Here I am, sobbing primrose.
21 years after Nadine Coyle, Cheryl, Nicola Roberts, Sarah Harding and Kimberley Walsh were voted into a reality TV girl group as the winners of Popstars: The Rivals, after a Guinness World Record-setting run of 20 consecutive Top 10 UK singles, and 11 years after the conclusion of the Ten Tour (as Life Got Cold in the form of a Twitlonger), the Almighty Girls Aloud are returning to us in the form of The Girls Aloud Show, an arena tour of the UK and Ireland between May and June of 2024 celebrating the legacy of Sarah and their music.
Following a panic-inducing tabloid exclusive, and a chaos-causing countdown on social media by each member of The Most Successful Girl Band of the Noughties, the troupe confirmed the incredible news on Wednesday night (November 22) with a brilliantly nostalgic announcement video, a tour poster (the outfits!), and a burst of exclusive interviews with the BBC, British Vogue and The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show.
I’ve read and listened to everything (and you should too), and broken down Everything You Need To Know About the Girls Aloud Reunion.
First, the official statements from each member.
Cheryl: “We all started talking about the possibility of doing something to celebrate Girls Aloud’s 20-year anniversary a few years ago. The anniversary seemed like an obvious thing that we would celebrate. But when Sarah fell ill all priorities changed. She passed away a year before the anniversary and it just didn’t feel right, it felt too soon. But now, I think there is an energy that does makes it feel right. It’s the right time to celebrate Sarah, it’s the right time to celebrate the band and the right time to celebrate the fact we can still do this 21 years later. That’s a big honour in lots of ways.”
Nadine: “Girls Aloud are a band that made such a huge impact on people’s lives. We grew up with the band, but so did so many other people. So for us not to do something again feels like such a shame and a waste. We want to have that moment with fans where we can all enjoy it together.”
Kimberley: “Over the last year, we’ve felt this outpouring of love – obviously towards Sarah, but actually towards all of us as a group. And I guess it’s ignited something in all of us again. It feels like something has changed and it does feel like the right time to celebrate Sarah and the 20-year anniversary that we didn’t celebrate at the time.”
Nicola: “I think what’s really encouraging is that whenever people ask us about reuniting it’s not, “Would you guys ever do it?” but “When are you guys gonna do it?” To know we still have that love from our fans and people who watched us grow up gives us the confidence to do the tour. It will be massive celebration of everything we’ve done up to this point. We want people to leave being like, “Wow, I’ve just had one of the best nights of my life.”
The 20th anniversary tour discussions were taking place with Sarah before her passing in 2021.
“We actually started these discussions with Sarah. Obviously the 20 year anniversary was pending, we all knew it was coming,” Cheryl said on the BBC radio interview.
“We all started having those discussions with her included. The fact that we’re here now and she isn’t here is heartbreaking. Honestly. If I’m honest, it’s never going to be the same, but we’re going to do our very best to keep it magical and keep her magic alive…she’ll be very much a part of the show. She was part of our make-up for 20 years, and that’s not going anywhere. She’ll be there in spirit on stage.”
“It’s hard to talk about it. It’s hard for us to be here without her. It was our 20th anniversary last year but we were in no emotional shape to even contemplate celebrating it at the time. Everything went out the window when we learnt about her diagnosis. We just needed to be there for her and support her as much as we could,” Nicola told British Vogue.
“Sarah’s always going to be such a massive part of Girls Aloud. I think we channelled our grief into all the fundraising we did for The Sarah Harding Breast Cancer Appeal and that helped us a lot. And as tough as it will be, we want to give Sarah her moment on this tour. We need it. The fans need it. She needs it,” Kimberley added.
They’re still deciding how to rearrange the songs, and suggested that Sarah’s original vocals will be used on tour.
“There’s so many things that are just iconically Sarah, that have to remain Sarah. We’re not going to mess with that. I’m not going to start taking over Sarah’s big bits. Girls Aloud wouldn’t be what it was without Sarah and everything she added to it,” Nadine told BBC.
The show is still in early planning stages.
“We’ve had initial meetings, but we haven’t set anything in stone yet,” Nicola said of plotting their run on BBC Radio.
“And we usually, in those initial meetings, we need to be reigned back in,” Kimberley laughed.
“We’re just like ‘We wanna fly! We want to come out on this! We want to be shot out on the stage!'” Nicola added.
Nicola is also seemingly hell-bent on bleeding the budget dry.
“We’ll obviously come up with some spectacular opening, but all my ideas cost billions of pounds, which is the problem,” she told British Vogue.
They’ll be touring with the original Girls Aloud team, including the very excited creative director.
“You know who needed more reigning in? The creative director! Our first meeting, she was really going for it. We were doing some wild things,” Nadine exclaimed in the radio interview.
“She’s always been our creative director. We’ve got all our OG crew. All the team is exactly the same people, which is wonderful. It’s part of our makeup, it’s part of the magic,” Cheryl continued. “But she, especially, is bursting with excitement to get going, and we’re like ‘you might want to reign that one in…'”
“But then you know what happens? When it comes to it, we just want it to be the most amazing, biggest show it could possibly be, and we’re like ‘Yeah, yeah, let’s do it!'” Kimberley laughed.
“She got to the end of her little speech, and she was like ‘so, are you happy?’ And I was like, ‘well, I love how high your ceiling is,'” Nicola added.
The set list is still to be determined.
That said, a press release promises the show will feature “all of the band’s historic pop hits,” including No. 1 smashes “Sound Of The Underground,” “The Promise” and “I’ll Stand By You,” as well as “cast-iron classics” such as “Love Machine,” “Call The Shots,” “Biology,” “Something New” and “The Show.”
Rehearsals for the tour start approximately in April.
