Stay out of the limelight, East 17 (From This is Hampshire)

Stay out of the limelight, East 17

11:50am Friday 12th August 2011

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IF Take That are manband perfection, surely this bunch of misfits are the very reason why other boy bands should never even consider reforming.

While Gary Barlow and co are flying high on the comeback trail, the news that their old rivals East 17 are back on the boy-band wagon has been met with barely a whisper.

Probably because we’ve heard it all before.

In 1998 Brian, John and Terry reunited as E-17, which was a slightly inappropriate moniker given former frontman Brian Harvey’s earlier ill-judged comments that Ecstasy could make you a better person.

In 2006 an attempted full reunion was scuppered by Tony Mortimer’s rumoured punching of Brian Harvey for turning up late to a meeting.

They don’t look much like a boy band a decade later and the line-up includes an unknown replacement for Harvey, their best-known face, worryingly most famous for running himself over with his own car.

They were the rough East End answer to the clean-cut Take That, Boyzone and Westlife.

They’re alright for the office Christmas karaoke when Stay Another Day is done to death, but they don’t have a hope in hell of emulating the success of their ’90s adversaries.

Music has changed a lot since their heyday – and so have the streets they hail from in the past few days.

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