Westlife Concert Experience - as reviewed by MTVAsia

venue: Jakarta, Indonesia @ Sumantri Brojonegoro Stadium
date: May 2001

The five Irish boys hypnotized almost 14,500 fans last Thursday afternoon during their successful performance in the Sumantri Brojonegoro Stadium that started exactly at 16.00 p.m., after it was opened by Christian Wunderlich. Unlike their performance last year, the boys were accompanied by live music this time. But the fans probably didn't really care much about that. They were too busy screaming at everything they did or trying to escape the water that was being sprayed on them to cool down. But overall, the audience was very well behaved throughout the show. There were no stampedes although the first aid tents were still flooded with dozens of girls.

The band sang sixteen songs including "Uptown Girl" and "What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted" from their second album, and of course the ones that brought them the fame like "Flying Without Wings" and "I Have A Dream" were among their highlights of the night. They also did some acapella singing and rapping, and even sang "Happy Birthday" to birthday boy Mark Feehily. All throughout the show, flowers, dolls, and almost every kind of souvenirs were thrown onto the stage. It's no wonder that Westlife has been awarded twenty-two platinum award for their "Coast To Coast" album in Indonesia. Since last November, it has sold over 1.2 million copies. Even their "Coast To Coast Special Edition" has sold up about 800,000 copies to date! However, things would've gotten really smooth if only the police and security guards didnÌt start a fight among themselves, duh! Fortunately the incident happened after the band left the stadium to go back to their hotel. It made some teenage fans frightened who rushed out of the stadium very quickly.