Ultrabrite Tour Reviews

DAILY EXPRESS 28th October 1987

It was a high-grade performance from 5 Star this week with a glossy al-dancing and singing show at Wembley.

The Pearson siblings, fromted by Deniece, went into exhausting routine of bits and synchronised movements.

But they never forgot their job was not only to entertain but to sell records.

Every song was clearly announced, as was the album it came from, that said, you couldnt, fault them.

.............................................................................................

JIM TAYLOR - THE SUN

27th October 1987

From the start of their opening number, Find The Time, they danced, their energetic routines.

Highlights from the night was Stedmans spectacular cartwheel and a medley of their earlier hits.

.............................................................................................

9th October 1987

EDINBURGH PLAYHOUSE

Reviewed by Alan Jackson

YOU SEE, I didn’t mean to come on like Five Star’s most rabid Scottish fan ….it’s standing room only in the royal box, tonight’s reserved for the winners of a local newspapers MEET THE BAND competition, but then I spy one unoccupied red velveteen chair and move in for the kill.

Oi you cannae sit there that’s ma seat “hisses a fat little girl in pink who has been out to get an ice cream, and she plumps her bottom down on it definitely to prove the point. So it is that I resign myself to being the Playhouses one upright member and decide to take my jacket off and get comfortable just as a voice booms over the PA, Ladies sand Gentlemen the biggest band in the world,---Five Star.

Well, there they are amid a fog of special effects, sporting raincoats and fedoras over their regulation sequinned jump suits, and here they come, running towards the spotlights grinning and twinkling and combing the audience for signs of life.

That’s when they see me up on my feet with my arms akimbo struggling to undress mr funky chicken. Five pairs of eyes beamed up at me, five pairs of sequinned arms wave aloft. The fat little girl turns around in new-found admiration and the entire audience holds its breath, I bite my lip, close my eyes and---and --- I wave back.

By the time I have sufficiently slid far down the wall to completely invisible, Five Star are off an running, Twirling their way through find the time, It was it a hit, it seems, Infect Five Star have so many hits in their act they don’t know what to do with them and have bundled a selection of the earlier ones together in a sort of medley to save time and energy. Hearing them back to back watching the hyper-kinetic way they’re performed, you can see why they’ve achieved such chart success; moderate songs are saved by brilliant instantly memorable hook lines each of them generously repeated for the hard of hearing.

And the fancy dresses distract your attention so that you don’t have time to realise just how dull the dull bits are.

Perhaps the exception is Can’t wait, Five Stars best song in which Deniece Pearsons voice achieves a genuine sexual urgency and they whole lyric holds your attention.

 But it’s as if the hint of adulthood embarrasses her, and she get the audience to clap along the second verse, thereby diffusing the attention she built up.

Analyses apart, it should be said that five star show its hard work both sides of the footlight, “Were working hard for you so we want you to make an effort too” warns Lorraine early in the proceedings.

So the appreciative audience is made to stand up as one (then they wave their hands in the air to sing along.

Are you all enjoying yourselves demands Lorraine,

Yes thanks,

Are you really enjoying yourselves?

Well, s’alright I suppose

Are you really, really enjoying yourselves?

Don’t push it too far Five Star.

............................................................................................

1987 Tour/Wembley Arena

- Reviewed in The Sun by Jim Taylor.

Bizarre had heard how fast, furious and frantic Five Star were on stage - so we wired up their main man Stedman with a pedometer.

And by the time their 90-minute show at Wembley had finished, he'd clocked up more than a mile. He was exhausted and so was I!

From the start of their opening number, Find The Time, they danced their energetic routines.

And kids as young as eight were standing on their seats singing along to hits like 'Can't Wait Another Minute' and their latest, 'Strong As Steel'.

Highlight of the night was Stedman's spectacular cartwheel and a medley of their early hits.

But their performance lacked the raw edge that makes a concert exciting.

When i was handed a tube of toothpaste by their sponsors Ultrabrite, it summed it all up. Too clean, too polished and too antiseptic

.............................................................................................

1987 TOUR - (taken from an article about the first day & night of the tour)

DUBLIN RDS VENUE

8.30pm The lights dim and the audience have hysteria as they wait for the curtain to go up. Almost everyone's wearing a 5 Star tour t-shirt, but the grown up sized tops reach down to most of the fans knees, or even their ankles. A sweet smell lingers in the air - a strong aroma of popcorn!

The curtains part to reveal an impressive Hollywood-style staircase that's peppered with twinkly lights. Like something out of a Busby Berkeley movie, 5 Star make their entrance wearing white coats and hats which they tip forward over their faces as they march down the steps together.

