The staff at the Apollo have been issued with earplugs for tonight's show. And before you insert your own joke about needing them if A1 are playing, it's because of the screaming, OK? The fans never stop, from the moment the house lights go down, until the group leave to the final chorus of 'Take On Me'. The shrieking is a constant accompaniment - at first it's all you can hear, and then it just becomes a background noise. By the time you leave it's become so natural that you wonder where it went.
What exactly A1 have done to inspire such intense devotion is uncertain. Unlike other boy bands, they don't have an expensive stage show there's not even a hint of pyrotechnics - and their costumes are embarrassingly cheap and ill-fitting. The only concession to flash is a video wall which plays their videos. And it seems unlikely the audience are here for the quality of the songs. Though they're not entirely abysmal (the perky, hi-NRG 'Be The First to Believe' is particularly winning), the most flattering description is probably serviceable. They are adequate vehicles for the boys' talents, but they're never going to win an Ivor Novello Award.
And herein lies A1's appeal. In this uncertain world of ours, where members of boy bands have pretensions to solo careers and get engaged, and don't even bother trying to hide it, A1 are a blissfully refreshing throwback to the days when Bros and Take That lived in fear of their managers, and looked for critical acceptance from no-one more discerning than 13 year old girls. If there were moments of the gig that made me cringe (and there were), at least there wasn't a single second of clock-watching.
Defining moments of boyband perfection included the intro over the PA, promising to take us on a journey through space and time. This translated as a jungle curtain, a trip back to the 60s (a Beatles medley and Austin Powers impressions) and a quite mind-bendingly frightening look inside a haunted house. Ben, Paul, Christian and Mark wore skeleton costumes and went wooooh for this one. Add in the continuous girl-baiting banter (Christian: this a song for anyone who could be the girl for me.), jokes so old they were probably passed down from the Bay City Rollers, and the appearance of an audience member on stage, to whom Ben sang 'Like a Rose' (which was a little odd to watch as she was about seven), and it could have been a pantomime.
Pantomime's a simple type of theatre, and A1 are a simple type of band. They've got no illusions about what their fans are here for, as Ben proves when he coyly announces that he's a bit hot in his suit and would we mind terribly if he took some of his clothes off. The hysteria must have got to me, because I found myself booing when the only items removed were his jacket and tie. Frankly, I wasn't expecting to join the screamers, but when you're watching one of the few true successors to the uncomplicated, unpretentious boy bands of the past, it seemed churlish not to.
