The Next Step was Steps' second tour after their Step One Tour. At the time the Next Step Tour was the biggest UK pop tour in history. The tour premiered some tracks of their 2nd album Steptacular including When I Said Goodbye, Deeper Shade Of Blue and Say You'll Be Mine which later were singles in 2000. The 31 October Manchester show was broadcast live on Sky Box Office and later released on the video "The Next Step Live", which shows some backstage footage of the show. The show was split into three different themes - "Carnival", "Space" and "Garden".
Concert synopsis
The carnival section began with the dancers on stage, whilst the group made their way through the crowd in a carnival parade, dressed in colourful costumes and masks. After making their way onto the stage, the group performed "Love's Got A Hold On My Heart", after taking off their colourful costumes to reveal yellow and gold outfits underneath they performed "Last Thing On My Mind". After a brief interaction with the crowd, "When I Said Goodbye" and "After The Love Has Gone" were performed. After ore introduction with the crowd they took the crowd to "space" and a video of a rocket ship played and the stage was covered with lights to look like stars and space-like. The space section featured a costume change, with the group appearing in silver outfits on a vehicle that resembled a Lunar Rover to perform "Deeper Shade of Blue". The choreography is different as the single of "Deeper Shade of Blue" was released after the tour had finished, therefore the official choreography was not performed. Lee and Faye then performed their solo songs, before the whole group returned to perform "Heartbeat" riding on the vehicle driven by Lee, walking on stage to perform the rest of the song. Afterwards they returned to the vehicle after a fake meteor shower hits on stage then a video shows of it turning into rain growing grass which then shows trees and nature following Claire's vocals. The third section is the garden theme, the group have once again changed costumes and began with "One For Sorrow", which the begin sitting down and then using mic-stands covered in sunflowers. They briefly talk amongst themselves about what is missing in their garden, they all blame H for taking them to a "boring garden" and vacate, leaving him on stage to interact with the audience and perform his solo. Followed by Claire's solo bringing someone on stage to sit with her on stage with two dancers behind them dressed in white. For the Halloween show shown on The Next Step Live Lee comes and taps Claire on the shoulder at the end of her solo to scare her off and change costume into the Ghostbusters outfits, they then perform the theme with the dancers in zombie and ghost costumes with the group using smoke machines as weapons to fight off the ghouls throughout the song. The group then take off their ghost busters outfits to reveal their costumes, the girls sit on a swing and Lee and H talks to the audience asking them what dance H is showing which is off Better Best Forgotten, The group then perform a medley of "Better Best Forgotten"/"5, 6, 7, 8", where the group wore cowboy hats during 5,6,7,8 and then fight with their dancers and all leave except Lisa who then performs her solo "Just Like The First Time" with four other dancers on stage, the group then come back on stage to announce their new Christmas single "Say You'll Be Mine" and then teach the crowd the choreography, following by their performance of the song. They address the audience and talk about going to a party, which they then run off stage. The encore began with the dancers on stage with fire and a creepy laugh following the performance of "Better The Devil You Know" with the group each wearing devil outfits and devil horns wearing white underneath. The performance was then later used as the official video for the "Say You'll Be Mine/Better The Devil You Know" single. After the performance the group take off the devil outfits to reveal the outfits they wore for their performance for "Lay All Your Love On Me" for Abbamania to perform "Tragedy". At their goodbyes they announce their next arena tour Steptacular Tour and say thank you to the dancers.
