The What Will the Neighbours Say...? Tour was the first concert tour by British all-female pop group Girls Aloud. It supported their first two studio albums, Sound of the Underground and What Will the Neighbours Say?. Girls Aloud initially planned to tour in 2003 with their fellow Popstars: The Rivals contestants; however, the tour was cancelled due to poor ticket sales. Girls Aloud announced their first headlining tour in December 2004. Girls Aloud performed 22 dates in theatre-sized venues across the United Kingdom and Ireland, beginning in Nottingham on 4 May 2005 and concluding in Dublin on 2 June 2005.
The show, featuring a stairway on the stage, was divided into four distinct sections, including a ballad section. The set list consisted of songs from Girls Aloud's first two albums, as well as cover versions. The tour received generally favourable reviews from critics. The tour was a commercial success, allowing Girls Aloud to perform in arenas for their Chemistry Tour in 2006. In November 2005, the show was released on DVD as What Will the Neighbours Say? Live in Concert.
Background
Girls Aloud had previously planned to embark on a Popstars: The Rivals tour in March 2003, alongside their fellow winners One True Voice as well as other contestants.[1] However, the tour was cancelled due to poor ticket sales.[2] The tour would have included shows at London's Wembley Arena and Birmingham's National Exhibition Centre.[2] Girls Aloud's manager at the time, Louis Walsh said the group would tour by themselves later in the year; however, these plans never came into fruition.[2]
Seventeen tour dates were initially announced by various news sources in December 2004.[3][4] Tickets went on sale on 10 December 2004.[4] Extra shows were added at the Manchester Apollo and London's Hammersmith Apollo respectively, due to the high demand.[5] Three more dates for Ireland and Northern Ireland were added, one at Belfast's Waterfront Hall and two at Dublin's Olympia Theatre.[5] "We've been itching to do this for a long time", Kimberley Walsh told press. "We decided to wait until we had two albums worth of songs to perform before we took to the stage. The time is right for us to give the fans a show they deserve."[3]
Girls Aloud wear long dresses for the third section of the tour, which is a ballad section. The group opens the set with their single "Life Got Cold", followed by the album track "Deadlines & Diets". The final song in this section is a cover of The Pretenders' "I'll Stand by You", previously a number one hit for Girls Aloud. The final section of the show begins with the single "Love Machine" and the album track "Real Life". A cover of Chic's "Le Freak" is incorporated into the debut album track "Girls Allowed". The group has a disco dance-off. Girls Aloud end the show with their cover of The Pointer Sisters' "Jump", before returning with an encore of their debut single "Sound of the Underground" with an extended dance breakdown.[6]
The show was recorded at the Hammersmith Apollo on 28 and 29 May 2005. The recording has been broadcast on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom. A DVD of the concert, What Will the Neighbours Say? Live in Concert, was released on 7 November 2005.[8] The footage was directed and edited by Jonathan Potts, while David Venni provided photography.[9] The DVD was produced by Richmond Studios. They used in-house video production skills to provide especially shot menus and interviews with the Girls.[10] In addition to the show in its entire, the DVD consists of bonus material, such as the music video for "Long Hot Summer" and a featurette documenting its creation. Photo galleries, screen savers, interviews with Girls Aloud, an interactive game, and a making of the DVD are also included.[10] The DVD charted within the top ten of the DVD chart.
Audio of "Love Machine" and "Real Life" were included on the single release of "Long Hot Summer". Later, an audio recording of the "Teenage Dirtbag" performance was included as a b-side to Girls Aloud's 2006 single "Whole Lotta History". A studio recording of the cover was finally released in 2007 on the compilation Radio 1: Established 1967.
Critical reception
In a review of the DVD, MusicOMH stated "this features all that you'd ever want from a pop concert [...] almost every song is a cracker."[6]
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