Take That still have what it takes to deliver a brilliant hit-packed show 30-plus years on

Take That recently released their ninth studio album, This Life, following their comeback performance last year at the King’s Coronation Concert. But the lads – or at least, the three remaining members of the band, Gary Barlow, Mark Owen and Howard Donald, don’t pop out for special occasions only, and insist on touring the globe 30-plus years on from their debut. Now that’s what I call upstanding.

Seeing them last night at the RAC Arena in Perth, you’d have thought these were still spring chickens staring out on the performance route.

All three lads got straight into delivering a rollercoaster of a set that included uptempo dance favourites, their many ballads and even the occasionally world-music type number.

The band opened with Greatest Day, a song of way optimistic proportions considering the tough times most people are going through around the world at the moment. But this tour isn’t really about the here and now – it’s about celebrating great pop songs that bring to mind easier times; familiar hits to take us back and escape the current drudgery. Even more uplifting was follow-up song, Giants, which to me possessed an almost world music meets Muse vibe.

It wasn’t until the third track that the lads’ played a song from back when they were a fivesome. Everything Changes was perhaps Take That at their most optimistic – five starry-eyed guys about to become huge globally. While the start of that song is a bit try-hard B-boy, the gist of it is pure, unadulterated pop.

Throughout the rest of the set, hit after hit was heard: Shine, A Million Love Songs, the disco gem Relight My Fire, and of course the ballad everyone connects with the band: Back for Good. Occasionally, lead singer Gary Barlow would sit at the piano to perform a number on his own, but the other two guys, Mark Owen and Harold Donald were never too far away to provide some ad lib admiration for Gary, or a bit of harmony to round out the perfect love song.

Having thrown the gender-specific songbook out the window a long time ago, Take That continue to appeal to audiences of women and men, straight and gay, young and old. Theirs has rarely been a Machiavellian approach to marketing, and so that cooler, more sincere approach to entertainment translates well today on the stage.

The great thing, too, is that when the guys perform more recent songs, for example 2023’s Windows, it almost sounds as if their vocals are performing better than on earlier songs. Naturally, that’s because the songs were written closer to now, tailored around the way the guys sing now (in their 50s). Listen to early hits and you’ll hear their voices are much higher, really. In short, the guys are singing more freely these days than when and over-celebrated producers and record company hype ruled how to do it. In short, their output today is as good, if not more credible, than the work they recorded in the early 1990s.

I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to each Take That member at various times across the decades. First Gary in 1993 at the start of their journey; then Mark, Howard and Jason Orange in a fun, intimate setting in ’94. Then Robbie Williams in 2000 at the start of his Rock DJ era. I found each band member (or former in the cases of Robbie and Jason) to be charming, articulate and delightful – not like many of the cocky boyband members who entered the music industry post-2000.

Mid-conversation with Mark Owen in 1995.

There’s something down-home (but occasionally outrageous), classical (but sometimes overly syncopated), and fun about this group of guys. Keep up all those qualities, and I’ll go see them in 10 years time, even.

Antonino Tati

Take That continue their Australian tour, next playing Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena (6 November), Sydney’s Qudos Bank Arena (7 November), and Auckland’s Spark Arena (14 November). At each concert, the band will be joined by support artist Sophie Ellis-Bexter, known for her hits If This Is Love?, Murder On The Dancefloor, and Heartbreak Make Me a Dancer).