East meets West

Legions of ladies in the UAE have been digging out their old CDs and swooning at the news that Westlife are returning to Dubai.

The Irish boyband, who are the only act in British or Irish history to have their first seven singles go straight to No.1, will be
performing at Jebel Ali Golf Resort and Spa on Thursday. And as much as they’ll be hoping to impress us with new material from their album ‘Gravity’, which was released in November last year, the band will also be leading us down memory lane with some classics.

Despite performing the same ballads over and over again, band member Nicky Byrne says he and the boys never bore of belting out the old favourites.

He explains: “Bored is a bit of a strong word. It sometimes feels a little bit monotonous with some songs but every year we’ll sit down with our musicians and most years there’ll be new faces and they’ll perform in a different style so you keep it as fresh as possible.

“You’d never get away without doing songs like ‘Flying Without Wings’ or ‘You Raise Me Up’ but we also have the uptempo side as well with ‘Uptown Girl’, ‘World of Our Own’ and ‘When You’re Looking Like That’. Those are songs that have been big hits for Westlife and you wouldn’t want to not perform them.

“Apart from the songs you can chop and change every year, there are the core five or six you wouldn’t and couldn’t ever leave out.”

Having formerly been managed by Louis Walsh, now a judge on Britain’s ‘X Factor’ programme, Nicky is a huge fan of TV talent shows.

But the singer does express fear over what happens once the interest in the new-found talent has subsided and auditions for newer stars are being held. “It’s a brilliant idea but I just fear for the people who are instantly famous, in the papers everyday and then all of a sudden there’s no album deal and people forget them.

“People are fickle, they’ll say ‘X Factor was brilliant this year, did you see X, Y and Z?’ and then as soon as January here it’s all forgotten and there’s a whole new team of potential celebrities who are good, bad and indifferent. I feel for those left behind,” he adds.

“We’ve been lucky enough to perform on ‘X Factor’ on several occasions over the years. You go in there as artists who’ve been around for years and you have to be better than them - the pressure is on without a doubt! “Thankfully we’ve always done OK but I’ve seen some artists go on over the years and not done so well... without naming names!”

Westlife play Jebel Ali Golf Resort and Spa on Thursday. Tickets start at Dhs250 and are available from Virgin Megastores and www.boxofficeme.com

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More than a teenage fanclub...
Having been around for 13 years, Westlife have gathered an army of fans along the way. Picking up new supporters with the release of every album, Nicky says there are some who’ve followed them since they first began.

While the band may not  incite the Tom Jones underwear-throwing- effect just yet, Nicky says the older fans certainly appreciate more than just the music nowadays.

He explains: “We started in 1998 and did an arena tour back in 2001.

Back then our fans were 15, 16, 17 years old,  they’re now 28. You strike up a bond with them and you see them every year at concerts and they have funny banners. The older we’ve got, the more adult the banners have become! It’s always fun.”
And Nicky says the lads are particularly looking forward to returning to the UAE.

He adds: “We haven’t been to Dubai for a while, I think it was 2005 when we were last there. “We’re genuinely looking forward to coming back. “It’s always nice when you go back to a place you haven’t been to in a long time - especially Dubai where there’s a lot of people from Ireland, England and Europe as well.

“We’ve been so lucky over the years to see the world, whether it’s been only five minutes in every place, at least we can say ‘been there, done that’.”