Westlife with a drama

Westlife perform during Gravity Tour at Senayan Indoor Tennis Stadium in jakartaIt was the fourth time the Irish boy band Westlife performed in Indonesia, and the crowd was just as ecstatic to see them again, even though the show included some “drama”.

Twelve years, 10 albums and 44 million records sold worldwide have made Westlife one of the most successful boy bands.

Signed by renowned music mogul Simon Cowell, the group’s original lineup consisted of Nicky Byrne, Kian Egan, Mark Feehily, Shane Filan and Brian McFadden, who later decided to depart in 2004 due to family reasons.

After the three previous concerts – in 2000, 2001 and 2006 – the group returned to Jakarta as part of their Gravity Tour across Asia to promote their latest album, Gravity.

The long-time fans who were obsessed with the group took the concert as an evening of nostalgia.

“We are very happy to be back in Indonesia. We have a lot of fans here,” Filan said during a press conference before the show.

While many boy bands are never heard from again, Westlife has endured in the music industry and still drew around 4,500 people of all ages at its recent gig, held in Istora Senayan in South Jakarta.

Indonesia’s newest boy band, XO-IX, pronounced “X-O Nine” and comprised of nine youngsters who copied the style of Korean boy bands, made for an amateur opening act. It was with a sigh of relief when they were off the stage to make way for Westlife.

The crowd was shrieking in excitement as the white curtains were opened and the lights were on. Clad in black-and-white suits, the quartet kicked off with “When You’re Looking Like That” and “World of Our Own” before making the crowd sing along for the ballad, “What Makes A Man”.

They left the stage for a while before coming back in casual outfits and restarting with “Safe” and a cover of the Michael Bublé hit, “Home”.

As the lead vocalist, Filan was able to maintain the stability of his voice during the show, while other members looked as if they were struggling a bit to keep up with him.

They were about to sing their next song when the unexpected happened. The group stopped the show, asking the audience up front to take two steps back. “Everybody, please stop pushing. Take two steps back or the concert will be finished,” Byrne said. Security was even forced to get closer to the stage to control the situation.

That night, people mostly packed in the front part of the festival area, living some space open in the back, and the air in the sports hall grew hot, as there were too many people standing there.

“OK guys, there are a lot of seats out there. If you push forward again, we have to go. Sorry, we don’t want you to get hurt,” Filan added, while asking people to move to the tribune area.

Ten, 20, and 30 minutes passed by before the four of them reappeared on the stage, announcing that they would perform again and see how things went before deciding they would continue the show or abort it.

The show resumed with one of the most popular singles, “My Love”, but it was pretty obvious that they did not sing with all their heart anymore.

Things improved when Westlife decided to croon the rest of their songs, with tracks like “Seasons in the Sun”, “You Raise Me Up”, “Already There” and “I Will Reach”.

They sang “Flying Without Wings” before leaving the stage. They returned shortly after in tuxedos for “What About Now” before closing the night with a cover of the Billy Joel hit “Uptown Girl”.

The show offered another bit of disappointment, as the band cut a segment in which they were supposed to sing five tracks including Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” and the Black Eyed Peas’ “Time of My Life [Dirty Bit]”.

Social networks were busy as people voiced complaints and criticisms, saying that the promoter failed to handle the crowd or limit the capacity in the festival area.

The drama actually began during the press conference just around an hour before the band took the stage, when the emcee turned the supposedly for-journalists-only event into a meet-and-greet for herself.

Marygops Studios responded the complaints by apologizing through its Twitter account.

With two gigs coming up in November featuring Senegalese-American hip hop artist Akon and the-much-talked-about Korean sensation 2PM, Marygops certainly should get things right straightaway if it doesn’t want to lose the faith of the music buffs in town.

Westlife perform during the Gravity Tour at Senayan Indoor Tennis Stadium in Jakarta.

Photo by Wendra Ajistyatama