Boyzone Concert Review 26th May 1999
After walking miles from the car park to the arena and getting extremely
crushed at the merchandise stand I eventually reached my not very good seat
(about 40 rows from the stage and a long way over to the left) and began the
slow, boring process of waiting for Boyzone to come on. While we were waiting
there was several boring adverts that were shown about a million times,
interspersed with some clips of various pop groups and film stars (including
Boyzone, Five, Backstreet Boys, Robbie Williams, Leonardo DiCaprio) and an
advert for By Request and the old Sugar Puffs advert Boyzone did which both got
extremely loud screams.
The first support act to come on were Fab!. They sang four songs wearing
rather bizarre blue outfits. IMHO they're OK but not as good as B*Witched.
Second was Leilani who was certainly the worst of the support acts. I felt
extremely sorry for her four dancers who had to wear strange boiler suits with "A",
"B", "C" and "D" on them for the first song and
then had to dance with ironing boards and umbrellas. Then there was a short
break and Ultimate Kaos came on to sing four songs. I think they're all right
but they've been around since 1994 and still aren't very famous so they should
know when to give up! The last support act was Next Of Kin who did five songs
which was too many while everyone was getting impatient for Boyzone. They're
not bad at all but they sound a bit too much like Hanson (who I can't stand) for
my liking. There was then another 20 minute wait, consisting of the longest
minutes known to man, with the same clips playing on the screens over and over
again.
At about 9.12 the lights went down, the curtain came up and it was nearly
time for Boyzone. The stage had a staircase down either side, a screen at
either side which were for the cameras following Boyzone around the stage and
another large screen which was used for clips of videos and various other
effects during the songs. A tiny box appeared from the ceiling which we were
supposed to think Boyzone came down in but they almost certainly came up from a
trap door in the stage. When it reached the stage Ronan and Steve pushed up the
lid pretending to be scared and then let it fall again. They eventually opened
it properly and emerged, followed by Mikey, Keith and Shane and launched into "When
The Going Gets Tough". I tried to do the arm movements during the chorus
but soon gave up as I'm extremely uncoordinated! They followed that with "One
Kiss At A Time" (not one of my favourite songs), "Picture Of You"
(one of their best fast songs, and I especially love the instrumental bit they
do at the very end of the song when they do it live for some reason) and "All
That I Need".
Then the others left the stage and Steve sang "Where Did You Go"
with just the backing singers for company. Steve played to the crowd very well
and got everyone clapping along with him. Then Mikey came on on his own to sing
"Baby I Thank You". Now, I'm being honest (and sorry to Mikey fans),
but I didn't think this song was a great success, mainly due to the fact that
nobody knew the words and it's also not a very inspired song.
The other boys came back on stage and they all sang "Baby Can I Hold
You", complete with clips from the video so whoever it was who throws their
weight around and won't let them put it on videos obviously can't stop them
using it completely.
Next the cheesy game show music started up and it was time for the By
Request Game Show. The three girls who were picked obviously knew each other
already and were from Birmingham so they probably blagged their way into it,
much to the envy of everyone else in the arena. Boyzone played at being game
show hosts to perfection and lead the girls on to pick the songs by pressing the
"Requestaliser". Then the pointer on the big middle screen spun round
and picked a song. The first song to come out was "This Is Where I Belong"
which Ronan sounded especially lovely singing. Next was "Love Me For A
Reason" which sounded and looked totally different but much better than the
original as it was much slower and had no dance routine to it. Last was "Shooting
Star" so all the other boys left the stage and left Steve all by himself.
I'm not a fan of Steve's voice on certain fast songs but I love how he sounds on
"Shooting Star" and it's one all of my favourite songs as the lyrics
are beautiful too.
It was time for Ronan's solo song "When You Say Nothing At All".
Hardly anyone knew the words to this either but it was still much more of a
success than Mikey's solo. Everyone else came on for "A Different Beat".
The whole arena was doing the arm actions during the chorus and even
uncoordinated me managed them! Next was "Must Have Been High", a
brilliant fast song and a pity they couldn't open the show with it again as I
think it's ideal for that. Then it was You Needed Me which they pretended was
the last song but everyone knew quite well it wasn't. Steve was wearing an
enormous pair of sunglasses which made Ronan start laughing several times during
the song. They performed it in a similar way to the video - walking around
amongst lots of picture frames and I thought they did very well to A: keep a
straight face and B: not mess it up.
They then left the stage, got changed and came back for the encore. During
the first song "I Love The Way You Love Me" Ronan sang something
completely wrong for the first line, then stuttered and stopped singing
completely. Everyone on stage and in the audience cracked up and he managed to
start singing again, but during Steve's verse he was talking to Mikey and Keith
and they were obviously teasing him about it. Next was "Words" where
the audience sang part of it very well and the final song was "No Matter
What". The box from the beginning reappeared and the boys climbed into it
one by one. Ronan was the last to climb in and he seemed to be having a bit of
trouble because then Steve popped his head back out!
Everyone seemed to have enjoyed it with the exception of the woman sitting
next to me who seemed to be there on her own and stood there looking bored and
didn't open her mouth, put her hands in the air or clap even once. I was rather
deaf by this stage, mainly thanks to a girl a few rows behind me who had a voice
like a fog horn/a cat being strangled/a pneumatic drill and persisted in
screaming BOYZONE/RONAN/STEVE the whole way through. About 30 people up to 6
rows in front of her were giving her dirty looks constantly and she still didn't
take the hint and pipe down so she must have been extremely
thick-skinned/obsessed/selfish/attention seeking as well. These two people
aside, I had a great time and felt extremely lucky to see Boyzone live again.
Thanks to Lucy Witts for
letting me use the excellent pictures she took
