Subject: Geri Halliwell @ Astoria 5th June 1999 

Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 08:44:23 PDT 

It was on a Thursday that Emma's workmate at Elizabeth Arden slyly asked 
her "are you excited about today?" 

Okay, cutting to the chase, (as this little question-response went on for 
a while) it eventuated Simone is a big Spice Girls fan and was excitedly 
awaiting her flatmate to come to work after purchasing Geri's first single 
"Look At Me" for her as she couldn't wait !! 

A few days later I caught a flyer for Geri's first public performance at the 
gay night at the Astoria nightclub. I gathered as many cheap entry flyers as 
I could and rounded up the posse. 

On the night we numbered me, Emma, Andrew (cos he likes the Astoria) and 
Simone who was probably most excited about this. I was looking forward to it 
as it would be literally a 'first'. 

The venue normally opens at 11pm so we got there at 10:30pm and there was 
a long line already with a lot of heterosexual couples who obviously have 
come to see Geri as well. In fact some of them have spare flyers so every 
now and then they pass down the line for those who wish to save a few pounds 
on entry. 

After a short wait we get in and as it is the club's birthday bash as we 
ascend the stairs the doorboys put on stringwith a fluorescent plastic 
whistle around our necks ! 

We get in and the floor is quiet so we stand and grab a drink. Then my 
favourite song of THAT moment comes on "Turn Around" by Phats and Small and 
I hit the floor twirling and leaping like a salmon ;-) Andrew joins me and 
after a while the girls do. We stay on the dancefloor and within 20 minutes 
we are completely surrounded by dancers. 10 minutes later I look onto the 
stage and it is a complete heaving mass of dancing guys and gurls. 

For the next 3 hours we stay on the dancefloor surrounded by primadonnas 
and divas when Geri is finally announced. The girls are short but the 100 or 
so people off the stage come down and we move back almost under the 
balconies for the first floor but we still get a good view. 

She sang well much better than I expected she came on and started singing 
wearing green trousers and a pink top, then 6 hunky male dancers came on and 
as the show went on she took off more clothes and so did the guys (tops only 
actually ;-) During the concert she thanks her parents and George and Kenny 
for coming and we look above and they are literally right above us looking 
over the balcony. 

Geri sung 6 songs in total including 'Look At Me' and various others songs 
destined to be singles. As is normal lots of giant balloons rained down to 
end (for us anyway) another good night ! 

We left the venue bleary-eyed at 3am, the streets are packed as usual, 
clubbers and pubbers heading home, deliverymen parked up onto the pavement, 
road cleaners removing the sex cards from the phoneboxes while the 
'cardboys' go round blutaking them up again. For us it would be another hour 
long bus trip through the night to get home with daylight breaking....