Progress Live Squee Pic Spam

[przed]

Friday, after a mere seven day wait, the Take That Progress Live Blu-Ray landed on my desk. It was going to be a busy weekend, and I should have crashed early, but I couldn't wait to see this:



I have got to love a fandom where this is our canon. *g*

Needless to say, it's a brilliant concert, and I enjoyed it immensely. And I couldn't resist putting together a massive pic spam of some of my favourite pics from the tour.


First, some solo pics of all the boys, starting with Captain Barlow.


Robbie!


Howard in the ticker tape storm.


Jason gets two pics, to make up for the dearth of him in the Making of doc.


Smiley!Jason.


I may have gone a bit nuts with the pics of Mark. I make no apologies.

First, Adorable!Mark.


Serious!Mark during Kidz, which is without a doubt the best set piece they have ever staged.


Bass-playing!Mark during Underground Machine, my second favourite number of the concert. (Mark, Jason and Howard do Tai Chi!)


Posing!Mark in his wacky Shine outfit.


Caterpillar-riding!Mark. Because all pop stars need a giant pink caterpillar to ride.


There were no pairing preference that went unsatisfied during the show. And I've got photographic proof of most of them.

Robbie and the Captain. Awwww.


Howard and Mark.


Robbie carrying Jason. (Alas, on DVD night there was no carrying, but there was lifting.)


Barlowen!


Howard and Jason in troubadour mode during Shine.


Willowen!


More Willowen, because who can resist that smile?


But in the end, it's about all of the boys being together.


Group hug!

Comments

[przed.livejournal.com]

Soooo much more than a random manufactured band reuniting for the money. (I had to go back and watch the Knebworth clip again, and it still gets to me.)

I'm also still bitter that it's not on the bloody Knebworth DVD.

[halotolerant.livejournal.com]

It IS on the DVD - that's where the youtube footage is from! *g* It's part of the special features - you have to play a rather silly 'game' the premise of which is 'devil!Robbie has infiltrated backstage, use the controller to shoot devil!Robbie but avoid shooting angel!Robbie' (paging Dr Freud, ahem) and when you 'shoot' him correctly you get various bits of footage and when you *win* and have killed Devil!Robbie you get him and Mark snuggling... (still paging Dr Freud). I don't have the DVD to hand to remind me which disc or exactly what menu option it is but I think it might be actually called 'games' on disc 2

[przed.livejournal.com]

OMG! You mean I've been watching crappy YT footage when I could have been watching the DVD?!! Drat. (I did pull out my Knebworth discs after you sent me the YT link, but I didn't think to look for easter eggs or games. Silly me.)

I know what I'll be doing this evening after Le Ros goes to bed. *g*

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!!!!

Why don't I have a Mark/Robbie icon?

[halotolerant.livejournal.com]

*hugs* Very welcome *g* and now you'll have a lovely quality source for the Mark/Robbie vid that, I know and fully appreciate you may not ever have time to make, but I know you must want to in your heart because seriously, EPIC ROMANCE *g*

I have about 100 'favourite things' about that footage, but one of them is that - if you listen carefully - you can hear that both of them are singing *harmony* rather than melody, because they're just singing what they learnt to sing with Gary (and as you will recall from 'Feel', they didn't exactly over-rehearse).

Why don't you have a Mark/Robbie icon?

[przed.livejournal.com]

and now you'll have a lovely quality source for the Mark/Robbie vid that, I know and fully appreciate you may not ever have time to make, but I know you must want to in your heart because seriously, EPIC ROMANCE *g*

Such footage may have just been ripped to my vidding machine because I will make that vid!

There are certainly at least 100 things to love about that footage, and yeah, the fact that they're both singing harmony on the chorus is definitely one of them. (They certainly didn't over rehearse. In fact, after reading Feel, it's pretty amazing that Robbie didn't self-destruct during the Progress rehearsal period. I gotta figure Gary figured out some secret keep-Robbie-from-getting-bored-out-of-his-skull techniques to keep it all on track.) I'm also rather fond of the way Mark fits perfectly under Robbie's arm. Awwww.

I dunno, I need to find one....

[halotolerant.livejournal.com]

I will make that vid
THIS MAKES ME HAPPY \o/

The footage that exists for them is just... the emotion is just so powerful...

