Associated album Spice
Spiceworld | Date(s) 12, 13 October 1997 | |
 | ||
Venue Abdi İpekçi Arena
Istanbul, Turkey | ||
Girl Power! Live in Istanbul was a two-night concert by British girl group the Spice Girls. The concerts, which were organized by Pepsi as part of the group's sponsorship deal, were performed at the Abdi İpekçi Arena in Istanbul, Turkey on 12 and 13 October 1997.
Contents
Background
Prior to the concerts, the Spice Girls held a press conference in Istanbul on 31 May 1997 to promote their first live show, in association with Pepsi as its official sponsor. The show was split up into 5 parts with a costume change at each one. The stage consisted of a ramp leading down to the main stage. There were two staircases at the far right and left of the stage that lead to smaller platform stages. There was a small runway at the center of the main stage. The band was located at the bottom right and left of the ramp. There was a grid with the letters S-P-I-C-E on the left of the stage. There was also a large screen at the back of the stage that would rise and lower. It was used at the start of show. The Girls would enter the stage as it rose. During an interview, the girls explained that the screen broke loose while rising right at the start of the show. The girls also revealed that the screen almost hit them.
Broadcast
In the UK, the concert was broadcast on ITV on 25 December 1997 under the title "Spice Up Your Christmas!".
In the US, the full concert was first aired on January 17, 1998 at 9 p.m. (E.T.) on Showtime Channel in a pay-per-view event. The broadcast was titled Spice Girls In Concert Wild!
The concert was aired again in the US on Fox Family Channel on Sunday, August 16, 1998 at 6:00 PM. The broadcast was titled Spice Girls—Wild! in Concert and featured trivia before and after commercials and backstage footage in addition to the set list. The show was two hours in length with advertisements and managed to receive a 1.8 Household rating when it aired despite being up against a four-hour Spice Girls MTV special and a different pay-per-view Spice Girls concert airing the same weekend. All songs from the set list except for "Naked" were aired during the broadcast.
Set list
Act 1:
- "If U Can't Dance"
- "Who Do You Think You Are" (Intro contains samples of "Diva" by Club 69)
- "Something Kinda Funny"
- "Saturday Night Divas"
- "Say You'll Be There"
- "Step to Me"
Act 2:
- "Naked" (Intro contains excerpts from the film Batman Forever)
Act 3:
- "2 Become 1"
- "Stop"
- "Too Much"
Act 4:
- "Spice Up Your Life"
- "Love Thing"
- "Mama"
Encore:
- "Move Over"
- "Wannabe"
Video release
Following the concert, a VHS of the concert was released but did not include all of the songs on the set list, omitting "Something Kinda Funny", "Saturday Night Divas", "Stop", "Too Much", "Love Thing" and "Mama". The VHS, however, includes interviews with the girls and backstage footage. Although the original concert was completely live, studio vocals were dubbed into several songs for the video version of the performance.
A DVD of the concert was made available in the UK on December 10, 2007 to coincide with the release of the Greatest Hits album and their reunion Return of the Spice Girls tour. It features the "Girl Talk" documentary, a countdown to the concert, and the 9-song concert, as previously available on VHS.