Westlife Concert Experience - as reviewed by MTVAsia

venue: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
date: May 2001

This marks the third time I would be catching a performance by Westlife. While they were sweet nobodies the first time, the second time they disappointed by tagging their show a "concert" when they did not have a backing band. This time they are back, bigger and thankfully, better. No, when I say bigger I do not mean Bryan McFadden's cheeks, but more the venue -- Malaysia's pride, the Commonwealth Stadium, now known as the National Stadium.

Though the concert wasn't scheduled to start until 8pm, fans had been queuing from as early as 3:00 p.m., not caring that the best tickets for the concert were numbered seats. Thankfully, unlike usual Malaysian concerts that follow the concept of Malaysian timing, Christian Wunderlich came on stage at 8:00pm, sharp on the dot. This young German, who is fast becoming a hit among teenage girls due to his trademark floppy blonde hair and charming smile, the charges up fans screaming for more while he belts out tunes from his debut album, including his version of Barry Manilow's "Mandy."

Once he was done, the show was paused, due to bad organization. Apparently too many people had been allowed to the seating area for the holders of the RM160 tickets. Some claiming they were VIPs had taken seats of those who paid lots of money for the best seats in the house. Fans waited, people argued, tempers flared and after an hour, thanks to the Irish security guards Westlife brought along with them for the Asian tour, all the matters were solved.

As the lights dimmed, the stadium turned into a screaming frenzy as Bryan, Shane, Mark, Kian and Nicky come on stage clad in white suits belting out "Dreams Come True." With a full backing band and some fancy dance moves, the concert was actually bearable even to my anti-boy band ears. While it goes without saying that Shane Filan has the best vocals, with help from the other equally talented boys, they took us through hits of their debut album as well as their latest release "Coast To Coast" with little humor but a lot of fun.

Parents were seen singing along while their kids screamed their undying love to the lads on stage. The hour wait was all forgotten by the fourth song, when the guys sat on the stairs on stage and belted out their first hit, "Swear It Again." By the time Kian got his hands on a guitar for an acoustic version of "More Than Words," a song made famous by Extreme back in the early 90s, the screams from the fans were already getting hoarse and a notch softer.

But all hell broke loose when the boys sang their version of Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl." Imagine 20,000 fans singing along to the sing-a-long chorus... it was quite a sight. There were lots of jealous Bryan fans in the house when Miss Malaysia joined the boys on stage to pretend to be the "Uptown Girl" for the night. Many of the screaming fans looked like they would have given anything to get that close to Bryan McFadden (who did, for the record, look like he was enjoying the closeness... VERY much!) In case you girlies have forgotten, he's hooked to Kerry Katona! By the end of the 90-minute show that included two encores and a lot of No. 1 hits, there were many very, very happy fans leaving the stadium. I am sure that had a lot to do with the promise Westlife made of returning, yet again.