Suddenly the hats and coats are cast aside to reveal their new sparkly black outfits. It's a routine that Doris and Lorraine worked out to make full use of the stage. 'Hello Dublin' screams Doris, 'We've all waited a long, long time for this. Let's make it the best!'

A medley of old favourites has the audience waving their arms, clapping their hands and singing along, and some of the smallest fans are totally absorbed in trying to mirror 5 Star's dance routines.

All in all, the band sing, spin and high kick their way through 90 minutes of non-stop action (save for a very short costume change) and when the band say farewell, Stedman can't resist doing a quick show-off cartwheel as he leaves the stage.

.............................................................................................

DUBLIN RDS 1987 - Reviewed by George Byrne.

Being handed a tube of toothpaste the moment you set foot inside a gig certainly ranks highly in the surrealist stakes. If this were 1967, the temptation would be to assume all manner of cosmic experiences would ensue after a few strokes of the old toothbrush, whereas a decade later, the contents would no doubt have been sprayed at the band belting out the three chords that mattered most to them.

But this being an era when marketing takes precedence over music, it's sponsorship, rather than seats filled, which pays the tour bills. So what better way to reach an audience as young as 5 Star's - and their parents will probably end up buying the records anyway - than by encouraging dental hygiene? Zodiac Mindwarp take note!

It becomes apparent that this is the first concert for many of the audience when every rustle of the stage curtain, every spotlight test and the slightest mumbled 'one-two' into the mike is greeted with hysterical screams. When the intro tape booms over the speakers and 5 Star are announced as 'the best family band in the world' the pandemonium reaches epic proportions.

As the group emerge through the stage in a cloud of white smoke, clad in long white coats and cowboy hats, the screech-o-meter goes completely off the scale and it occurs to me that the only sound that really matters in rock and roll is that of 14-year-old girls screaming their lungs out.

5 Star's stage routine is as calculated and coldly efficient as that of Romford's other famous export, Steve Davis. A 10-peice backing band recreate the records to the note while the Buster Pearson Experience run through their simple but, in this context, fairly effective dance steps.

The bulk of the vocal duties fall to Deniece who more than compensates for the shortcomings of the other four. There were absolutely no surprises regarding material, with the hit singles only occasionally interupted by tracks from the highly suspect new album 'Between The Lines' and there lies 5 Star's real problem.

Although indisputably entertaining, like all efficient pop machines, 5 Star can only function as long as they're supplied with the right material. And while 'Silk And Steel' saw them topped with premium chart fuel, the new album is strictly low grade 2-star. And once material weakness, even slightly, pop has a cruel way of ageing audiences when acts like this least expect it.

Still, the dance routines should keep them on variety shows for the foreseeable future, and there'll always be the 'Greatest Hits' album to provide for their future.

.............................................................................................

1987 TOUR

BIRMINGHAM NEC (Taken from the Birmingham Evening Mail)

'FIVE STAR SHOW BY SPARKLING FIVE STAR'

Five Star arrived at the NEC with a sense of awe and rare uncertainty. The Arena is the biggest venue they have ever played.

Faced with the sight of 11,500 fans from floor to the rafters, the brothers and sisters Pearson could have been forgiven for stage fright.

But if they had any last minute nerves, they left them neatly tucked away in the dressing rooms. Five Star deserved five stars for confidence.

From the opening 'Find The Time' - the highlight of their last odean show - they slipped easily into a series of lightning slick dance routines.

The Jackson-style steps are worked out by Doris Pearson in the living room of the family home. The NEC stage stretched out forever.

Against a giant set of stairs and stars and backed by a nine-piece session band, Five Star ran through more hits than a Now album.

It's a measure of the band's meteoric success over the last three years that nearly every song in a 100 minute set seemed familiar.

All Fall Down, Let Me Be The One and System Addict were whisked into a light frothy medley drawn from the Luxury Of Life album.

Hits aside, singer Deniece Pearson is gradually leading the band onto greater things, following the path taken by The Jackson Five.

Songs from the new album Between The Lines album carry more weight than the commercial chart singles that have scooped so many awards for Five Star.

The best songs of the night were drawn from the newer material, with the forceful Somewhere Somebody an obvious contender for another single.

Five Star's next step must be to move away from the occasionally tacky trappings of their current success with a very young audience.

An irritating MC insisted on bounding out on stage every now and then to jolly the corwd on. Five Star should cut the chat too. 'Are you all having a good time?' wears a bit thin after the 20th request.

Clearly Five Star have the talent to progress to greater things. Whatever the cynics may say, they do what they do with style and polish.

As i drove home after the show The Jackson Five were singing 'I Want You Back' on the radio. It's a feeling shared by 11,500 Five Star fans.

.............................................................................................