Take that pull off boy-band exuberance of their youth and the pyrotechnics of a modern rock show

Take That have always made a habit of starting their tours in the North East of England.

So it was in-keeping with the band’s tradition that they chose the Stadium of Light as the venue for last night’s first show in 16 years with Robbie Williams.

Maybe they should have called it the Stadium of Relight for the evening in honour of the band’s 1993 cover of the disco hit Relight My Fire.

Welcome to the stage: Robbie joined the rest of his Take That bandmates after they introduced him to the crowd

For giving their fans a warm glow - despite the grey clouds and chilly winds that swirled around the floodlit ground - that was what Take That did as they opened their Progress Live tour with a lavishly staged spectacular in front of 54,564 fans in Sunderland. 

But in a classic pop tease, fans were made to wait for the reappearance of Robbie. 

 

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• Spectacular: Take That kick off Progress tour in front of stunning backdrop of 60ft man, acrobatics and towering wall of water

At 8.30pm on the dot, just as rain began to fall, Gary Barlow wearing a velvet jacket, walked on stage with only three other accomplices - Mark Owen, Jason Orange and Howard Donald. 

‘We got someone else who might just be along later on,’ he told fans before leading the band through Rule The World, Greatest Day and the epic singalongs Patience and Shine.

Man band: Robbie Williams, Gary Barlow, Jason Orange, Mark Owen and Howard Donald hold hands on stage as they reunite in concert

Here he comes: Robbie Williams was brought down onto the stage on a mechanical hand before jumping onto another prop to start singing

Moving from the main stage to a smaller podium in the middle of the hall, the songs were accompanied by extravagant visuals which included a huge yellow confetti blast and a cast of dancers which included roller-skating bees and a huge caterpillar. 

Then, amid chants of ‘Robbie, Robbie’ came the moment that many fans had been waiting for, as the prodigal son Williams was winched onto the stage to sing a five-song set of his solo material. 

And so the tease went on as what Robbie, clad in all black, launched into Let Me Entertain You and Rock DJ.

When four of the original five members got back together after a 10-year break in 2006, their renewed success owed much to their nice guy image and Gary Barlow’s penchant for lush, mature ballads. 

With the return of Robbie, the band had attained a much greater edge.

Screaming fans: A whopping 54,000 fans filled the stadium in Sunderland for their Progress Live 2011 tour

Since turning solo after initially leaving Take That, he has become one of British pops greatest crowd pleasers, but his career has also been hallmarked by a wilfully mischievous streak, the latter was once more apparent in an ad-libbed - and not entirely family friendly, aside at the end of Rock DJ. 

Never one to avoid topicality, the recently married singer claimed to have ‘sh***ed a whore - that’s what a super injunction is for. 

He was probably joking of course - at least one hopes so - although he refused to elaborate any further. 

Given the age of some of the younger fans in the audience, it wasn’t an entirely appropriate comment on what was otherwise an evening of all-round pop entertainment.

Progress Live, which cost £15million to stage, and also featured a fully operational 20-metre tall man that the band had nicknamed OM in not just the pop event of the summer. 

With its 29 stadium tours in the UK and Ireland having sold out months ago, it is the biggest tour to ever grace these shores. 

By the time the band played the last of a record-breaking eight shows at Wembley stadium in July - one more than Michael Jackson chalked up with his Bad tour - they will have entertained 1.8 million fans.

Extravagant stage show: The giant mechanical robot on stage was nicknamed Om by the band

If the early part of the show concentrated on songs from comeback albums The Circus and Beautiful World, the songs from the band’s bubble gum era featured towards the end of the show in a piano medley containing Million Love Songs, Babe and the inevitable Back For Good.

But many of the most exciting moments came with tracks from last year’s Progress album. 

‘Standing on the edge of forever, shouting love at the world,’ sang Robbie at the beginning of The Flood. 

Although it was only halfway through the show, his words seemed to sum up the evening. 

Like the Beatles in the Sixties and Oasis in the Nineties, Take That seemed to have made it their job to cheer up the nation, and that was true even in a rainy night in Sunderland, the mood could have been Take That and shiver. 

Grim beginning: Fans had to brave the rain and cold weather before entering the stadium in Sunderland for the spectacular show

Camping out: Fans queing outside the Stadium of Light in Sunderland ahead of the concert

Instead, as their early motto has it, it was Take That and party.

So, where does Progress Live leave Take That? 

As a visual entity, they straddle the awkward divide between the boy-band exuberance of their youth and the pyrotechnics of a modern rock show.

The wide-ranging nature of their appeal made for some interesting juxtaposition in the second half of the show. 

In the space of  minutes, they switched from the choreographed dance routines of Pray to a sequence in which they were carried from the main stage to the middle of the arena in the arms of their futuristic 20-metre man singing a gospel-tinged Never Forget.

But the pyrotechnics would be nothing without the songs. 

The Take That look: Fans arriving for the concert made sure to wear their Take That T-shirts to celebrate their night with Gary, Howard, Jason, Mark and Robbie

Die hard fans: These two women even made a home made poster to show their love for Take That

And, on a musical level, there were some magic moments. 

One of them arrived in the first part of an extended encore in which the band sang a medley of No Regrets - a song written by Robbie about his 1995 departure from the ranks - and a high-octane Relight My Fire, complete with a troupe of disco dancers. Showing his versatility, and the fact that he shone vocally despite admitting to first-night nerves, Robbie sang the parts originally performed by Lulu.

With their giant Wicker Man now standing at his full height in the middle of the arena, the band finished a two-hour set with the yearning ballad Eight Letters, another stand-out song from last year’s Progress.

Sounds good: The boys are back in business as they film the video for their new single, Love Love