Powered by ‘positivity’

Hair flying, body squeezed into a leopard-print jumpsuit that hugged the curves like a race car driver, the woman known as Scary snarled, grimaced, grinned and grabbed her crotch like she was playing first base for the Yankees.

She glided down the catwalk as if it was coated in ball bearings, belting out a Lenny Kravitz tune, headbanging and singing into a jewel-encrusted microphone attached to a whip, naturally.

She lashed the stage -- crack! crack! -- striking a dominant pose, a woman in command of a sparkly army of ostentation ready to do battle with all that does not glitter.

Somewhere, John Waters must have been twisting his little mustache in delight.

That trash culture auteur has long established himself as the king of camp, and Saturday night at the Mandalay Bay Events Center, he could have met the new queens of as much.

Back in Las Vegas for the first time in a decade, the Spice Girls made up for lost time with all the deliciously overwrought pomp and pageantry of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" staged by Victoria's Secret models.

By now, their personas have become pop archetypes.

There's Baby, the flaxen-haired girl next door with a voice soft as terrycloth; Ginger, the ballsy firecracker fond of singing with her legs spread wide apart; Sporty, the brassy-voiced belter who looks like a punk rock aerobics instructor; Scary, the wild-eyed banshee; and of course, Posh, the rail thin vamp who glimmers like an underfed disco ball and whose prominent cheek bones could make a praying mantis feel fat.

Together, they sing of being a "power girl in a nineties world," elucidate upon the difference between being a vixen and a tramp, and let all the boys know who's really in charge here.

"Are you ready for some girl power?" Ginger asked at the onset of the show, and even though it was a rhetorical question, the near-capacity crowd shrieked in the affirmative, punishing their vocal chords like unruly stepchildren.

For their efforts, they were rewarded with an estrogen-powered spectacle that reimagined Barbie with a machete.

The Girls stormed the stage in boxer's robes, twisted themselves around candy-striped stripper poles and prowled down a long runway that jutted into the crowd.

They mixed breathy, come-hither ballads about the value of sisters sticking together ("Headlines") and loving your mum ("Momma") with femme first calls-to-arms with shout along choruses ("Holler," "Stop").

But really, the Spice Girls are less about gender issues than chirpily advocating the value of self-assertiveness, however that might manifest itself.

On Saturday, the first of three concerts in town, with a final show Tuesday, the crowd comprised nearly as many men as women, some of whom pressed themselves into high heels and short skirts like their heroines, hair piled atop their heads like wobbly stacks of pancakes.

It was schmaltz with a purpose, kitsch with a cause.

"Everything is free," they sang in unison at show's end. "All you need is positivity."

That, and a bucket of eye glitter, of course.

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin @reviewjournal.com or (702) 383-0476