By Aline Mahrud

WORTH A LOOK?: ***

WHEN?: Friday 27 October, tour moves to the US and Canada where it finishes 16 November 2023

SETLIST: S Club Party; Love Ain’t Gonna Wait For You; You’re My Number One; Natural; Sunshine; You; Stronger; Bring The House Down; Friday Night; Don’t Stop Movin’; Bring It All Back; Two In A Million; These Are The Days; Have You Ever; Alive; Reach; Never Had A Dream Come True; S Club Party

Bookending The Good Times Tour setlist with 2nd single and number 2 hit S Club Party gives the perfect idea of the vibe aimed for and achieved here.

• Read on for reasons including how presenting as S Club 5 inevitably invites Steps comparisons

It’s finally Friday night, we’re getting ready everybody ’cause here we go to ‘push the ceiling’, to paraphrase the song’s genius lyrical joyousness.

Sadly we don’t get the S Club Party rap describing the band doubtless because Hannah (‘screamin’ out for more’) Spearritt is preparing for ITV’s Dancing On Ice and Paul (‘getting down on the floor’) Cattermole, onscreen main picture above, died by natural causes aged just 46 this year shortly after his band announced this reunion tour.

Presenting as S Club 5 inevitably evokes rival boy/girl group Steps who we saw at this very location in 2021 but remaining members Jo, Bradley, Rachel, Jon and Tina lack the purpose of H and co who seem invigorated by his coming out and revel in the camp of their back catalogue and Melodifestivalen-inspired quality of much of their new material.

S Club 7 debuted in 1999 and had number 1 singles including Bring It All Back, Never Had A Dream Come True, Don’t Stop Movin’ and Have You Ever.

New single These Are The Days is a tribute to Paul, was a song of the week for us in August and provides a fitting not mawkish moment to nostalgically acknowledge and pay tribute to him.

These Are The Days was penned by the team originally behind the band including Cathy Dennis and is an impish, Monkees-like pure pop number that reminds of the band’s brilliant past but also serves as a beautiful way to remember Cattermole.

He quit S Club 7 in 2002 to rejoin his school metal band Skua although they failed to secure a record deal. The band was renamed S Club but split a year later. They reunited in 2015 for the Bring It All Back tour which included 2 nights at the 02 in London.

There’s so much speculation around the band, currently why Spearritt is not touring with them, that it seems very on brand of them to display so little personality when performing and just to give us a greatest hits set which, even at 17 songs and one repeat in 100 minutes, seems designed with precision to give us everything – and no more – of what we’re expecting from the band.

It’s over 20 years since their chart-topping days but S Club 2023 executes its bangers exquisitely.

The yearning melancholy of Have You Ever spurs tears, Don’t Stop Movin’ does what it says on the tin and Bring It All Back as a theme for the evening is very much mission accomplished.

The presentation however lacks frills, is without onstage band and that’s very much why this reunion is job done yet feels very much like the Easy Jet reunion version to Steps’ triumphant British Airways.

• Main picture via Facebook courtesy S Club Tickets
• Have you seen an S Club show before or heard an S Club 7 song? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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