It's been nearly 8 years since Irish boyband Westlife performed in Singapore. I must say this is the best Westlife concert in recent times. All the classic singles from the first 2 albums were included this time round.
Firstly I reached Kallang Wave Mall rather early at 4 pm, and as I entered the mall, I heard familiar Westlife songs being played at CueGuru. I actually took down the songs being played in the snooker bar between 1600 hrs to 1630 hrs, til my friend arrived.
I made my way to the stadium at 1730 hrs... and I saw the queue to the merchanise stall.
Oh gosh the queue was slow-moving... about 40 people in front of me.
The queue at 1830 hrs... yep I hung in there. It was finally my turn at around 1845 hrs. By then there were about 50 people behind me.
Among the merhandise here, the keychains actually sold out very quickly. So I bought only the T-shirt and the rainbow wristband.
I was totally blown away by the premium sector, and how close I was to the stage. This is prob the closest ever for a major concert, not counting local play productions. I was seated between an auntie and a xiaomei.
Me with Natalie and her mum. Natalie is a Eurasian lady who attended the Boyzone concert at Star Theater 2 months ago, and one of many fans who got on stage for a group photo with Boyzone.
Photo with my adorable friend Phoebe, and one of a few Westlife fans whom I knew from the Gravity concert back in 2011. We shared various interests from boybands to Marvel movies to mediaCorp artistes.
As evident in the photos, the stadium started filling up after 1940 hrs... and we still had to wait for more than 30 minutes before the lights went out. I totally didn't know that MediaCorp artistes Felicia Chin and Jeffrey Xu (boyfriend & girlfriend) were in attendance, even husband-wife pair Randall tan and Melody Chen were in attendance!! I found out that they were seated at PC1 sector.
The concert FINALLY began at 2040 hrs... the 4 members' faces emerged on the screen looking like Bryan Cranston's Zordon from the Power Rangers 2017 movie, singing to half the chorus of their very first single "Swear It Again".
"I'm never gonna say goodbye... cause I never wanna see you cry
I swore to you my love will rema-a-a-ainnn... and I'd swear it all over again."
The crowd went wild as Nicky Byrne, Mark Feehily, Shane Filan and Kian Egan appeared on stage to sing the opening number "Hello My Love", the first single off thier upcoming album "Spectrum" 🌈. This is probably the first time that I screamed super loud like a girl, hahaha.
Images from "Hello My Love".
Images from "Swear It Again" the group's very first single which became their first Number 1 UK Single.
Images from "What About Now" a cover of Daughtry's smash hit. During the second verse by Shane and the third verse by Mark, I was going "Innaohiah, naohiah, lim lao hia... lim lao hia, lao hia, chao nao hia..." The Hokkien words actually mean "your older brother". There is a bit of a story behind this... back in 2011, I had this former colleague from Kent who hailed from Malaysia, he was often saying "innaohiah" before disturbing me and others. At one time, Kent was saying "lim lao hiah" when the song "What About Now" was playing on the radio at the cafe one fine evening, a few days before I went to watch Westlife Gravity concert on 3rd October 2011. I soon realized that the guitar sounds during the 2nd and 3rd verses sounded a bit like "innaohiah". So there you have it. 😄
Images from "My Love", the song that set a new Guinness World Record of a pop group having its first 7 singles reach no.1 in the UK Singles Chart, which also broke the previous record set by the Spice Girls.
Images from "When You're Looking Like That", where everyone got their their seats and danced along to the song! At one point when Mark was singing his line after the 2nd chorus, I waved my hand near him as if I want to pat his tummy. 😂😂 The quartet then rushed to the back for their next costume change.
To be continued in Part 2...
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