CityLife

Blue @ M.E.N. Arena

ANTHONY, Duncan, Lee, Simon - four names guaranteed to drive young girls into a frenzy of screaming and arm-waving.

And at the Manchester Evening News Arena at the weekend there was plenty of both when the boys from Blue took the city by storm.

The fab four, including Moss Side's Simon Webbe, delivered a fun, energetic and sexy 90-minute set that raised the roof with ear-splitting regularity.

They were supported by a brisk succession of support acts - five in one hour - including budding pop starlet Rosie Ribbons and rap outfit VS.

Manchester waves and foot stamping signalled the arrival of the main event.

And nobody was disappointed as fireworks, a dune buggy and BBC newsreader Martyn Lewis got the show off to an explosive start.

The crowd went wild to rockier, opening numbers Riders and This Temptation, and later Blue belted out R'n'B tunes such as All Rise, Fly By and Too Close to whip the audience into hysteria.

Colourful costumes and ill-fitting wigs also cropped up as a 70s disco medley was thrown in for good measure - and for the benefit of the many parents in the audience.

Bottom

But the biggest cheers were reserved for baby-faced crooner Lee Ryan, who bared his bottom to the obvious pleasure of the overwhelmingly female crowd, and for Simon Webbe, who was given a homecoming to end all homecomings.

The spectacle finished as it started - with fireworks and screams - and thousands of fans filed out of the Arena with big smiles on their faces.

Throughout the two-and-a-half-hour set Simon and his bandmates thanked the audience for coming, for buying their records and for supporting them during their sensational 18-month rise to the top.

The result was pure adulation. Blue could have sung their way through a shopping list and the effects would have been the same.

All of which goes to show that, in spite of all the yo-yoing and pose throwing, Anthony, Duncan, Lee and Simon are nice boys you could take home to meet mother.

On Sunday night, the boys celebrated topping the charts once again with their latest single, Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word, a duet with Sir Elton John.