Take That vs E17

[ChocHotolate]

Just a little musing on Sunday evening…

Anyone my sort of age (40s), will surly remember the battle of the boy bands between TT & E17. The bands attracted a different fan base but both were undoubtedly huge bands.
Take That are still selling out arenas and going on tour….E17 were performing today at Chessington World of Adventures at a blue light card special day. Crowd size about 150. I thought they looked and sounded awful but maybe that’s just me?

I thought it was interesting the difference between the 2 bands now

Take That vs Boyzone was the main rivalry at my school. I was Team Boyzone though I did love East 17 too.

There was never a battle of the boy bands between these two. They appealed to different people iirc. TT quickly went stratospheric with their dancing and videos.

I was nominally a TT fan but secretly loved E17. I never had time for rivalry: I bought both Blur and Oasis in the battle of Britpop.

East 17 is pretty much a new band though isn’t it? No Brian Harvey or Tony Mortimer? Why would anyone want to see a bunch of randoms who are basically a cover band? I don’t think you can compare them with TT really.

I am! I hated Take That as a teen. East 17 was my favourite band. I loved Brian Harvey 🫣 and can remember being very jealous of Daniella Westbrook for dating him. What twats they both ended up becoming. Boyzone was the first concert I ever went to and the first time I got to see East 17 was at an 18-30s Butlins thing when I was 18 and it had already gone downhill for them. I’ve been to see Take That and Robbie in recent years and love them now.

Stay Another Day still gives me goosebumps whenever I hear it
E17 were the 'bad boys'
TT were more wholesome

It's only Terry C left, hanging on like an old has-been. It's hasn't been East17 for a long time.

If you live in e17 (Walthamstow, ne London), east17 turns up somewhere every year to turn on Christmas lights and sing stay. It’s become a tradition.

I loved E17. Just loved them. Honestly thought they we so cool. Saw them in Hull in 2005 and my teenage girl heart was a bit broken cause they we really bad. Got angry at the crowd for not doing what they wanted I can't imagine they have improved over the following 20 years.

Not the point of the thread, but how busy was Chessington? I got an email about E17 and was tempted to go, but we were busy (going to Gladiators, very 90s!). However we had a bad Blue Light Day at Legoland a few years ago and it put me off.

It was busier than previous years, queues up to an hour for the popular rides. Loads of rides closed due to new stuff going in. It felt old. I would have been pissed if I’d paid full price with everything closed.
E17 or “E17” were awful, out of tune, can’t dance, you didn’t miss anything
What was the issue at Legoland?

I loved East 17. I wouldn't be interested in seeing them now, though. It's not East 17 without Brian and Tony!

I was a Take That girl. I couldn’t get into East 17 purely because they were all so very unattractive.

I was at school with a girl who was utterly obsessed with Take That, as was her mum. When they split up her mum turned up to the school (the news announcement must have been during school hours) bawling her eyes out to tell her. She was off school for a week after. I could never understand that mindset. In saying that I secretly loved Ant and Dec, who were to be fair utterly shit. I knew I'd get badly bullied for that, I had a friend who also liked them and we'd meet at weekends to practise the dance moves to Let's Get Ready to Rumble.

Both bands only had 2 members who were any good. Take that it was Gary Barlow and Robbie even though all the girls in my yead loved drippy Mark who could never sing and still can't and there was no point in Howard. Same with E17, it was basically Tony and Brian. At the time I liked E17 more but objectively I can see that TT were the better band and I have a soft spot for Robbie. Wouldn't bother to go and see any of them now though.

There was a bbc series (possibly only 2 programmes) about boybands, maybe a year ago. Iirc East 17 had really awful management and the band barely made any money. Tbf most of the boy bands seemed to end up with psychological or financial issues (or both)

I liked both bands but was a much bigger fan of TT.

At Legoland it was just long queues, and queues that were slower than predicted. We queued for the cars twice (probably about 1 hour each time for both the big and little versions even as soon as we got there) and didn't attempt any of the other big rides due to queues.

It was probably naivety on my part. For some reason I thought it was a 'special' day for Blue Light card and wouldn't be too busy. We have been back since on a normal day when queues were predicted to be low and it was much better, although more expensive.

Shame about E17!