I love the bit in the app footage where Robbie says (with a kind of slight bewilderment like he's gone through the looking glass) 'And we're, like, warming up beforehand and everything. My warm-up's usually the first three numbers...') I don't know if he has managed to find some more self-discipline, or actually rather likes being told what to do when someone in authority says he *has* to (rather like a child). Or maybe Gary just put in a rule saying only *good* rehearsing band members get to play with Markie in the evening... *g*

That said, one of the benefits of being in a band has to be that you can just do what everyone else is doing so there's less pressure (e.g. spend all of Pray seeing what Howard's doing *g*)

Re: I dunno, I need to find one....

[przed.livejournal.com]

I am formally making a commitment to produce a Mark/Robbie vid in the new year. The problem has been that I have time to either vid or write, and my writing muse has been throwing out the TT ideas faster than I can write them. But once the current batch of stories is done, I'm going to put the writing on hold and work on getting at least one TT vid done. Because, yeah, you don't often get to work with the kind of emotion those two show.

I do love when Robbie says "My warm-up's usually the first three number." Because of course it is. And it is interesting to speculate on what exactly has changed that he's managed the more disciplined regimen of a TT tour. Personally I like the only good rehearsing band members getting to play with Markie theory. *g*

And yeah, you can see how much more relaxed he is working with the band, where he doesn't have to carry every single moment with his own charisma and he can just, say, watch Howard for all of Pray. Or muck about with Mark whilst Gary is singing Eight Letters.

[przed.livejournal.com]

Isn't it fab to have good quality footage of that moment? (I can't believe I had that disk sitting on my shelf for years before I realized it was there. ::headdesk::)

[przed.livejournal.com]

I've had it favourited on YT since Halo pointed me to it, but yeah, the DVD version is sooooo much better. (And now I can put it in a vid in all its glorious awesomeness!)

[przed.livejournal.com]

It takes me forever to vid these days, but I have vowed to get cracking on it as soon as I've got my takethatslash Christmas story done.

[halotolerant.livejournal.com]

Hooray I have found my purpose in life *g* *hugs you*

Seriously I have worn out that bit of the DVD *g*

[halotolerant.livejournal.com]

There's an excellent picspam of it, btw, at cenea here: http://cenea.livejournal.com/74811.html#cutid1 *g*

[przed.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm. Even though cenea has me friended, LJ's not letting me into that post.

However, when I was checking her pic spam tags, I did find a delicious rentboy!Markie comment fic you'd written. Wow. (Shall comment on it properly when I'm not at work. ;-)

[halotolerant.livejournal.com]

Sorry, must be an old filter - it's an ancient post.

I wrote a lot of comment fic at her journal - I can't even remember which one this is so I'll be interested to be reminded *g*

[halotolerant.livejournal.com]

Have the most whumped picture of Mark EVER to compensate *g* (seriously, there's a whole essay on the male gaze, objectification and something else to be written on this picture, but let's just say that that indefinable quality Markie brings is well demonstrated here...)

[przed.livejournal.com]

I think Mark Owen could be singularly responsible for overturning 20 years of feminist thought on the male gaze and objectification. Because just look at the man.

As for that pic, it's pretty whumped. But I rather think this one might be the most whumped pic of him, EVAH.


I mean, seriously, what was he thinking? What was the photographer thinking? 'Cause what I'm thinking is this calls for some serious kidnap fic.

[halotolerant.livejournal.com]

I know, the level of *vulnerability* and the unsettling way that it is clearly intended to be appealing is astonishing for a male popstar. The juxtaposition of these kind of signals with the 'I am alpha provider solver of problems' that is Gary Barlow is I think a large part of what makes the Barlowen pairing so popular. And yet there's also something hypnotic about him and Robbie, in the classic 'beautiful vulnerable person falls for Bad Idea Boyfriend' mold. There's something about winning Robbie's attention that seems to make Mark look happy and relaxed and *satisfied* like nothing else...

[przed.livejournal.com]

Both in his '90s incarnation and at present, Mark does show a remarkable level of vulnerability. And quite often it is unsettling in the extreme. When you posted the whumped pic, I knew I wanted to respond with the nearly-naked-Markie-stuffed-in-a-sewer-pipe pic, but I had to go searching for it--oh, the horror--because I'd never downloaded it precisely because it is so very unsettling. It's poking around in the dark areas of the psyche, which is so very interesting in someone who is probably viewed as an uncomplicated, cheery popstar sort by some circles.

