DUBLIN (REUTERS) – Fans from near and far got what they really really really wanted on Friday (May 24) night when the ultimate 1990s girl band, the Spice Girls, opened their long awaited reunion tour at last in Dublin.
“We have been fans for 20 years at least…but we have only been to see impersonators. This is our first time with the real live Spice Girls,” said Erica Rozario, 32, from Toronto, in Baby Spice-esque pigtails and a Scary Spice leopard-skin top.
“Are we excited? We’re off the scale!” The British pop group, which shot to global fame telling you what they “really really want” in their bouncy debut single Wannabe in 1996, announced their reunion tour last year.
Melanie Brown (Scary Spice), Geri Horner (Ginger Spice), Melanie Chisholm (Sporty Spice) and Emma Bunton (Baby Spice) will play 13 dates over the next few weeks, starting with Dublin on Friday before performing in cities around Britain.
The fifth member, Victoria Beckham, now a successful fashion designer and part of a global celebrity family brand with soccer-player husband David, is not joining them but wished“good luck to the girls” on Instagram on Friday.
“TODAY IS THE DAY!” the band wrote on their Twitter page, with a poster for the Spice World tour showing most gigs, including Friday’s and the last three in London, as sold-out.
Fans, many dressed in the girls’ signature outfits, swarmed around Croke Park, Ireland’s largest stadium.
“It’s 21 years in the making. I saw them on TV in 1998 and cried because I couldn’t go,” said 32-year old fan Aisling Leahy. Her brother Emmet, 27, said he was devastated his “idol”Posh was not performing.
But Mandy Phelan, 23, who was walking to the stadium in a short Union Jack dress and orange platform boots, was less fussed: “We’re not mad on Posh, to be honest. If they were missing Baby or Ginger that would be a problem,” she said.
She added: “It’ll be 90s nostalgic great.”
The 13-date tour is the latest reunion for the band which broke up in 2000. They reunited for a tour in 2007-2008 and also performed at the closing ceremony for the 2012 London Olympics.
Earlier this week, Brown told fans she had suffered a health scare from inflamed eyes. Sharing a picture of a bandaged eye, she said she now had to get “a very cool Scary eye patch”.
Thank you so much for all the lovely support and messages I’ve had about my eye. Just so you know the real truth. I had an awful experience last week when I went blind in my right eye and my left eye went blurry. Even though the stupid press said I’m ok and this has happened to me many times before, just to be clear I was NOT ok and this has NEVER EVER happened to me before,so who every is selling this story “a close reliable source” is full of BS and needs to get there silly facts right big time,I was actually in a lot of pain and very very scared but thanks to the incredible eye specialists in A&E at London’s Moorfields Hospital and after at Luton and Dunstable University Hospital I was diagnosed by and eye specialist with severe IRITIS in my right eye and UVEITIS in my left eye.I’m taking multiple prescription heavy duty eye drops and other medication the dr gave me that I have to take every day to keep the inflammation under control,Also I’m being so well looked after by Team Spice special thanks to our paramedics too!!im still dealing with it and will be fir the next 3/4 months to fully get it under control but I’m no longer worried that my condition will get worse. My only problem now is I have to find a very cool Scary eye patch. Does anyone – apart from Madonna – know where I can get one ?? #eyepatch Pls #takingcareofme thank you #nhs ??
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“I can’t tell you how excited I am about getting this tour on the road!” Bunton wrote on Instagram on Thursday beside a picture of herself at Dublin’s Croke Park stadium.
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