Being old is big business in live music nowadays, in a way it wasn’t even 25 years ago. When Take That were still a boy band in the early 1990s, as opposed to a man band, the idea that in middle age they would be one of the most successful live groups in Britain would have been laughable. Yet here they are, playing eight nights at the O2 Arena, making it a total of 34 shows they have played there since it opened, more than any other act.
Just as fanciful would have been the idea that Pink Floyd’s drummer could put together a group featuring Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet, and tour the world performing only songs Pink Floyd recorded before 1973’s The Dark Side of the Moon, the ones his former bandmates David Gilmour and Roger Waters don’t play. Yet here they are, too.
The two shows are in some ways very similar. In neither instance is there the slightest interest in new music: Take That simply run through their recent greatest-hits album, Odyssey, in order (which is certainly one take on the heritage rock notion of the complete album performance); Mason’s is a delightful time machine to a distant past. In both there’s a very clear admission that these concerts are nostalgia vehicles: Take That come on stage in camped-up early-1990s sportswear; Mason’s group spend much of the set bathed in the oil-on-water projections on the back of the stage. Very 1967.
Take That’s music feels more current, not because they’re younger than Mason, but because their songs were never of a specific moment. Whereas current teen-pop trends always place themselves firmly in the now, Take That’s were always pastiches of classic styles and so were never dependent on context.
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