So I went to see Danish 90s pop sensation Aqua.
Live.
I went to see them playing their music live. In a venue. In front of people. People who deliberately went to that venue to see them play their music live.
This is something that I did.
Ironic nostalgia tours are so hot right now. Bizarrely, as live music venues around the country are shutting up shop and festivals are struggling to appease punters’ expectations of seeing big names like Florence Welch perform alongside Jay-Z and Kanye West with The Beatles as a backing band and Thom Yorke riding an elephant as support, business is booming for reformed shitty 90s acts, provided they’re prepared to tour to Newcastle. This year we’ve already had the The Vengaboys, Aqua and The Cranberries through (plus the cast of American Pie were here and that was fully weird and stuff), and now we can all “look forward” to the likes of Eiffel 65, S Club 7, The Backstreet Boys and New Kids On The Block in the coming months.
(Incidentally, there actually is a party like an S Club party and it’s called your office Christmas party where everyone’s trying to drink away the haunting spectre of unfulfilled dreams.)
Having said that – Aqua were pretty shittingly awesome. Taking themselves mildly seriously with a live band, black gothic outfits and chains and a lot of yelling out “SYDNEY – DO YOU LIKE HOUSE MUZIK??” to an enthusiastic crowd of shameless twentysomethings and bellowing drag queens, the four-piece were just…fun. Ridiculous, stupid fun. They powered through everything from Barbie Girl to Candyman to Roses Are Red to Turn Back Time with aplomb, but it wasn’t just the classics; we also got to taste the delights of their 2011 record Megalomania (which is something that happened, apparently), including No Party Patrol, containing timeless lyrics like “Hands up, here we go / Down the drain, getting low / We gonna tear this house down, right? / Use it up, turn it on / Let it out, in the sun / We gonna rock this place / So let me see your hands!”.
Heavy.
I think my favourite part was when back-up “talker” René Dif made the “two in the pink, one in the stink” gesture for the 14th time and was quite clearly very happy with himself for having done so.
I had a great time. And I will no doubt be attending the S Club 7 show because I genuinely think Bring It All Back is one of the greatest pop songs ever written, and I might go see Eiffel 65, if only to see what desperation personified looks like.
I don’t know if the 90s revival is, like, a “good” thing for humanity or whatever, but I have to say I’m enjoying the ride for now.
Just to be clear, though: I got a free ticket to Aqua. I wouldn’t pay for that shit.