In the fifteen minutes leading up to the arrival of Five this evening the audience, almost exclusively female save a couple of self conscious fathers and an army of bored looking security guards, are treated to a video montage peppered with shots of Five, Robbie, David Beckham and assorted members of the Backstreet Boys in all their Athena poster boy glory.
The hysterical reaction that greets each image could not have been more pronounced had the aforementioned stars individually taken to the stage and personally addressed each of the audience members by name. By the time the video screens fill with images of a leather clad, motorbike straddling Five, looking for all the world like the entirely plausible stars of a cheap aftershave commercial, it becomes patently clear that the self-styled bad boys of British pop hardly have their work cut out as regards generating a positive reaction from tonight's audience.
Indeed, by the time the band finally appear in the flesh, anticipation of their arrival is such that a full on stage invasion seems to be a tantalisingly realistic prospect. Five's only problem, it would appear, is to work out a way of sustaining the crowd's interest throughout the concert, something that they manage tonight with mixed success.
Five's undoubted strength lies in the enigmatic delivery of their endearingly nonsensical hi-energy plastic rap/pop fusion. It is to the band's considerable credit that in an age of identikit conveyor belt pop acts they have managed to establish something approaching their own musical style. When this works live the results can be genuinely exciting. The audience response to 'Keep On Moving', for example, resulting as it does in a sea of well-rehearsed jiggling shoulders and flailing arms, is something very difficult to imagine the likes of Westlife being able to muster, even if they ever deign to leave the comfort of their luxuriously cushioned stools for, heaven forbid, anything resembling a non ballad.
Even when the quality of the songs wavers, Five are frequently able to rely on many of the old arena concert audience manipulation stand-by's to keep things ticking over nicely. Extravagant pyrotechnics, trap doors in the stage floor, multiple costume changes (including one where they re-appear looking like a posse of unusually energetic beige canvas clad municipal park keepers), and crass compliments (sample "I was just thinking during that last song what great people Five fans really are" cue avalanche of applause) are all wheeled out tonight to keep the audience interest quotient up.
The cracks only begin to appear when the band's set strays from their excellent string of singles into bland album track territory. The Scott and Richie penned 'You Make Me A Better Man' is indicative of several occasions tonight when, in spite of the dutiful arm waving from large sections of the audience, there is a tangible failure to generate the kind of atmosphere that their ostentatious entrance had initially promised.
That said, the overblown glory of the trench coat adorned finale 'We Will Rock You' takes us right back to where we came in. Ear bleeding hysteria and pre teen exuberance in its purest undistilled form, subtly bulldozing away any negative thoughts about Five's ability to work a room forever.
IMAGES: DEBBIE SMYTH
