Take That, Wembley Stadium, July 5th.

Take That return with Robbie Williams! We come to the 4^th sold out date of 6 of their “Progress” tour; there stands the biggest boy band probably on the planet. Everyone had told me how good they would be live and how lucky I am but unfortunately I feel like they didn’t exceed their expectations with me.

The band come out originally as the 4 piece (without Robbie Williams) and started with “Rule The World” this was a good starting song and got good feedback from the crowd, most of them being screaming middle-age women.  Any gig that sells out Wembley Stadium is going to be a special one, so as much as I think Take That disappointed me, it was still a very special night. However I think Take That are better suited at somewhere like the O2 Arena, I just think Wembley Stadium is more of a rock anthems Arena rather than a cheesy number one hits venue. As Wembley Stadium is so big and every fan pretty much knew the words to every song this caused a good atmosphere. It rained when support act “Pet Shop Boys” were on and through most of the Take That set, people would argue that Wembley Stadium should have a roof I disagree I think it would only add to an atmosphere.  The rain also caused cheesy statements from the boys like “It’s raining but that’s not going to stop us having a good time, is it?” obviously me being the only one in the crowd who doesn’t love that and shout back “No!” The set up and lighting of the stage was magnificent and was defiantly worth the money Take That paid for it. The theme of the tour obviously is “Progress” and to represent that there was this enormous robot that very slowly stood up and then eventually walked forward and even waved at the end, Take That sung on his hand every now and then, it looked brilliant though. The lights and video were used very well; the lights being used best when spotlights were on Take That as they were playing their oldies on the piano. This was probably most people’s favourite part of the evening; it was the most disappointing for me. They played all their best songs in this small medley however only reaching the end of the first chorus. It was disappointing because these are the songs that practically made them famous. My personal favourite by Take That is “Only Takes a Minute” ironically this was only played for about a minute. This was very disappointing for me. They also had dancers and even had a dance of with each other; this made me feel more uncomfortable than anything as they were severely embarrassing themselves. The sound was good and the boy band sounded good vocally, when they sung, but the backing tracks were maybe a bit loud making it easier for the band to look like they’re miming and not sing on parts, which annoyed me, I don’t know how people can be considered good live without singing that much. Everyone had said in interviews and reviews that Robbie Williams would be the highlight of the show, I disagree massively; he barely sung and just acted like a complete idiot. He made the crowd sing most of the words to every song, the best part of his set was when he slipped in Lou Reed’s classic “Take a Walk on The Wild Side.” I think Robbie Williams just needs to be reminded that he is in a boy band and he isn’t some hardcore rock musician with a punk attitude.  “Angels” was still special, I guess it was always going to be, crowd sung nearly every word, but it was okay for him to do that with this song, the atmosphere was immense.  The highlight of the evening in my eyes was “Pray”, this song sounded best vocally and is my favourite Take That song (they played in full). This caused a great dance motion from the crowd. “Relight My Fire” was also very good, this was always going to be a good song live and caused the best dance moves of the evening. The set up for this song was good, it obviously involved a lot of fire and you could actually feel hot air blow towards you, it was clever.  The most intelligent thing Take That did was the way they set out their set list, by having Take That without Robbie first, then Robbie solo, then the band back together. It was just annoying when Robbie Williams was hugging them and saying “we’re friends again” when clearly he’ll just leave them again after this tour.

I think for the screaming women, and men, they couldn’t have done no more and they would have loved it no matter how bad they were however they just didn’t do it for me. Partly because they were built up so much to being so good live and they just disappointed me.  Pet Shop Boys were the support artist and I couldn’t have thought of a better support artist, they were incredible, they even played my favourite “Suburbia” unfortunately for Take That being my favourite song of the evening live.

Rating: 6/10