5ive at EP2017: Like three lads doing karaoke at a stag

5ive

Electric Ireland Throwback Stage

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They were 5ive bad boys with the power to rock you but now they’re more like three lads who ended up doing karaoke at a stag weekend.

Electric Picnic 2017: Reviews from Day Two

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Electric Picnic style: ‘Glitter. Short shorts. Fishnets. Nipples.’

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Electric Picnic day two: ‘Have you done the mushrooms already?’

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The backflipping painters and decorators are minus the insane spark of Abz and the muscle of ex-plumber Jay (who possibly had a better gig attending to some woman's flooded basement.) It's Ritchie, ladies favourite Scott and shy Sean, the Karl Pilkington twin who awkwardly shuffles around the stage looking like he wants to be anywhere else. This feeling only intensifies when the backing track plays We Will Rock You twice and he backs away searching for an emergency exit, his eyebrows a knotted question mark.

Showman Ritchie with a selection of rictus grins and air guitar moves styles it out vamping a couple of lines of the Outhere Brothers before If Ya’ Getting Down kicks in. Unlike S Club Party, it feels like the assembled members of 5ive fully realise that this isn’t the Smash Hits dream they imagined.

They trawl through the hits from Slamdunk the Funk to Just Dance as though they are calculating what a new conservatory would cost them. Who could blame them? This kind of nostalgia has a certain shelf-life and the chart-cream that was Simon Cowell’s boyband has truly curdled.

In three words: Bad bad boys

If you like this: go find some karaoke somewhere and do a better job.