Oh girls.
It was my third time seeing Sugababes and eventhough the first time in 2022 will always have a special place in my heart for many reasons, yesterday in Germany was the best night out of the three for me easily when it’s all said and done. Keisha (on a totally artificial note, how beautiful is she happen to be?) and Siobhan sounded and looked more relaxed and smiley than ever and Mutya was flirty and hilarious as always. She also took a group photo on her phone with a few of us outside the venue after the show!
I was travelling and seeing them on my own for the first time (as
@OlliMaus betrayed me and decided going for a different city) so it was a bit different feeling indeed but I met many lovely fans from Germany, Czechia, Poland or a couple who only flew from Florida to see the babes. Some of them even from this very own forum. That power the girls have!
It’s difficult to comment on energy in a venue when you’re at the first row (this slight brag...) and eventhough I thought people were still being invested during the whole gig, the change of atmosphere when "Round Round" started was something beyond description. Berlin went
mental for that song, believe me. Apart from that, other highlights were clearly "No Regrets" (Siobhan!), "Flatline" (this will be probably never topped as their best song for me) and for the first time ever probably it was, well, "Ugly" that moved me. The lack of seeing our "ugly!" faces on the screen due to missing visuals probably helped in this case. The glorious sampled bass going off in "In The Middle" deserves a honorable mention somewhere here too.
Speaking of being moved, Siobhan seemed very touched by the crowd reactions at various points during the night. I always find it funny when somebody say a performer supposedly looked or winked at them because... how can you be so sure they weren’t just vaguely looking your direction dd but I
am pretty sure Siobhan smiled at me right after the beginning and then singing her part in "Flatine" apart from other moments and it just warmed my heart.
And now, I have arrived home in my country and there is a "Taller In More Ways" vinyl waiting in the mailbox?! You can’t make this stuff up. What a suga weekend, really.
During the Q&As they were also asked what is the most difficult song to perform on the tour. Keisha said "Stronger" because of the ad libs which makes sense with the posts above and, to my surprise, Siobhan mentioned, once again, "Flatline" - as they wrote the track in a really high register right before going into full vibrato.
Regarding the underappreciated song, the whole answer was much longer than in the clip posted and it was basically about Keisha explaining having to pay for the song and the video as we knew. Polydor abandonded the three ladies right after singing them as they wanted to make them go more "poppy" - Mutya, Keisha and Siobhan were being compared to another girlband blowing up in circa 2013 by them. Honestly, the whole timeline didn’t make much sense in details to me because she mentioned recording "I Lay Down in Swimming Pool" first and it being leaked (that’s not what happened technically I think...) and radio picking the song up anyway and
then flying to LA to record "Flatline" with literally no label support but maybe it’s me who’s getting it slightly wrong now. Ms Buchanan was speaking very highly about Dev Hynes though - describing him as a person who was always believing in them and the whole bit about him was very heart-warming and made me actually a bit teary honestly as I recognized a bit myself and other fans in that description.
Anyway, excuse me. I’m going to check Rose Gray’s album on Spotify now.