8. Blur
I was all over Blur, but I think I chose Parklife because it was the album where everyone started to sit up and take notice. Obviously they’d had a lot of success leading up to that point, but this was where we got into the golden age of Britpop, and the Spice Girls were coming through then too. So this album reminds me of that crazy time when I’d left college but I was still living with one of my college friends, and I was with the Spice Girls but we hadn’t released anything yet. I love every single thing they’ve done, but Parklife… I’m such a lunatic, I’m realising why I picked this one now. My favourite Blur song is ‘Bank Holiday’. God, I’m just a mosher aren’t I? I just want to be in the pit getting my shoulder dislocated. I vividly remember it being a bank holiday and I was blasting this out on the way to Camber Sands for the day.
I think I’ve probably seen Blur live more than any other act. I dragged Geri to The Astoria to see them once when they were promoting Parklife, I think it was the night before we filmed the ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ video. We were up in the bit where they used to put all the journos and all that sort of thing, and someone said to us ‘you should go and invade the stage’. I said ‘if the next song is ‘Girls & Boys’ we’ll do it’… and the next song was fucking ‘Girls & Boys’ wasn’t it! So we got backstage and went out. I did it quite gingerly and didn’t get very far, but Geri ran on and got about half way to Damon before this massive security guy scooped us both up and took us off. Another time they were doing a signing, I think it was when they released ‘Country House’, and I went down. I think Spice Girls had been released at that point but I just wanted to go down and have a little look. They were such fun and exciting times!
In my eyes you became instantly super famous with the Spice Girls, so it’s funny to hear you talk about going to gigs and rushing the stage and queuing up to get something signed when you are literally Sporty Spice.
I know! I’m so lucky because if I keep my tattoos covered up and my mouth shut I’m often able to move around without people spotting me.