“I personally feel like we need more, but these guys are like ‘Nah, we need just a month,'” Nicola amusingly noted in the radio interview.
But don’t worry, they’re preparing their bodies.
“Out of the four, Nadine is the most match-ready, having recently completed a string of solo dates. Cheryl is starting fitness training this month ‘to build up my stamina.’ Kimberley and Nicola have signed up for thrice-weekly pilates classes and physio,” the BBC notes.
The new music report was wrong.
“We couldn’t, because Sarah wouldn’t be included in that newness. This is about celebrating the 20 years we’ve all had. So the tour has got to be inclusive of Sarah because she’s such a massive part of our make-up. It will never feel like the old Girls Aloud again but we’ve reached a point where we feel ready to celebrate all of it. Sarah included,” Cheryl told British Vogue.
“We have so many songs…even to try to decide the setlist is almost impossible. We want to do those first,” Nadine added in the radio interview of the band’s priorities.
The “superhero outfit” music video report was also wrong, and you’d know that if you were a fashionista.
“We shot an advert,” Nicola clarified on-air. “That was our tour commercial. And the tour poster outfits, you could say they’re slightly…I think they’d been interpreted by a man who wasn’t interested in fashion as superhero outfits. But to any fashionista out there, you’d say ‘oh, they’re like Cher catsuits, or Diana Ross jumpsuits.'”
The Glastonbury Legends slot rumor was wrong (for now?) too, although there’s a Glasto-sized gap in their tour dates.
“Can I just be blunt here? Glastonbury haven’t even asked us a stitch! I don’t even know if they would want us there!” Cheryl hilariously noted on-air. “I mean it’s a nice idea, isn’t it? I’m sure the Glastonbury lot are sitting there, like, ‘Who asked Girls Aloud?'”
“I think we should just turn up with our bus and demand,” Nicola offered.
Nadine is still so thoroughly Nadine.
“I swear to God, I cannot for the life of me remember how we even came to this decision. I just remember diaries being sent through and thinking, ‘Oh well, here we are!’ Suddenly I’m getting all these emails about flying around the roof of the O2 again,” she told British Vogue of their plans.
Of the Glasto rumors, she said: “We’ve spoken about this but the thing is, we’d have to take our stage and so the logistics would be hard. But we are touring at the same time so maybe we could get a jet in.” The band’s publicist then interjected with: “Um, they’ve not actually asked yet, girls, and you’re already talking about the logistics of how it would work?”
After a little banter in the radio interview about Nicola writing songs for other people like Little Mix, she confirmed she isn’t writing songs for anyone right now.
“I’m not at the moment. This is very much taking up all of my time. People don’t see the behind-the-scenes as well. The references we pull from, who we’re gonna use for styling, for photography…that’s taken up a big chunk,” she said.
Rylan called into their BBC interview and demanded justice for “Untouchable,” the song that ended their Top 10 single streak, and wants to campaign to send it up into the Top 10.
“I love it!” Kimba cheered, as the girls aww-ed along in support of his message. Alouders, do with that what you will. (It still blows my mind as well, as it’s one of their best.)
Cheryl addressed the rumors of “interpersonal jealousies” leading to a breakdown in communication when they disbanded in 2013.
“At this age, you gain perspective and you stop caring about all the stupid stuff that would drive you crazy in your twenties. I’ve never felt more comfortable in my skin,” she told British Vogue.
Their biggest haters are their own children.
Cheryl tried showing her son Bear some old DVDs, and he was not a fan: “He says to me, ‘You look different, you sound different, this is weird. Why the nakedness? What’s with your voice?'” she told BBC.
Nadine’s daughter Anaíya also couldn’t be bothered: “She’s never really liked any of the Girls Aloud stuff because I don’t smile enough, so I don’t look like myself to her.”
“They don’t think you should have existed before they were alive, that’s all it is,” the ever-wise Kimberley, who has three sons, sagely remarked about the whole thing.
Tickets officially go on-sale in December.
Tickets will go on pre-sale on Wednesday, November 29 at 9 a.m., with the general on sale Friday, December 1 at 9 a.m. all via girlsaloud.com and Ticketmaster.
A Girls Aloud reunion tour. It’s real. It’s happening. My favorite girl band. In 2024.
The reason I got the guts to travel to London for the first time. The reason for so many of my friendships, flings and professional relationships to this day. The soundtrack to so many happy memories in my life. Dreams that glitter. Time for me to pull it together and figure out how to move to Swinging London Town for the summer.
Of course, yes, that half-right initial comeback report kicked up some false hope for new music, but I wholeheartedly respect (and agree with!) their decision to focus on celebrating the legacy of Sarah and their career right now, rather than starting Something New.
Besides, with all the album reissues still to come, who knows what unreleased rarities from the vault might See The Day soon? And these beautiful new photos already? The tour visuals and outfits and live mixes we’re about to get? Just overwhelmed by the thought of it all. Girl overboard, indeed.
The Girls Aloud Show Arena Tour Dates:
Sat 18 May – 3Arena Dublin
Mon 20 May – SSE Arena Belfast
Thurs 23 May – Manchester AO Arena
Fri 24 May – Manchester AO Arena
Mon 27 May – Cardiff Utilita Arena
Fri 31 May – Newcastle Utilita Arena
Sat 1 Jun – Newcastle Utilita Arena
Tues 4 Jun – Aberdeen P&J Live
Sat 8 Jun – Glasgow OVO Hydro
Weds 12 Jun – Nottingham Motorpoint Arena
Sat 15 Jun – Leeds First Direct Arena
Tues 18 Jun – Birmingham Resorts World Arena
Sat 22 Jun – London The O2
Sun 23 Jun – London The O2
Sat 29 Jun – Liverpool M&S Bank Arena
Grab the Sound of the Underground 20th Anniversary edition vinyl here.
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