Westlife sings, raps and dances the night away
JAKARTA (JP): The five-member Irish boyband Westlife hypnotized thousands of its fans here on Thursday afternoon, while over one hundred of its young admirers fainted during the group's 90-minute performance.
Unlike their performance in the city last year, the handsome boys gave their all by -- wonder of wonders -- really singing this time.
No kidding. None of the boy bands who have staged performances here were accompanied by live music. Usually, the singers just sing along to the music coming from the sound system.
But not all of Westlife's fans, mostly teenage girls, realized that. They were too busy screaming at everything the boys did, or trying to escape the water being sprayed on them to cool them down.
The boys not only sang, they also did some rapping and fantastic a capella singing (singing without accompanying music) during the performance, and dribbled a soccer ball kicked in by a member of the audience of more than 14,500 fans.
The boys roamed freely all over the open stage built in the soccer field of the Sumantri Brodjonegoro stadium in Kuningan, South Jakarta, singing the easy-listening, all-about-love-and- romance songs.
Comprising Shane Filan, Nicky Byrne, Bryan McFadden, Mark Feehily and Kian Egan, all aged between 21 and 23, the band sang 16 of their hits, including, among others, the recycled and well- crafted Uptown Girl, My Girl, and What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted from their second album titled Coast to Coast.
On stage, they also sang some songs from their first album, including the ones that brought them to fame, namely Flying Without Wings and ABBA's I Have A Dream.
Reviving old love songs apparently has became their selling point as they are not going to include any songs with more inspiring lyrics in their next album.
As Shane put it at the five-hour-late press conference held in the Jakarta Hilton International Hotel before the concert: "We are not a political band, we just deliver music for you to enjoy."
The concert itself, criticized by many for its bad timing ahead of an important political event in Jakarta, could be described as a success.
The audience, who bought tickets ranging in price from Rp 125,000 (US$11.50) for festival class to Rp 200,000 and 350,000 for a better view in the tribunes, were well-behaved throughout the show.
No stampedes were recorded this time in contrast to an incident on March 18 when four girls were killed as hundreds of fans struggled to meet British boyband, a1, during an autograph- signing event at Taman Anggrek shopping mall in West Jakarta.
However, standing in the crowd under the sun with an empty stomach is not a good idea and the six first-aid tents were soon flooded with dozens of youngsters.
When all is said and done, the concert was a good way of enlivening the city during the holiday, thanks to promotor Java Musikindo which had deployed some 350 security guards, some of whom were martial arts experts. Seven hundred police Mobile Brigade (Brimob) officers were also on duty.
Well, it would have run smoothly if only the police and security guards did not start to fight among themselves after the band left the stadium to go back to their hotel.
The reason for the fracas was unclear, but Wisnu, who was head of security for the event, said that the fight was caused by a misunderstanding. (bby)