Photograph: Richard Isaac/Rex Shutterstock
“It’s been 17 years since we last played,” says Shaznay Lewis, which explains why Koko is packed to the gunwales. It’s been long enough for the foursome’s mutual needling to have turned into unalloyed friendship, and for their cool-girl R&B to dovetail with the 90s revival. Even without the tabloid coverage occasioned by Nicole Appleton’s split from Liam Gallagher, this would have been a high-profile reunion. The pettiness that attended both their first break-up (over who would wear a jacket in a photoshoot) and their subsequent reunion, in 2006 (only arranged for the money, apparently), has been expunged: “Tonight is about all of us,” Melanie Blatt tells the other three, exhibiting the interdependence that develops when a group has lived through the Met Bar and a press-fabricated rivalry with the Spice Girls (whose Baby and Sporty are here tonight). What remains is a catalogue of unimpeachable hits and a desire to revisit the comparatively innocent era that spawned them.
This isn’t a throwback outing, however. Half a dozen tracks from Red Flag, their first LP in a decade, are premiered, and while the heart sinks each time a Saint says “This is from the new album”, the best are worth getting excited about. One of tonight’s highlights, strategically slotted in just before towering versions of signature hits Pure Shores and Never Ever, is One Strike, which vividly dissects the moment Gallagher phoned Appleton to confess to an affair. The other new biggie is This Is a War, which diverts from the lushness of its recorded version up the kind of sultry reggae byway that few top-tier girl groups ever mastered as effortlessly as All Saints.
On the other hand, they misjudge the crowd’s appetite for self-indulgence. At one point, they turn over the stage to a rapper, eventually returning for an unwarrantedly long dancehall version of new song Ratchet Behaviour. The shriek of relief that greets the next song, the 1998 No 1 Chili Peppers cover Under the Bridge, should be a lesson. Similarly, straightforward re-creations of Bootie Call and Black Coffee come close to provoking tears in more emotional fans.
There are moments that give pause: can they really be executing I Know Where It’s At’s pristine harmonies without pre-recorded help? Is tonight’s ramshackle feel part of the charm or evidence of under-rehearsing? Why are the vocals submerged in the terrible mix? Nonetheless, it’s good to spend an evening with what the Guardian once justifiably called “the girl group’s girl group”.
• At Cornbury festival, Oxfordshire, 9 July. Tickets: 0844-338 0000. Then touring.
