Fan Concert Experiences - Westlife's 2001 South Africa Concerts

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Review by Taryn Smith (Capetown, South Africa)

Westlife were in South Africa for a very quick promotional tour, doing three shows in as many days on opposite ends of the country. I went to the concert in Cape Town on May 18th. Westlife brought no dancers out with them, and the stages didn't have any of the special effects (except for a few fireworks), but Westlife made up for it in their heart-stoppingyly brilliant show!! They performed 1 songs, beginning with "Dreams Come True" and ending with the brilliant "I Lay My Love On You" and "Flying Without Wings". The guys sang wonderfully, and for a country who is absolutely MAD about Westlife, and never gets any international acts coming here, it was AMAZING!!! I live in Port Elizabeth, which is about 8 hours away from Cape Town, and about 200 people (that I know of!!) happily made the trek from here to Cape Town to see them.

They guys sang with the sweetest melodies, went through quite a few costume changes, and had everyone screaming so loudly that I don't think any of us could talk properly for the next week!!! Shane was looking adorable, as was Nicky. The 2 of them looked like they were really enjoying the show, and were always laughing and smiling - they seemed pretty amazed at the response that they got from the audience!! Kian shocked me with his spellbinding stage presence, Brilliant guitar playing ("More Than Words") and his voice, which ironically, you don't hear that often. I heard it during the Motown medley, and WOW!!!! Mark was being very sweet and serious, except for when he knocked his chair over during the one dance routine - he killed himslef laughing!! Bryan was.....looking VERY fine, but in a very odd mood - i got the impression that he didn't really want to be there. Still, he smiled and tries to make Shane laugh when he was trying to sing Swear It Again!!

Definate highlights of the show were "You Make Me Feel" (nicky - swoon!!!! *sigh*!!!!) and "Uptown Girl", where they got Miss Teen South Africa to be their Uptown Girl. Another huge hit was when the biys decided that they "wanted to take our picture"!!!! This, of course, was actually just an excuse for Nicky and Kian (wearing white calvin Klein boxers) and Bryan (in a green g-string) to drop their pants and moon us!!!!! Very fun!!!! The concert was absolutely amazing, and felt far too short!! It only took and hour and a half, and everybody wanted more!!! I felt it was one of the BEST nights of my life, and can't wait for Westlife to return to South Africa. I just wish they would organize a concert on Port Elizabeth this time!! They would be sold out in no time!!!! Thanx! Taryn

Review by Natalie Fisher (Cape Town, South Africa)

Westlife in Cape Town On Friday the 18th of May 2001 I went to go see Westlife at the Bellville Velodrome in Cape Town, South Africa. I didn't believe my friend when she told me that westlife were coming to Cape Town because no one that famous ever comes here but then I started to hear about it on the radio etc. When I finally believed that they were coming I went straight to buy my ticket but the lady told me that they weren't on sale yet so I went back the next day and was the 2nd person to buy my ticket!

Anyway, I arrived at the venue at around 11:00 am to look if anyone would be waiting in line yet, not really expecting that there would be, and to my surprise there were already about 20 people there. Apparently some had been waiting since 7:30 am. In fear of losing my place in line I phoned my mom and told her that I wasn't coming home (I was supposed to take the car to be fixed) because I didn't want to lose my place, I quickly went across the road to buy some drinks so that I didn't dehydrate (It was really hot even though it is supposed to be winter) and sped back (hope there was no speeding cameras around on that day!). When I got back to the Velodrome I realized that I had forgotten my ticket @ home (trust me to do something like that!) then I had to phone my mom again to tell her that she had to bring my ticket except that she wasn't @ home she had already left to come and fetch the car, when she arrived I told her about my ticket and she was not a happy chappie, luckily we only live about 5 minutes away from the velodrome so she didn't have to travel a long way.

I had met these girls before I had gone to buy drinks who had said that they would keep me a place so I went to sit with them as my friend was at college and was only going to be able to get there at around 3:30pm.

The security guard who was there told us that Shane and Mark were already inside I wasn't fooled as many other people were, why would Shane and Mark be there and the rest of them not be? He was still telling us that story 5 hours later and the others had not arrived yet! Then at 3:30 pm my friend finally arrived and by that time the queue was quite long but I had already organized for people to let her push in.

When the proper security people came on they told us that Westlife were only arriving at 5:00pm to do their sound check as 5:00pm came closer and closer the fans got more and more excited as you can well imagine. The people in charge were hoping that Westlife would drive past the queue but unfortunately they went in a back entrance, all of a sudden we heard music and then everyone realized that it was actually WESTLIFE!!, Singing. Everyone started singing along and the excitement was rising by the moment. Then this person (I think it was Anto their tour manager but I don't know because I'm not sure what he looks like) came to us while we were singing and told us that they were shooting footage for their new video and told us to carry on singing and he told us that he'd never seen so many beautiful girls in all his life!

