, clowns, an aerialist spinning on her own hair, a giant 30ft elephant, with a female acrobat as a tail, transporting Gary Barlow, Howard Donald and Marc Owen from stage to stage, a big-screen close-up of Howard’s spangly crotch and Gary Barlow doing pelvic thrusts.
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Take That in 2026 are a couple of men short of their full line-up, with Robbie Williams and Jason Orange both long departed, but the remaining members already know this will be a high-scoring win for them. The Circus, after all, is a reboot of their hugely successful – to the tune of £40m – 2009 arena show.
The scale of the thing is immense and it has an audience more than willing to buy into it. There are, quite frankly, a lot of very, very happy people in Hampden tonight. That doesn’t stop the band from a little light pandering. Early on Howard leads the masses in a “No Scotland, No Party” chant.
What else does the evening offer? There is the music, I suppose. Ah, well, you can’t have everything.
The curious contradiction at the heart of Take That was always the tug of war between their boy band origins and Gary Barlow’s desire to be the new Elton John. The result was a group that toggled between commercial, shinier-than-Bri-Nylon dance-oriented pop and Barlow’s love of a soppy ballad (prime exhibit, the drippy A Million Love Songs). Of course, in time, the group’s remarkable success proved that they could easily encompass both.
It’s a sign of their confidence tonight that they can throw away their one indisputably great song (Back for Good; the record erstwhile member Robbie Williams wishes Angels was) early on in the set.
But there are to be more, sometimes unlikely, musical treats in store. Marc Owen is the night’s Scott McTominay. He even manages to sell Shine, a song that’s always seemed far too desperate to be liked. And somewhere at the back of the A stage, partially obscured by netting the musicians are playing a blinder. The martial beats and sprinkling of Italo House keyboards over the band’s early single Do What U Like – part of a medley that also included Promises and It Only Takes a Minute – make it unexpectedly palatable.
Best tunes of the night are a stonking take on Never Forget, the band’s bombastic, Jim Steinman remixed, farewell announcement in 1995 (“soon this will be someone else’s dream”) and a wildly over-the-top, all-singing, all-dancing, all firebreathing version of Dan Hartman’s Relight My Fire, accompanied by a giant inflatable Baroness Samedi figure and an imperious Zoe Birkett standing in for Lulu.
Yes, there is the odd longueur. The Gary Barlow and piano section for a start, as well as an overextended comic skit where Marc Owen tries and fails to ride a unicycle (Howard nails it first time).
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But by the time we got to closer Rule the World a few things are clear. Howard Donald can still do the moves at 58, Marc Owen is a trouper and Gary Barlow has never looked more comfortable in his skin than he does now (though his Take That dance moves remain more effortful than effortless).
And amidst all the noise and fireworks and clowning, this show is, at its heart, a statement of how bands and pop music play a part in our lives; it’s the tale of five boys who are now a grown-up three who have aged along with their fans. And tonight both band and audience want to remember who they were then and who they are now. This is, in short, a celebration. On a day when I learn that one of my favourite people in the world has passed away I find something rather moving in it all.