But the flip side of whumpedandvulnerable!Mark is what I actually find most interesting, and that's whumpedandscrappy!Mark. And the best moment for that is the I'd Wait for Life video:


This vid is where Mark won me over utterly and completely, the sense that he may be someone who gets knocked down, but he always comes up fighting. And that clearly extends to his personal life as well.

The two vastly different pairings are interesting as well. Of the two, I clearly am most fond of the Mark/Robbie variation, but not primarily for the 'beautiful vulnerable person falls for Bad Idea Boyfriend' aspect. I actually see Robbie as at least a vulnerable as Mark, though obviously in different ways, and that leads to you getting to play with different aspects of their strengths and weaknesses through the fic, and to have one in trouble when the other can be strong. And then when the two of them are happy and strong together, there's nothing that can beat it. ::sigh::

[halotolerant.livejournal.com]

When the news broke about his personal problems, and everyone was using language like 'squeaky clean' and 'sweet' and so on, I was struck with another instance of people seeing the narrative they thought ought to be there rather than what really was. Mark was quite open in interviews in the Wilderness Years about drinking maybe more wine than he ought to and his self-esteem issues and so forth are incredibly obvious to anyone who's ever listened to his music. Between him and Jason there is a willingness to - as you say - go into dark areas of the mind and confront and *explore* things that don't sit easily with the mainstream idea of... well many things. Manliness, attractiveness, fame, wealth - it's the sense of this in the Progress album that made me love it so much (I mean sure, I love 'Patience' and many Gary-ish songs, but the political awareness without agenda of SOS, Kidz and others is so much deeper)

If Mark was a girl, we'd find some of this imagery really unpalatable, that's one way of looking at it. Because he's male, it's somehow slightly closer to comfortable whilst at the same time being more unexpected and transgressive, and there's an underlying sense perhaps that just because he's male, being exploited is not OK, even if it was his idea (think of Britney Spears in her school uniform, for example).

And the way I seem to end up reading it in my head when I see Mark/Robbie interactions, is Robbie protecting him somehow. I certainly agree Robbie is at least as vulnerable, and what fascinates me so much about them is this sense that at one point they were simply good for each other, caring for each other, and then Youthful Foolishness, Life, Events, Other People, Bad Decisions etc intervened and they both wound up unable to prevent each other hitting the lows that they did. And then they REUNITED *sighs happily with you* That narrative arc just gets me every time *g*

And I think (and enjoy thinking) that that's a huge aspect of scrappy!Mark - his fight to stay friends with Robbie, to forgive him, to make the others connect with him and forgive him, to keep Robbie in the reunion after his brief departure after Children in Need, never to blame Robbie for anything or put their relationship under public scrutiny (one aspect of all the 'Gary and Robbie - enemies or friends?' narrative that obsessed the papers in Reunion time was that the issue of how Mark and Robbie related was never in the spotlight, although it was a far more personal story). I think of 'For the Record' where Mark says of Robbie's departure that he wasn't feeling anything and it didn't impact on him. *Gary* talks about how Robbie hurt Mark, but the two of them never bring it up.

Long comment is SO long - but I have time on my hands to think and it's so nice to discuss ♥ (Plus anything I can do to further the vid inspiration is time well spent! *g*) *excited*

Re: SORRY FOR BUTTING IN BUT

[halotolerant.livejournal.com]

Absolutely - in the boyband genre, which is usually filled with muscular beefcake types (although the popularity of Justin Bieber and One Direction are an interesting move away from this, they're still very much pictured with girls all around, essentially banners saying 'hi we're straight guys'), Mark Owen stands out a mile. Even in the world of Indie Rock, he'd stand out. In a lot of his photos (indeed in the one you've pictured, which is gorgeous) if you were told it was a girl, you'd believe it. He's so often vulnerable or cowed-looking, or looking simultaneously scared and alluring or rather child-like... Which also says a lot about how the media views women, but there you go.

One reason I really don't like the 'Relight my Fire' sequence in 'The Circus Live' is that he looks so *wrong* in a ringmaster outfit with all the other guys - everything about the way he codes himself otherwise is screaming that he should be a catgirl...

Re: SORRY FOR BUTTING IN BUT

[przed.livejournal.com]

First of all, THAT PICTURE! I've seen pics from that shoot before, but I don't know if I've ever seen that one. It's amazing!

Second, yes! His persona was very feminine in the 90s, going into the wilderness years. He's perhaps not projecting quite such a feminine image these days, but he's certainly not often doing something that could be called a strong guy pose either. And even when he's striking a more masculine pose, there's always something about him that subverts it.