Melanie C aka Sporty Spice was always the powerhouse of the Spice Girls – the one doing backflips in crop tops and belting out girl power anthems. She brought the athletic edge to the fab five that dominated the 90s pop scene.
As part of the Spice Girls she helped sell over 100 million records worldwide, and gave us timeless hits like Wannabe or Spice Up Your Life. Everybody knew she was the one with the serious pipes, and she went on to show them off solo as well, with hits like Never Be the Same Again, and I Turn to You. Her own sound was mixing pop, rock and dance with confidence and soul.
She of course gave the audience all the biggest favorite tunes when she played at the Vi älskar 90- & 00-talet festival in Stockholm. She also showed that her fitness game is still unmatched, living up to her Sporty title and looking very fit in every sense of the word.
The Swedish summer weather was not the best during the festival day and while the raining had taken a break ahead of Mel C‘s show-time, it started to rain again while she was on stage. But she was a good sport about it and told the audience she was happy to be back in Stockholm after such a long time, and said she would rather be singing in the rain for us than be at Mel B’s third wedding, which was on the same day. Posting photos of the show afterwards, she did say things got a bit soggy.
Her time-slot at the festival was rather early in the evening at 7.15pm, even though she was clearly the brightest shining star of the line-up, mostly consisting of one or two hit wonders of the 1990s and 2000s. Being a football fan like her, I was pretty sure that was due to her wanting to catch the England – France game at Women’s EURO later that evening, so I decided to follow her lead and head home to cheer on the Lionesses as the rain was still pouring down. Didn’t want to catch a cold and ruin my cameras, and didn’t want to come down from that cloud nine she had put me on…
All the photos © Nina Uddin
