Girls Aloud at Brighton and Hove Pride 2024 review: ‘One of the best Pride gigs this reviewer has ever seen’

“Why don’t you fool me, feed me, say you need me – without wicked gaaaaames?” I’ve always loved ‘Biology’, but it’s only, like, my sixth favourite Girls Aloud song. So I was taken aback by the rush of pure joy I felt last night when, during the girls’ headline performance at Brighton and Hove Pride, during that song’s energetic, swing-style opener, Nadine unleashed her soaring, draaaaawling vocal on the crowd.

“Come on and hold me, hug me, say you’ll love me, and not my dirty braaaaain!” she bellowed, arrestingly higher in the mix than on record. And to think, this was just the start of a uniquely structured song with not one but two choruses!

‘Biology’s’ whimsy stopped me dead in my tracks in 2005, and so too last night. The same with ‘The Show’, a surprising choice of opener: a light, fluffy moment in the girls’ discography soon eclipsed on release by gaudy follow-up ‘Love Machine’. But the setlist works no matter how you arrange it, because the Girls Aloud singles collection is a work of art that’s more than the sum of its parts.

Most GA songs, starting with their plot twist of a dark debut ‘Sound of the Underground’, are so distinctive, they instantly jog the memory. Even the ones I don’t like, I still know inside out, like ‘Something New’ and ‘Can’t Speak French’. Because all are essential to the girls’ story, and all soundtracked the youths of the 20-and-30-something gays in the audience. This is evidently true of former Years & Years star Olly Alexander, who joined the girls on stage for the oh-so-elegant ‘The Loving Kind’, delivering a sweet, restrained vocal and looking in his element.

It’s surreal to see five figures on stage after Girls Alouder Sarah Harding died in 2021. Her presence, though, is felt throughout, most movingly when her isolated vocals are repeated over and over at the end of ‘Whole Lotta History’, exalted via a swooning instrumental crescendo. Her face frequently fills the big screen. At one point, Kimberley turns around and sings and dances directly to her; a moment she may not have anticipated would be caught on camera and projected on the side screen. A relaxed, unflappable performer, she looks momentarily awestruck, much like the audience. It’s very humanising.

They’re a member down, but the band are hardly weakened. Nadine, of course, is an unstoppable force on nature. For her wildly off-piste runs on ‘Long Hot Summer’, I wrote the following notes in my phone: ‘punk’ and ‘sounds like a guitar’. But all four girls, now women in their late 30s and early 40s, have developed stronger voices with age. Certainly pop veteran Cheryl, who really hits her stride in places and creates a robust base for harmonies along with Kimberley.

Nicola, though, is a revelation. She’s poles apart from her shy 00s persona, with a technical prowess that could see her suited to jazz and blues, ad libbing with abandon over songs on which she previously played a smaller role. Her polished poise is reflected in her divergent stage look: while the others opt for gold warrior-princess-style basques – fun, but ridiculous – Nicola, in her draped gold sweater, with her tumbling hair, looks like a 60s supermodel.

If she and the others miss the occasional note, it’s only because they’re a) dancing their socks off and b) in a safe space, embraced by an adoring crowd who would rather see them having fun than being perfect.

That they do. Remember Cheryl’s campy facial expressions in the ‘Love Machine’ video? They’re out in force tonight, and irresistibly charming. She literally growls the “kitty cats” line. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a performer interact with the crowd quite this much, making hand hearts and blowing kisses at every given opportunity. Nadine’s stage presence, meanwhile, is so charismatic that it borders on comedy, all hilariously simpering affectations and lashings of beautiful Irish accent. Hers is one of the most lovable British pop personalities of the century.

This was a long, generous set, which even found time for album tracks and a cover of Madonna’s ‘Material Girl’. I didn’t even check the time for the first hour. A thousand hair flicks later, we reached the home stretch. While the sequinned ballgowns reappear for closer ‘The Promise’, the exhilarating high point that precedes it is actually ‘Jump’, a song epitomising pure happiness that indeed ‘jumped’ to higher levels with the detonation of a confetti blaster that made my heart skip a beat.

How pop music can make a crowd this high is beyond my comprehension. As such, this band will be a subject of study for music scholars for years to come.