Boyzone's Stephen Gately vows teens with solo effort
By Hera Diani
JAKARTA (JP): "Excuse me, are you a reporter?" Widi, a 17-year-old high school student, asked me last Sunday after Stephen Gately's solo show was over.
When I nodded, she asked a second, more urgent, question: "Do you know which hotel Stephen Gately is staying in?"
I said I was not sure, but that he might be staying in Hotel Mulia, where his press conference was going to be held the following day.
When I asked her whether she wanted to go there and meet him, Widi quickly said yes.
"I want to be photographed with him!" she said.
But a few seconds later, she started to weep.
I asked why, and she said, sobbing, "He touched my hands while he was singing ... "
"He's very cute. I love him very much!"
"But isn't he gay?", I asked.
Widi cried harder upon hearing the question.
"Yes I was very sad because ... because he came out last year ... just before my birthday."
Widi was not alone. Hundreds of teenage girls jammed the Fashion Cafe in South Jakarta last Sunday to watch Stephen Gately, a member of Irish boyband Boyzone.
Those teens almost overwhelmed the security guards as they tried to force their way into the cafe.
When the guards finally opened the doors, the girls rushed inside, raced to the front of the stage and shouted "Stepheeen!" endlessly.
The much-loved and in demand person had not even yet appeared. There were only his videos and Boyzone's playing on two big screens.
But even the slightest glimpse of Gately on the video screen turned the girls wild.
Gately then popped out on stage and, well, you can guess what happened next. Some screaming over there, a small group of fainted girls over here. You know, the regular boyband concert thing.
The show was the first performance in Gately's Asian tour to promote his solo debut album New Beginning.
Having spent seven years as one fifth of Boyzone, Gately's career has now spiraled into exciting new solo-act territory.
Listen to his lyrics of the hit single, New Beginning: "Seven years I've waited/ seven years of holding on ... / I've made up my mind ... / It's time for a new beginning...".
And what is the beginning for last year's Irish Personality of The Year and Hero of 1999 in a Smash Hits magazine poll?
A solo album and a chance to stand up tall and proud and say, "Yes, I'm a performer in my own right."
Stephen Patrick David Gately was born in Dublin on March 17, 1976, hailing from what he says was normal family. The second youngest of five kids, little Stephen dreamed of being famous.
He got his first break with a small part in a movie The Commitments, having first beaten 10,000 hopefuls.
Next thing he knew, he was catapulted into the pop world when he secured a job with Boyzone, along with fellow Dublin teens Ronan Keating, Mikey Graham, Keith Duffy and Shane Lynch.
Boyzone itself is one of the most successful boybands in history with no less than six number-one singles and four number- one albums, all of which sold millions of copies.
The boys might also hold a record for covering classic songs. From their debut single, the Osmond Brothers' Love Me For A Reason and Cat Steven's Father and Son, Tracy Chapman's Baby Can I Hold You, Eric Martin's I Love The Way You Love Me to Billy Ocean's When The Going Gets Tough.
Nevertheless the boys are the first act in chart history to reach the top three with their first 14 singles, and the first act since The Beatles to debut at number one with four albums.
They seem to have picked up every award going. From MTV Europe Music Awards, to Smash Hits awards for, among other things, the best band in the world and the best haircut.
But million of girls who worship them were shocked and heartbroken when last year Gately admitted he was a homosexual.
He said that he has been going out for some time with Eloy Dejong, a member of Dutch boyband Caught In The Act and that his family was being very understanding, as were the members of Boyzone.
But coming out like that was seemingly not an easy step for him. There have been difficult experiences over the last 12 months, as he admitted in a speech while accepting a Smash Hits award.
"It's been one hell of a year to say the least, but it's been worth it."
And now he has taken decisive action with a solo career.
New Beginning is a series of songs Gately hand-picked and co- wrote with several musicians.
His fans have apparently not left him. When the album was released in the UK on May 29, it went straight to number three in the charts.
The album, from the opening blast of New Beginning to the acoustic revelry of You Lied and Do Without Me, all sounds a bit like Boyzone, only with less people singing.
Yes, these are his first brave steps into a new and exciting world. Yes, it is not perfect. Or even any good. But at least he is being brave.