British pop group the Spice Girls are to reform for a world tour spreading their ”girl power” message — including a stop in Cape Town — but it will only be a one-off event.
The 1990s all-female band, one of the most successful acts in pop-music history, will play 11 dates in cities on six continents in December this year and January next year.
Victoria Beckham, Geri Halliwell, Melanie Brown, Melanie Chisholm and Emma Bunton appeared together at a press conference in London to break the news, a move pre-empted by an announcement on their website.
”We wanted to say thank you to our fans. It just feels very right for us,” said Chisholm.
Beckham, wife of former England football captain David Beckham, said there will be a ”huge crèche” provided to accommodate the seven children the women will have produced by then. ”Our priority is going to be our families. We want to have fun. That’s one of the many reasons for this, for our children to see what we used to do,” she said.
The tour is a one-off, the band said, stressing they will not be reuniting for good.
”Posh”, ”Ginger”, ”Scary”, ”Sporty” and ”Baby”, as they were known, added they will not be performing at Sunday’s memorial concert for the late Princess Diana in London because Bunton is about to give birth.
First stop on the tour is Los Angeles on December 7. It will then go to Las Vegas, New York, London, Cologne, Madrid, Beijing, Hong Kong, Sydney and Cape Town before ending at Buenos Aires on January 24 2008.
With organisers expecting high demand for tickets, fans face putting their names into a lottery for the chance to see the group, although the website adds that extra dates may still be announced.
The Spice Girls sold more than 50-million records worldwide and scored nine British number-one singles in the 1990s.
They formed in 1994 after their management company placed an advertisement in a newspaper for performers. Their first hit, Wannabe in 1996, was followed by a string of others including Stop, Spice Up Your Life and Say You’ll Be There.
The group became icons of ”Cool Britannia” — Britain’s booming popular culture scene in the late 1990s — and met figures including Nelson Mandela, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles, whose bottom Halliwell pinched.
The five coined the phrase ”girl power”, a never fully defined concept that encouraged their mainly teenage and pre-teenage female fans to be more assertive. They also spawned a vast range of marketing spin-offs, from their 1997 movie Spiceworld to chocolate, dolls and deodorant.
The band’s death knell sounded in 1998, when Halliwell quit, but they only formally split up in 2001. By then, though, all of the group had forged successful, although short-lived, solo careers.
Beckham was the only member of the group not to secure a British number one on her own.
But today, she is by far the best known of the group — the British press features almost daily stories, many hostile, about ”Posh” and her husband, who will move clubs from Real Madrid to LA Galaxy in the United States within days.
Brown, meanwhile, has also been back in the media limelight recently because of a paternity battle with Hollywood actor Eddie Murphy, whom she claims is the father of her baby daughter, Angel.
The Spice Girls’ announcement comes after another 1990s teen band, Take That, successfully reformed last year, although without founder member Robbie Williams. — Sapa-AFP