Big giant robot just wants a hug from the audience...

Aha! Just in time for Christmas, the Take That boys have announced the release of Progress Live, a 22 track live album from their Progress tour earlier this year. For those of you who’d like to relive the tour with pictures, the set will also be available on DVD and Blu-ray. If I know my wife, she’ll be ogling Howard for another 2 and a half hours when she upwraps this on Christmas Day!

I might even watch the DVD myself, since my view at the Croke Park concert in Dublin was marred by a mentalist fan and her green feather boa. But view-obscuring TT fans aside, the concert itself was amazing – the Robbie Williams solo set in the middle almost stole the show, but I was equally impressed with the new material from Progress (which I hadn’t heard until that night).

The staging was breathtaking, and I say that as someone who’s not easily impressed. But the enormous robot that dominates the Progress Live album cover slowly became animated, and the boys performed a number of songs from the palms of its big robotic hands!

Take That’s Progress Live 2011 tour became the biggest tour in UK and Irish history when a record breaking 1.34 million tickets were snapped up in less than 24 hours of going on sale. The band smashed their previous box office record set in 2008 with The Circus Live Tour selling over 1.8 million tickets overall, more than doubling their own record for sales in a single day.

Progress Live track listing

1. Rule The World
2. Greatest Day
3. Hold Up A Light
4. Patience
5. Shine
6. Let Me Entertain You
7. Rock DJ
8. Come Undone
9. Feel
10. Angels
11. The Flood
12. SOS
13. Underground Machine
14. Kidz
15. Pretty Things
16. When They Were Young Medley (A Million Love Songs, Babe, Everything Changes)
17. Back For Good
18. Pray
19. Love Love
20. Never Forget
21. No Regrets/Relight My Fire
22. Eight Letters

Take That‘s Progress Live – the DVD and Blu-Ray are released on 21st November 2011, with the album to follow on 28th November.