Spice Girls Invasion Begins in Vancouver; Group Proclaims "Mission Accomplished"

Whether you like it or not, the Spice Girls' first reunion show went down last night in Vancouver. That's right, British Columbia was awash with Girl Power. In addition to busting out eight costume changes and some spirited pole dancing, the quintet played a set list stacked with all their hits, as well as a bunch of disco-era songs ("It's Raining Men," "Celebration," "That's the Way") and a cover of Lenny Kravitz's "Are You Gonna Go My Way?" At the end of the show, lights spelled out the words "Spice" and "Mission Accomplished" (which we take to mean the tour will drag on for an additional two years and claim thousands of lives). For those not satisfied by the long-distance cellphone video of encore "Wannabe" posted above, the Spice Girls will appear in much clearer quality on tomorrow's night's Victoria's Secret Fashion Show on CBS.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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