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The Spice Girls held two concerts in Virginia during their 1998 Spiceworld World Tour.

The first  was June 21st, 1998 at the Nissan Pavilion in Manassas, VA. It is listed on their tour program as Washington, DC but many bands list the Nissan Pavilion that way because it is only about a five minute drive from DC.

I wasn't at this concert, but by the kind permission of the author, Melissa Ruggieri, I am able to reprint here the original review of this concert that appeared in the  Richmond Times-Dispatch:

*ACTUALLY, SPICE GIRLS KNOW HOW TO DO A SHOW *


It's benign. It's lots of fun, and it attracts more than 20,000 squealing females under 12.

Is it a massive summer camp? Nah. Just a Spice Girls concert.
Thirty minutes before the British phenoms were scheduled to take the stage at the Nissan Pavilion on Sunday, the tribe of little Spices stuffing the audience decided patience wasn't a virtue.

"This is so evil!" screeched one preteen, who couldn't bear waiting through one more makeup commercial projected on video screens.

"Spice! Spice! Spice! Spice!" echoed through the amphitheater as wee feet pounded the concrete floor in rhythm and a shameless video hawking Spice-a-phanalia blanketed the screen.

Suddenly, houselights dimmed, eardrums were pierced, and the red curtain-the only thing separating the rapturous crowd from their icons - began to rise slowly. And more slowly. And . . . oops, the curtain stopped rising, even though the six-piece band had slammed into an opening funk groove.

Frazzled stage hands bolted front and center, frantically rolling the curtain, quickly tossing it off the stage a split second before The Spice Girls descended a set of metallic stairs.

All wiggles and waves, the Girls spread out across the stage, each devoting a few seconds to a section of the audience - an audience almost in anaphylactic shock now that the Fab Four were actually in the flesh.

Say what you want (what you really, really want) about The Spice Girls. They know how to put on a show.

On only the fifth date of their American tour, glitches such as the stuttering curtain are expected. Far more impressive was the rest of the two-hour-plus concert - a slick, stylish, clever affair that proved the Girls are talented, if limited.

The recent departure of flame-haired Geri "Ginger Spice" Halliwell didn't leave a void in the Girls' presentation, mostly because they've astutely carved such distinct personalities with individual capabilities.

Melanie "Scary Spice" Brown quickly established herself the most fluid and natural dancer; Melanie "Sporty Spice" Chisholm was easily the most powerful vocalist; and Emma "Baby Spice" Bunton (the crowd favorite) provided sweet harmonies and a girl-next-door likeability. As for Victoria "Posh Spice" Adams, well, she was basically window dressing, there to show off her svelte legs and give the men in the audience a reason to whistle.

But Halliwell still made a few cameo appearances. Since she bailed so close to the start of the tour, there wasn't enough time to expunge her from video snippets beamed on a giant video screen sandwiched among the cylandric structures and futuristic lights onstage. Her likeness remains a fixture on all of the tour extras - T-shirts, tour books, stickers, hats - at least for now. Looks as if there is some legal wrangling in the Girls' future.

While the Girls' sales figures and radio popularity are clearly indisputable, it remained to be seen whether they could hack it in a live situation.

The pleasant surprise was yes.

During the opening songs, "Who Do You Think You Are" and "Do It," it was difficult to tell how much was live and how much Memorex. But by the time they reached the melodic ballad, "Too Much," on which each Girl handled a verse or two, it was evident they were indeed singing live - and well. Particularly Chisholm, who dotted the Motown-lite perkiness of "Stop" with some impromptu vocal acrobatics.

Throughout the evening, the Girls relied on numerous costume changes (lots of sequins and velvet), a few props, and the emergence of the Spice Boys to keep the concert electrifying. The Boys - bald, muscled dancers - arrived during "Do It," dressed inoutfits identical to the Girls' and willingly bowed and danced at their command. Now that's Girl Power.

Amid the hit parade of singles from their two, multimillion selling albums, the Girls also tossed in a few well-chosen covers, including the Supremes' "Baby Love" (appropriately started by Bunton with the opening, "baby, baby" line).

A highlight of the set came when the two Melanie's commanded the stage and ripped into a roof-raising version of the Aretha Franklin/Annie Lennox anthem, "Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves." It's doubtful any kid in the audience had a clue about the song or its message, but it brought the house down regardless. The Mels also appeared to relish in being unleashed from the frothy pop that is the rest of their catalog.

