Westlife
3Arena, Dublin
★★★⯪☆
If critics had been asked in 2001 to predict the future of music, few would have bet on Westlife being the band to command a 13-night residency at the Point Theatre in Dublin an entire quarter of a century later.
Louis Walsh may have opined that there were “no passengers” in the Sligo-Dublin pop act, but even among their own peer group – top-10-bothering whelps such as Boyzone and Take That – Westlife were known as the tamer, safer, harmony-loving boy-band option.
A dance routine in Westlife’s world involved getting up off a bar stool. A change of direction meant a less syrupy ballad to cover. You didn’t need a trigger warning to listen to a Westlife record. Cool did not come knocking at this band’s door. Mammies loved them. They seemed relatable, likable and ephemeral.
It’s a turn of events that seems to have surprised even Westlife themselves. “We’re pinching ourselves,” Kian Egan told Kathryn Thomas on Q102 recently, noting that they had more than 150 live shows booked across the globe for their 25th-anniversary tour. “How are we still doing this? How is this going so well after so long?”
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At 3Arena on Thursday, the first night of their residency, the mood is upbeat: the crowd begin chanting Olé! Olé! Olé! before the band arrives, letting out a delighted roar as they spot Katie Taylor slipping into the stands.
Technically, this is not really Westlife’s 25th anniversary, the band having formed in 1998, but softening hard edges and making things seem polished and palatable is Westlife’s trademark. This is the band, after all, who altered the lyrics to Relish’s Rainbow Zephyr to Hey Whatever just in case anyone found the line tricksy. “It’s 25 years plus VAT,” Nicky Egan says from the stage with a grin.
Perhaps for the same reason of preserving a sense of smoothness, no mention is made tonight of Mark Feehily’s absence from the tour due to health issues. Instead there’s a brashly bold opening montage that involves blindingly bright red lasers etching a map of the world, tectonic plates shifting, a Star Trek-style beaming down to Earth of Shane Filan before, suddenly, Filan, Egan and Byrne emerge on stage to sing World of Our Own followed by Uptown Girl, their take on the Billy Joel classic, and their own Bop Bop Baby.
Clad in black leather jackets, there’s a touch of Ken dolls by way of a coyer Chippendales about the three members of Westlife tonight. There’s a lot of power posing, legs spread apart, hands down by the sides, hair impeccably coiffed.
“They’re stunning men. They should have me permanently,” Garron Noone, their support act, quipped earlier, and if the band don’t quite flirt with the audience, their smiles are on full wattage, their gaze is beatific and, as the roving cameras show the front rows on the big screen, the endorphin rush from the predominantly female audience seems very real.
“Still got it,” Byrne says, grinning, holding up a white lacy bra that has appeared on stage, before passing it to Filan.
Westlife have always been about the ballads, but in a set that lasts nearly two hours they manage to make this less of a problem than it really should be.
It helps that at 10pm they start singing Olé! Olé! Olé! themselves before bringing Taylor on stage for a five-minute interview. Along with several costume changes and further montages, it’s a nice way to break up their set, reaffirming their natural warmth as a band and reminding the crowd of their guest appearance at the boxer’s farewell Croke Park fight last weekend.
Their recent Ed Sheeran-written song Chariot is another zippy number that gives a lift as they embark on a conga line, their capable backing band also in tow, through the photographers’ pit. Egan also somehow drops a guitar solo of Guns ‘N Roses’ Sweet Child o’ Mine into proceedings, a nice touch that had not been on this reviewer’s bingo card.
Some songs cannot be rescued, however. As part of their closing sequence they deliver Mandy, that drip of a cover song, before segueing into You Raise Me Up, a song that for this reviewer has always had the opposite of the intended effect. Still, you can’t win them all.
Maybe in a world that often feels genuinely alarming, a sense of wholesome predictability is what many of us crave. Westlife may be a Xanax in musical format, but they’re very good at what they do. White suits, winning smiles and winsome balladeering? Come on in, the water’s warm.
