Melanie C Brings Sugar and Spice and Sweat to Club Soda

As Melanie C started her Sweat World Tour in Montreal, there was an electricity to Club Soda that was tangible. While the show itself was nearly sold out to begin with, few venues are as packed as Club Soda was so early into the night, let alone before the dazzling set from opener Sur Back had even started! With a set full of career-straddling tracks, this sack set up her new album perfectly while equally being a great blend of tracks to pay off fans of her whole solo career.

As Melanie C walked out draped in shadow and a boxer’s robe for the punchy “Undefeated Champion,” you knew there was going to be an energetic theatricality to the night’s events. Throwing off the robe for an equally stunning fitness look, Melanie was the fighter everyone needed to get the party going. With this, she whipped through live debuts of new tracks like “Til It Breaks,” “Attitude” and “Pressure,” bouncing around the stage with the same spirit and joy of that bright-eyed youngster from Whiston. She announced to the eager Montreal crowd that this was, in fact, the live debut of most tracks from the album, and that she was having a secondary flash of realising that in the moment after travelling across the ocean for the tour. Her giddiness to keep things going and the charming nervousness made her all the more endearing to watch, as she constantly took a silly moment to remind us she was incredibly human and vulnerable.

With this shift in tone, she returned for a tender acoustic break in the set, starting off with “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?” and then moving into a full crowd sing-along to the audience-picked “Northern Star.” The intimate way Melanie connected with the crowd and let them add back to the track enhanced the long acoustic break in an otherwise driving club set. And the addition of a cover of Bryan Adams’ “When You’re Gone” felt just right, especially given how ecstatically she yelled, “I couldn’t come to Canada, and not do this.”

The tempo ramped right back up with another costume change, and the volume cranked on “Sweat.” Melanie bounced off the walls, driving every line while also mashing parts of the song up with “Work It” from Montreal’s own Marie Davidson. Going off of “Flick of the Wrist” and “Good for Nothing,” Melanie turned to the crowd and begged for patience as she said, “We’re about to do something we’ve never tried before, so it might be a total disaster.”

Right as her last song was roaring out its finale, she strutted over to her turntables and perfectly transitioned the moment into “The Power” by Snap!, sending the crowd jumping as she dropped a few more smooth bangers from her decks. This cross-fading set her up for a great run of Spice Girls throwbacks revitalized with a lot of unexpected mashups. The crowd was fiending as “Who Do You Think You Are” exploded, with every push and pull of the song sending fans flaring and bodies bumping. The choral chanting during “Spice Up Your Life” was nearly deafening, with every lalala section echoing off the walls. And with the show closing out between new fire starters like “Drum Machine,” and older classics like “I Turn to You” it was a fun way to remind the crowd that this new electronic drive is really just enhancing a feeling that Melanie C has been chasing for years.

Setlist:
Undefeated Champion
Til It Breaks
Emotional Memory
Cashmere
Attitude
Pressure
What Could Possibly Go Wrong? (Acoustic)
Northern Star (Acoustic)
When You’re Gone (Bryan Adams cover) (Acoustic)
Never Be the Same Again (Acoustic)
Sweat
Touch Me (Rui Da Silva feat. Cassandra cover)
One Track Mind
Flick of the Wrist
Good for Nothing

DJ Set interlude:
The Power by Snap!
Who Do You Think You Are (Spice Girls)
Spice Up Your Life (Spice Girls)
Free to Love
Drum Machine

Encore:
A Place Where We Belong
I Turn to You

All photos: Owen Maxwell