The closing third of the concert featured a typically raucous take on "Wannabe," complete with Chisholm flipping across the stage, the high-spirited fiesta partying that is "Spice Up Your Life" and the kitchy, frisky disco of "Never Give Up On the Good Times."

Ending the extravaganza with a leap-on-the-seats version of Sister Sledge's "We Are Family," the Girls politely waved to the crowd, hugged each other and disappeared behind the video screen.

They probably won't be around into the millennium, but fans and followers can always say it was fun while it lasted.

copyright 1998 Richmond Times-Dispatch

The second of their Virginia concerts was June 24th, 1998 at the GTE Virginia Beach Amphitheater in Virginia Beach, VA (now called the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater ).  I was lucky enough to have very close seats for this show.

Here is a close up of my ticket stub:


By the crude diagram that I have drawn and included below,
you will see that even though I was 3rd row,
no one was seated in front of me:
(the red slashes are our seats)
Here is a photo from the Virginia Beach concert:
copyright 1998 Richmond Times-Dispatch

Here is a portion of my diary entry from the day my husband and I went to the concert:

"....At 4:30 we left to find the amphitheater. We took the Indian River Road exit. The venue was miles farther than we thought it would be. Decided to pass time at Target. Saw some young girls in Spice Girls T-shirts there. At about 5:15 we went to the amphitheater. Had to stand in a VERY long and winding line of people,but luckily not for very long. I heard one girl say to another, "Who do you most want to see?" the other girl said, "Geri" and the first one told her, "She quit" so the second girl said, "Oh, OK, then Baby." I thought this was great because it really didn't seem to matter that Geri wasn't going to be there. James went in first and when he presented his ticket to the ticket taker she said  "were you dragged here?" We Looked at the souvenirs. Bought program for $15 and stickers for $5. Went to our seats which were listed as row C, but there was no one in front of us. Had to listen to some loud dance music including Barbie Girl by Aqua. We were afraid it would be too loud because we were right in front of the speakers, but it wasn't. A DJ from z104 was making everyone from the various sections of Hampton Roads scream and she forgot Norfolk and James has been offended on their behalf ever since. About 1/2 an hour before the show was to start  we had to watch some video commercials for Revlon, Ponds Clean Pore Strips, Domino Sugar, and Aprilia perfume. They showed them over and over again for about an hour. The show began a little after Eight. I was really kinda mad that Geri had quit just 10 days before our show, but when they opened with If You Can't Dance and Who do You Think You Are I didn't even miss her. The other four girls were so in sync with each other. I really didn't miss her constantly screaming, "Girl Power" every ten seconds.  Other songs were Wannabe, Say You'll Be There, 2 become 1, Mama, Naked, Spice up Your Life, Stop, Too Much, Move Over, Do It, Denying, Viva Forever, The Lady is A Vamp,The Walk Of Life (that they put "Va. Beach" into), Never Give Up on The Good Times, We Are Family, Sisters Are Doing It For tTemselves (a Mel B. and Mel C. duet) and Where Did our Love Go which Emma sang solo to a young boy. During Naked they were sitting in chairs so that it looked like they were naked. They had some buff, bald, male dancers called the Spice Boys. The video cameraman kept getting in my line of view so James switched seats with me so that I could see better. I made eye contact with all of the Girls except Victoria. She played to the cameraman instead of the audience and that's why I was never able to make eye contact with her. (I read in an interview later that she does that on purpose so that people in the grass seats will feel like she is singing to them.) She had her hair cut short and James said, "Damn, Posh looks good!" The video screen had a man doing sign language. He was rather silly looking when he tried to dance during some of the songs' instrumental breaks. During Mama the video screen showed pictures of them as little girls. The show had a 30 minute intermission. During Spice Up Your Life  Mel B. put on fake hair horns like the ones she had on in the movie, but when the song was over she threw them into the crowd. She said, "this humidity is not doing much for my hair." The set was designed to look like they had arrived on a space ship and at the end they were called back to the ship and they pretended like they didn't want to go. Some home made T-shirts at the show were "Marry Me, Baby" which she saw and read on stage and one I saw said "Mr. Posh - in my dreams".  They put on a very good show. They were very energetic and showed lots of enthusiasm."

One of the stickers I bought at the concert.