Five has teased its “Keep on Movin'” reunion tour will make its way to Australia and New Zealand.
A social media post on Tuesday morning showed a billboard in Melbourne with the ’90s boy band’s logo, along with an apparent launch time — 7 a.m. AEST August 22. The band’s tour website also featured the New Zealand flag, signalling a potential trans-Tasman stretch.
No official dates for the tour or venues have been announced yet.
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In February, Five announced the “Keep On Movin'” reunion tour across the UK, marking the first time all five original members of the group would perform together in 25 years. What started as a 12-date tour quick grew to 25, after generating widespread excitement and quickly selling out shows.
Five was formed in 1997 after an advertisement seeking “Spice Boys” was placed in a London newspaper. The group went on to sell over 20 million records and achieve three UK number ones — “Keep On Movin'”, released in 1999, “We Will Rock You” (with Queen), released in 2000, and “Let’s Dance”, released in 2001.
“When The Lights Go Out”, released in 1998, was also a global hit. The band’s popularity extended to Australia, where they sold almost a million records.
Ritchie Neville, Scott Robinson, Jason ‘J’ Brown, Abz Love and Sean Conlon were matched together after auditioning for Bob Herbert, who also managed the Spice Girls. They were the workhorses of the late-Nineties boyband glut, churning out hits with a higher banger-to-ballad quotient than their main competitors, the Backstreet Boys.
Herbert had masterminded and nurtured the Spice Girls only for them to ditch him for future American Idol creator Simon Fuller, so he made sure the members of Five signed binding contracts. Herbert died in 1999 and his son Chris Herbert managed the band until their split in 2001.
Rumours of their split began circling after Conlon did not appear in their last video, for “Let’s Dance”. At the time, management claimed he was taking time off to recover from glandular fever, but in reality he was suffering from a mental breakdown over the stress of being in the group. Ritchie later claimed this was kept secret from the rest of the band members too.
After their split, Conlon and Love both pursued solo careers, and Love had the most success, but nothing compared to the success of Five. They’d gone on to have a reunion in 2006 without Conlon, and again in 2012 without Brown.