They finally opened the gates at 6:00pm but only to go to the official entrances because Westlife were still busy practicing and we had to wait for them to finish before we could go into the venue but as I was in front of the queue when the ushers opened the door for some or other reason I could see right on to the stage and I saw Kian and Shane dancing around, Kian was wearing jeans and a t-shirt even from far he looked scrumptious. When they finally finished their sound check they checked our tickets and tore the stubs and I ran like I had never run before and all along the way there were people telling me to slow down and that I may not run! (ohh please!!) When I finally got to the entrance of the Golden Circle the guy at my entrance didn't have a stamp and I saw at all the other entrances there were people pouring in and I thought I was never going to get to the front the guard told me to go to another entrance but when I got there I realized that I had given my ticket to the other guard and they told me to go back to that entrance so I did and finally got in to the Golden Circle.

I was in the second row from the front but got talking to people and told them how long I had been waiting and they told me not to worry and that they would get me to the front.

When the lights went out and we stood up, I squeezed into the front, I stood right in the middle and right at the front, I was so close I could see the scar on Kians cheek.

First of all no one really appreciated the support band because everyone just wanted to see Westlife (the support band was Semisane, a South African band). When Westlife finally appeared on stage in silhouette, behind a thin white material everyone went absolutely crazy but I suppose that that can be expected. When the cloth fell down and we could actually see them properly it was mad, I've never heard anything like it I thought my eardrums were going to burst!!

Dreams Come True was their first song showing us, and the media that the stories about them not being able to dance are a load of rubbish by doing some slick synchronized dance moves (very sexy!), at the end of the song there were fireworks which scared the living daylights out of me even though I knew they were going to go off. They each said a few words like how excited they were to be in Cape Town and Bryan said that they were only going to sing a couple of songs because they were going on the town to find some Cape Town girls! I can't remember exactly what songs they sang and in what order they sang them in but I know they sang No No, If I Let You Go, Swear it Again (at a point in this song Bryan looked at me and then he was staring but I'm not complaining, then when they came to the front of the stage he looked down at me and everyone around me grabbed my arms and said "oh my gosh he's looking @ you!!"). Kian looked at the croud and it looked like he was really savoring the moment by closing his eyes and smiling. When they sang Somebody Needs You they did a Backstreet Boy type dance with chairs, it was really funny 'cos Mark knocked his chair over and he started laughing at himself!! Then was You Make Me Feel (in which Shane was trying to make Nicky laugh when he had to sing his solo), when they walked to the front of the stage and not many people were screaming so I screamed Kians name as he was the closest to me, and he looked at me which made me scream which in turn made him laugh @ me. They sang, When You're Looking Like That (which was much appreciated 'cos they told us that this was going to be the next single released in South Africa and that they were busy filming the footage for the video during this concert!!).

They told us they wanted to take a photo of the crowd so they turned around for the photographer to take the photo and they counted to 3 and Bryan and Kian dropped their pants much to our surprise (nice surprise I must add), then they turned around again to actually take the pic and counted again and this time Kian turned around and pretended to unzip his pants but quickly turned around for the guy to take the photo.

Funny thing is that when Westlife did their costume changes they just went behind the side curtains and the curtain was caught on something so I could see there socked feet running around, trying to get dressed as quickly as they could, it was really cute!!

They sang My Love, which was really good! Then they sang More Than Words in which Kian played the guitar (just to let everyone know that I play the guitar and that is not a very easy song to play). They went off for their umpteenth costume change (which I enjoyed), and returned to sing an accapella version of My Girl, which showed everyone, if they hadn't already noticed that Westlife have very powerful voices (which is an understatement!!).Which merged into a medley of Can't Get Next To You Babe (where Nicky and Bryan showed us their rapping techniques) and Baby I Need Some Lovin', at this stage Bryan was pulling faces so I pulled faces back @ him (I can't believe I did that!!). Once Again they went off for a costume change and came back on with red/orange overalls and we all knew that Uptown Girl was next and this girl (I have no idea who she was because they never brought dancers to South Africa with them, I think she might have been Miss Teen SA) came onto the stage and walked around strutting her stuff.

Off again to take the top part of their overalls and tie them around their waists and on again to sing Tell Me What Makes A Man, I knew that Mark had a powerful voice but this song just proved it to anyone that didn't think so, he put so mush effort into it that his face was bright red and screwed up (he is by far my favorite even though I think he looks better with longer hair), they were thanking us for being such a wonderful audience and Bryan said "they say there's plenty fish in the sea, well if that's true then this is the pacific ocean" which as you can probably imagine made everyone scream even louder, when they had finished singing Tell Me What Makes A Man they all said their goodbyes and more fireworks were seen, and they left the stage (I don't think they fooled many people though as no one moved and they just kept on screaming). To no one's surprise they returned in another change of clothes and sang I Lay My Love On You starting of slowly but it got faster and they began dancing again, the sad thing was that I knew that the show was not going to last much longer (after reading the other reviews on www.westlifeweb.com) but I was just trying to enjoy the moment/concert while it lasted, I was gong mad and calling Nicky and he looked at me and laughed (because I was going so mad). Then came the final song Flying Without Wings (we didn't have the metal grid though but it was still brilliant), I now understand the saying "save the best for last" it was brilliant and everyone was singing along, hanging on to every single word that came out of their mouths because we knew that this was the last and final song and it would be a while before we would hear their beautiful voices serenading us again…

They said that they would definitely be back so everyone especially me is looking forward to that occasion.

If you have the opportunity to see this show I would definitely recommend that you go and see it, you won't be disappointed!!