Spice Girls Revisited by David Sinclair

Author:David Sinclair [Sinclair, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-85712-111-0
Publisher: Music Sales Limited
Published: 1988-03-18T05:00:00+00:00

Although exhausted and battered by the unforeseen response to the sacking of Fuller, the Girls were now on a mission to prove their detractors wrong. For a while they went into a kind of euphoric overdrive, but it was a weary group of individuals who hauled themselves towards the end of a year in which they had risen from the foothills of pop stardom to the summit of global celebrity. The effort had taken its toll. Now, as well as fulfilling the packed schedule of international commitments that Fuller had bequeathed them – including trips to Italy, France, America, Australia and Brazil – they had to take charge of all the day-to-day management decisions as well. Meetings with lawyers, accountants, record company and press people had to be factored in to the daily whirlwind of travelling and other promotional activities.

“The greatest irony about sacking Simon,” Geri said, “was that it had been triggered by my not being given a week off. Yet since then, we had worked twice as hard to prove that we didn’t need him.”

The last promotional trip of the year was to Manaus, a port at the mouth of the Amazon in northern Brazil. It turned out to be something of a watershed. The trip was set up in much the same way as previous excursions, such as the one to Johannesburg, where a whole continent was effectively serviced in one quick visit. The Girls were never going to be able to visit Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay or wherever. But in order to Spice up those markets, planeloads of competition winners, journalists and other people that needed access to them from all over the South American continent were flown in to Manaus to meet, or at least catch a glimpse of, the Girls. It was a classic example of the Fuller Method whereby the maximum promotional impact is made in the shortest possible space of time. But it required full cooperation and a tremendous, sustained burst of energy from the Girls to produce the desired result. Until then, their collective work ethic and their ability to bounce ideas and enthusiasm off each other had always carried the day. But Manaus was a bridge too far.

The Girls flew in on a private plane from Las Vegas, where they had collected prizes for Best Album and Best Breakthrough Act at the Billboard Awards. Manaus was not the easiest place to get to, and the Girls were already running on empty when they discovered that the hotel they were booked into was well below par. There was no security. Geri complained of reporters and fans “roaming the corridors, knocking on doors,” while Victoria discovered “a graveyard of mosquitos” on the walls of her room. The mayor offered them alternative accommodation on his riverboat tied up on the Amazon, which secured them some privacy, but was hardly an improvement in terms of creature comforts. There were problems with the food and Victoria became ill. At which point the biggest group in the world decided that enough was enough.

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