Girl Power still remains at least 75% in force as Spice Girls bring a sparkly spectacular to Wembley Stadium

Since first emerging in a torrent of energy and life, bounding, platform-clad, down the stairs of a King’s Cross hotel, it’s been a rollercoaster journey for Scary, Sporty, Ginger, Baby and Posh. Over the years, the original five-Spice recipe has fluctuated - first with Geri Horner (nee Halliwell) leaving the band at the height of their fame; now with Victoria Beckham opting out of their current second reunion tour. But, despite the varying number of Girls, the magic at the heart of the band – the genuine feeling of camaraderie, sass and chutzpah that made them icons and role models for a generation and beyond – has remained impressively intact. Unlike, say S Club 7, whose dwindling number seems only to point to its remaining members (three, at last count) milking an already-dead cash cow for its final few club-circuit tour pennies, each time the Spice Girls have come back together it’s seemed to be borne from a still-present love: for each other, their fans and the once-in-a-blue-moon legend they created.

Bursting into Wembley Stadium for a three-night, sold out run (that’s nearly a quarter of a million tickets FYI), the assembled hordes that giddily make their way to the enormous pitch tonight are almost uniformly clad in ’90s merch, varying degrees of Spice costume and three cans of G&T deep; the love here is strong. With a huge Daily Planet-esque globe that dominates their set emblazoned with a rotating message declaring that “All ages, races, genders, sexual orientations and abilities are welcome”, the whole vibe from the off is of inclusivity and unity; if the Spice Girls were always about love and solidarity – between women, between communities – then, with every rainbow-coloured glitter explosion and cover of ‘We Are Family’, they’re going full pelt into the message tonight.

Yet, for the first time, there’s something a bit off. Mel B and Emma still spend half the set joking around, patting each other on the bum and spontaneously hugging (they’re the two you most want to head down the pub with), while Mel C is still the biggest pro, her affability mixed in with a steelier determination. But, while Posh’s absence is noted briefly and shrugged off – the whole world, after all, knows she’s got her own empire to run these days – it’s Geri that’s the heartbreaker here.

It’s difficult, of course, to maintain or at least translate the characters the five first emerged with 25 years ago as barely twenty-somethings to the versions of themselves that they stand as now, as affluent, wildly successful mothers in their mid-40s. And yet Baby, Sporty and Scary gamely camp it up, donning outfits true to their old personas, high-kicking and pissing about like the good old days. Though Mel B probably wouldn’t choose to sport a leopard-print bodysuit in her everyday life, you get the sense she and the other two are having an absolute blast reliving the past. Ginger Spice, with her princely bum-pinching and Union Jack mini, was arguably always the biggest character, a brilliantly gobby hustler from Watford who inspired a legion of devotees not to give a fuck what people thought and to follow your heart. And so there’s something genuinely gutting about her tonight, as she totters out in a floor-length, corseted regal gown – a nod, you assume to the Union Jack number, but with all the joy and playfulness stripped away – awkwardly performing the routines, but never really embodying them, like a stiff chess piece being moved around the stage.

There’s the sense that Geri, now comfortably settled in her country pile, does not want to be that brash, brazen version of herself anymore, which is understandable, albeit sad, because what the other three prove tonight is that you can still grow up without losing that special Spicey spark. And, as they cavort round the stage, making jokes about Mel B’s sex life, pretending (are they?) to do shots at the start of the ‘nightlife’ section and throwing out the odd swear, it looks a lot more fun from where they’re standing.