Take That: Taking it from the streets to the bank

By Dini S. Djalal

JAKARTA (JP): How many members of Take That does it take to change a light bulb? Five: one to hold the bulb, one to cheer him on, one to dance around him, one to change his outfit, and another to keep the fans at bay.

Five years ago, when Take That's manager Nigel Martin-Smith unveiled England's version of New Kids on the Block, everyone thought it was a joke. Five pretty boys gyrating half-naked while lipsyncing insipid melodies? So many boys have tried before them, and most never escape the pages of teen magazines.

Six number one U.K. hits and millions of dollars later, the public is scratching their head for an explanation. Take That has not only eclipsed New Kids on the Block, but have gained a peculiar kind of street-cred.

Could it be magic is on the playlist of London's techno- wizards deejays the Chemical Brothers. Even the most skeptical hipsters, including perennial trend-setting magazine The Face, have reluctantly admitted, "Bad band, but that Gary can write songs."

Their popularity peaked when token-joker Robbie (at 20 years old, the youngest in the band) partied onstage with England's next-big-thing Oasis at Glastonbury music festival this summer. That everyone loved him instead of laughed at him was a sign of Take That's now-respectable reputation.

It's been downhill since. After reputedly tarnishing the band's clean-cut image at Glastonbury, the band sacked Robbie. Released from his binding contract, he took up TV guest-host stints at Top-of-the-Pops and the Big Breakfast.

Ratings skyrocketed. Take That's outcasted clown had metamorphosed into England's biggest pop icon. Take That was now four, and Robbie had taken many of the fans with him.

Who's laughing now?

I was, for one. From beginning to end of their dramatic show at Istora Senayan on Tuesday, I couldn't help but giggle. And not even the embarrassed teenybopper giggle that is usually unleashed when a heart-throb flashes a coy grin. No, this was a straightforward "you look sillier than Bill Clinton in a catsuit" giggle.

If it's a concert, why am I concentrating on appearances instead of the music? Because appearances are what Take That is all about. What other band changes costume after every three songs? Karl Lagerfeld should sponsor their tour, as these boys are made up as the ultimate fashion victims.

Even their individual hairstyles, re-conceptualized every three months, are suspect. For this tour, they've let their hair grow long and shaggy, ostensibly to look sexier tossing their heads while dancing -- and there is a lot of head-tossing going on. There is a lot of dancing going on. And not much else.

This is the concept of a Take That concert: the boys come onstage in outrageous costumes, bump-and-grind to the beat, and attempt to sing. The mostly-female audience ecstatically shrieks with every pelvic thrust. Never mind the vocals -- who can bother with singing when they've got to concentrate on the choreography? Besides, the six members of the backing band, safely hidden in the dark, also sing as well as play drums, guitars, and keyboards.

Only when they speak does the fantasy unravel. Even if he does have a billion-dollar smile, the tiny Mark Owen has an equally tiny and nasal voice. In between songs, the band launches an undoubtedly-rehearsed greeting to the audience. This consists of Gary acting sophisticated, Mark playing country bumpkin, Howard (the dreadlocked supposedly Wild-One now that Robbie's gone) being a tough-guy, and Jason assuming a thoroughly-embarrassing Rastafarian accent. My laughter is interspersed with sympathy: how suffocating it must be to constantly play a role.

The toll of celebrity, however, is not without reward, and Take That are making a lot of money. For their U.K. tour last August, Take That are estimated to have made US$350,000 an hour for ten live performances. Their manager may keep them under a tight leash, but they will live the plush life long after their inevitable retirement (who wants to see a bunch of thirty- somethings in tight silver shorts?).

By then, their fans will have outgrown kissing glossy posters. Teenyboppers are a curious phenomena, simultaneously wholesome and over-sexed. A few girls in the audience took off their shirts and threw them onstage. One especially busty teen in a skimpy singlet stood on the chairs and danced suggestively, her cartoon socks betraying her adult gestures. T-shirts proclaiming "I LOVE MARK" or "I LOVE GARY" deluged the crowd. Their parents would have thought that it was the Beatles onstage.

And it was! During one of their many cover versions, the ever- imaginative Take That bounded to the stage in 1960s Beatles costumes and sang a Beatles medley -- albeit, only the simple ones. I Wanna Hold Your Hand, She Loves You, A Hard Day's Night -- they were all demolished with frantic footsteps and weak voices. When the band launched into a version of I Feel Fine (my personal favorite), the audience grew hushed. Obviously they are too young to know the Beatles' more obscure songs.

Having pounced on early British pop, these ambitious upstarts tackled more bohemian territory. Of course this meant another costume change, this time into black vinyl pants and tacky 1970s lurex shirts. They even played instruments! Drums, bass, guitars, synthesizers, all was brought out to showcase months of music lessons. Are Take That actually trying to be a band? There could be no more "serious" music than Pink Floyd, and the band played Another Brick in the Wall. At least the lyrics seem apt: "We don't need no education ..."

Take That's efforts to be a serious band indicate the tension they suppress. Realizing the fickleness of teenyboppers, they are trying to make the transition into the less glamourous side of the music world. Their biggest single to date, Back for Good, is an acoustic number rather than a dance-hit. Their current image also unveils the frayings of the band's seams. Howard, for one, shows the strain of being a teen-idol. Sporting a ring through his eyebrows and a square goatee, he seems determined to have his dreadlocks cover his pretty yet gloomy face. Gary is also an awkward star. When he does his pelvic thrusts, those plastic pants do not flatter his bulky figure. His frame, however, has slimmed down considerably since the British media dubbed him overweight -- such are the pressures of being a pop star.

Only the other two seem comfortable under the spotlight. The tongue-wagging, hip-grinding Jason Orange, however, seems too comfortable, and exudes too much macho bravado. When he came onstage in tight red hotpants during the disco-anthem finale Relight my Fire, he exceeded the limit of good taste.

Actually, that's not true. The worst moment of the evening came when Jason began a familiar guitar chord. Soon the audience was bouncing to the beat of Nirvana's Smells like Teen Spirit. There was Gary in a cut-off singlet and plastic pants, gyrating and pogo-ing to the late Kurt Cobain's heartfelt lyrics about the superficiality of the entertainment industry. My heart went out to both Cobain's bastardized artistry and to Take That's absence of sense. Now that Robbie has gone on to better things, the band seems to have lost any sense of humor about themselves, and instead are content with being a bad joke.