Westlife’s Singapore Concert Had A Proposal, A Queen Medley & All The ’00s Feels

While the Backstreet Boys were busy asking, “Am I sexual?” (And the answer is always “yeah”, according to their 1997 hit ‘Everybody’), fellow ’90s boyband Westlife were releasing music that made people fall in love without a single pelvic thrust.

The five pleasant Irish lads from Westlife — which originally comprised of Shane Filan, Nicky Byrne, Mark Feehily, Brian McFadden and Kian Egan — don’t push suggestive lyrics. What they do, though, is croon romantic ballads so heartfelt, it affirms our faith in true love even after the Song-Song divorce.

Which is why we found ourselves at the National Stadium last night (Aug 10), splurging a few precious long weekend hours on attending Westlife’s one-night-only The Twenty Tour concert. We feel old saying this, but yes, it has been 20 years since the lads released their eponymous album in 1999. (Spotify be damned, we’re hanging onto our precious vintage Westlife CDs).

A lot has happened in the past two decades, starting with band member Brian’s 2004 departure from Westlife to pursue his solo career at the height of the band’s popularity. The high-profile split was said to have caused bad blood between him and the rest of his former bandmates. These boys later became men, got married, had kids.

Then, in 2012, Shane was forced to file for bankruptcy when the property development company he founded with his brother went bust during a recession. The same year, Westlife also disbanded briefly before reuniting in 2018 (whew!). Shane has since bounced back, releasing three solo albums and playing a solo concert at the Hard Rock Hotel Singapore’s Coliseum last year.

Despite their ups and downs, we’re happy that Westlife is back on our shores (Brian McFadden conspicuously missing from their comeback line-up). Along with 20,000 other mostly millennial fans, we thronged the cavernous National Stadium, buzzing with excitement. The air smelt strongly like pungent medicated oil that someone in the audience had decided to apply. We only begrudged their inconsideration a little, because the National Stadium was really stuffy. So stuffy, we could see the rivulets of sweat running down the Westlife members’ brows as they baked in thick suit jackets on the spotlit stage. “We changed our T-shirts 10 times, but it’s all good,” deadpanned Shane at one point.

Or maybe the heat just emanated from the pop stars themselves, who unabashedly razed the stage with coordinated outfits and dance moves like it’s 1999. They may be on the cusp of 40 now, but these guys are still scruffily charming, and altogether dishier than a tableful of char kway teow with extra hum. “We got married and had children and lived our lives. It’s only right that we thank you for 20 years,” said Nicky humbly to the screaming crowd.

Westlife, in 2019, still sounded as boyish and earnest as they did two decades ago, even with National Stadium’s infamously problematic acoustics. Everyone got goosebumps when Mark delivered the last line: “And I’ll swear it all over again” during the band’s performance of ‘Swear It Again’, and got on their feet for ‘Uptown Girl’ (uh, does anyone still remember it’s actually a Billy Joel cover, and not a Westlife song?).

During a singalong sesh of ‘Fool Again’, Nicky decided to play a game with the audience. His challenge: sing the famous line from ‘Fool Again’ that goes “How was I to know, you nevvver told me” and drag the ‘never’ word in a single breath for as long as possible. “Do you want to break the world record for the longest note held? You got to hold it for longer than 47.252 seconds,” explained gamemaster Nicky, who had apparently looked up the current record. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the crowd easily slayed a respectable 48 seconds. We’re after all a nation who has trained our lung power since young with all the “yam sengs” we did at wedding dinners, okay?

Midway through the concert, Westlife stopped to invite two ladies from their entourage on stage, ostensibly to help sing their next song. It was all really random, till the band revealed that one of the women’s boyfriends had planned a surprise proposal — to which the lucky lady said yes as Westlife serenaded the couple with their Ed Sheeran-penned track ‘Better Man’ from their upcoming album, Spectrum. Good luck to the guys out there planning to top this proposal hor.

Westlife paid tribute to rock legends Queen with a medley of the band’s most well-loved hits. The crowd stomped to ‘We Will Rock You’, ‘Somebody To Love’, ‘I Want To Break Free’, ‘We Are the Champions’ and ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ (Kian shredding a killer solo on his electric guitar for the latter). Turns out the boys are such big fans of Queen, it's been reported that Westlife is collaborating with Queen on a “special project” that’s rumoured to be a Christmas single. Intriguing. There was also another Queen in the house last night, Westlife’s ‘Queen of My Heart’ (is it really a Westlife concert without that song?).

Mark was making an understatement when he announced, “We’ve too many hits to sing tonight, so we’re going to sing a bit of each” as the quartet launched into ‘Unbreakable’. And because they’re terribly funny, the band started making fun of their own songs. “A staff member sang, ‘This song is unbearable’,” piped up Nicky. “He was fired!”

For ‘Flying Without Wings’ and ‘World of Our Own’, the boys also donned appropriately boyband-esque white suits and danced in sync against an old-school blue backdrop. Can you hear that? It’s the sound of all the millennial hearts in the stadium fluttering.

One of the last songs Westlife performed for the night was a cover of the Josh Groban classic ‘You Raised Me Up’. Kian gave us a glimpse of the band’s unbreakable bromance when he shared, “I lost my dad, and at the funeral [Westlife] got up and sang this song. The next year, Nicky lost his dad. We got up at the funeral and sang it too.”

It was also Kian who delivered all the feels when he confessed: “We broke up and we thought that was the end of Westlife. Then we were talking about getting back together, but would anyone care?”

Judging from how they can still fill our National Stadium, 20 years on, we say yes, people do care about Westlife.

PHOTOS: UNUSUAL ENTERTAINMENT & YIP JIEYING