Spice Girls celebrate Mel B's birthday ahead of Manchester gig

Spice Girl Mel B will be celebrating her birthday on stage in Manchester tonight.

Scary Spice will join bandmates Geri Horner, Mel C and Emma Bunton at the Etihad Stadium for the third show of their Spice World 2019 reunion tour on her 44th birthday.

Bunton was the first to wish her Happy Birthday on Instagram.

It is a bittersweet time for Mel who yesterday marked the birthday of her late father Martin Brown, who died aged 63 in 2017 after battling cancer.

Read more: Spice Girls fans demand refunds over "diabolical" sound at latest live show

Mel wrote on Instagram: “I’m missing you more now than ever, I really really am in the most amount of pain, it is actually unbearable!!

“But I do wish you could see me now happy and strong j am now thank god,I no you would be sooo proud of me [sic].”

Meanwhile, Mel C has congratulated a couple who apparently got engaged while watching the Spice Girls perform this week.

Sporty Spice appealed on Instagram for the couple to come forward.

The Spice Girls first two concerts in Dublin and Cardiff have been marred by complaints from fans that the sound was “diabolical”. After spending around £100 a ticket many concertgoers complained couldn’t hear what was happening on the stage and some have demanded refunds.

The days leading up to the tour had seen the band dogged by rumours they were in crisis. Horner and Mel B were said to have fallen out after Mel B claimed she and Horner had had a lesbian fling during the nineties, which Horner denied.

Read more: Victoria Beckham wishes Spice Girls 'good luck' as she misses out on reunion tour

And Scary Spice was forced to deny reports she had gone blind in one eye after being struck with a painful eye infection.

The Spice Girls will play three shows in Manchester, before continuing the tour in Coventry, Sunderland, Edinburgh, Bristol and London.