No Matter What : Boyzone make it a night to remember
View(s):Colombo was the first stop on the Asian leg of their tour which sees them performing in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines.
It was vintage Boyzone for all of 11/2 hours and the band struck an instant rapport with the audience easing in with familiar hits like ‘All that I Need’ and ‘Words’.
If we had forgotten the boy band fervour of the ’90s, well, it all came rushing back last month, as Ronan Keating, Mikey Graham, Keith Duffy and Shane Lynch took us back to the glory days when they ruled the charts with hits such as ‘Picture of You’, ‘Baby Can I Hold’, ‘Love Me For a Reason’, ‘Every day I Love You’ and ‘No Matter What.’
Pix by M.A. Pushpa Kumara
A mini-deluge just an hour before the scheduled start of Boyzone’s 25th anniversary and farewell tour had many fans scrambling to get to the CR&FC grounds at 8 p.m. (the scheduled start of the show). But the Irish band were spot on and in the cool aftermath of the rain, they gave the 5,000 strong audience a smooth and polished, and certainly nostalgia-filled performance.
Thanking their fans for their support over the past 25 years, they spoke of the incredible journey that had taken the boys from Dublin playing in clubs for audiences of 60-70 to massive stadiums and arenas around the world. “It’s about time we got to Colombo,” they said, paying a poignant tribute to “our brother Stephen,” sad that he never got to come to Sri Lanka. Band member Stephen Gately, the blue-eyed poster boy and fan favourite died of natural causes in 2009, a loss they still feel keenly.
Colombo was the first stop on the Asian leg of their tour which sees them performing in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines.
It was vintage Boyzone for all of 11/2 hours and the band struck an instant rapport with the audience easing in with familiar hits like ‘All That I Need’ and ‘Words’.
Ronan Keating took a moment to share that August 16 was a special day for him. It was the first time his young son Cooper was at a Boyzone concert and it was also his anniversary, he revealed to cheering approval from the crowd as he dedicated a special song to his wife Storm- “Love the way you love me’.
It was former X Factor judge Louis Walsh who was behind the creation of Boyzone in 1993 and the five boys soon captured the hearts of music fans, dominating the charts with a series of hits. Despite going their separate ways in 2000, they have reunited on and off for albums and tours, notably the No Matter What tour in 2009 – before Gately’s untimely death. “Things changed dramatically for the band but we always remember the ’90s, the magical ’90s when we were travelling the world, living the dream, making it up as we went along, and the songs were just the tapestry of our lives,” Keating said. They came together again in 2013 for their 20th anniversary tour.
Their final album aptly titled “Thank you and Goodnight’ will be out in November 2018 and they treated the audience to a preview when called back for an encore, giving Colombo the first live airing of a new single ‘Because’ co-written by Ed Sheeran.
“The 90s were a magical time and we’re so lucky we got in there,” Keating reiterated. No doubt fans at the CR&FC, counted themselves lucky to relive the memories and say farewell to those Boyzone days.
Boyzone’s farewell concert in Colombo was presented by Standard Chartered Bank and organised by DCI Events and Entertainment.
(RS)
