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LONDON - Geri Halliwell, otherwise known as Ginger Spice of The Spice Girls, always knew the British girl-power group would get together again but says she never imagined how much excitement their reunion would generate.
Just weeks after announcing they were reforming seven years after they split, the mid-1990s pop sensation have had to add extra dates to their upcoming world tour to satisfy demand and may add still more as demand keeps rising.
"I always felt in my heart the reunion had to happen and it was the right thing to do," Halliwell told Reuters in an interview.
"Having said that, we haven't been together for many years, and so when we put up the availability to register to come and buy tickets, you don't know, maybe two people want to come (to see us), maybe lots."
As it turned out, 3 million people registered online to buy tickets, which promoters say suggests that up to 18 million fans are desperate to see the five women in action again.
"Amazing and outrageous and beyond what we could have imagined," said Halliwell, who was the first to leave the group back in 1998, two years before they officially split.
"Of course that is, phew, it is very affirming and lovely to have that feedback. So we have put more dates on."
They're even holding a competition for one of the extra dates -- whichever city gets the most votes from fans online, they'll play it, whether it's Anchorage, Alaska or Zagreb in Croatia. "It will be crowned Spice City," Halliwell said.
The quintet -- Posh, Ginger, Sporty, Scary and Baby -- have already added three extra concerts in Shanghai, Vancouver and San Jose, California, filling out a 14-city tour that starts in Canada on December 2 and ends on January 24, 2008 in Buenos Aires.
Since their split, after selling 55 million albums worldwide, the other Spice Girls -- Victoria Beckham, Emma Bunton, Melanie Chisholm and Melanie Brown -- have all gone on to have varied lives in entertainment, as well as some of them marrying and having children.
So now, rather than the tour involving just the five girls, make-up artists and their crew -- as it more or less did a decade ago -- they'll be traveling around the world with a vast entourage of husbands, boy friends, kids and family.
"We are like the Waltons," said Halliwell, smiling.
"We are taking all seven children, one husband, a few boy friends, five grown up women and all their stuff. I think the Spice Girls, we really pride ourselves that we have always loved our families and we treat each other like family."
Halliwell said it had been no mean feat to get them all back together again but she was glad it had happened.
"I feel very optimistic and positive, the point of this is to be a very fun experience and obviously the feedback that we have had is amazing and I think that the support and the encouragement from the world is almost like helping us to make this happen."
But as for going back out on stage again, with vast stadiums full of screaming teenage, and perhaps not so teenage, fans, the prospect makes Halliwell a touch nervous.
"Until I am up on that stage I can't quite tell. I can't quite explain how it feels until you actually do it yourself. But I do feel my legs go wibbly-wobbly and my stomach does go a little.
"Having said that, I have got four other girls with me and we have always supported each other.
"That is what I have learnt in life, you don't have to do things in life alone, it is so great to be in a team, to be in a pack. I think naturally as human beings we belong in packs."
- REUTERS
