LOVING them for a REASON

I GREW UP in the late ’90s, which could rightly be called the boy band era. The Moffatts, 911 (anyone still remember them?), Five, Hansen, Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync reigned supreme on the airwaves and pop charts during that period of my teenage years. Irish group Boyzone was another of the boy bands I listened to. In fact, I used to have a crush on late Boyzone member Stephen Gately and remember feeling slightly disappointed when he later came out as gay.
Despite its chosen name, Boyzone has always come across as being slightly more “mature” than other boy bands. The lads sang more ballads than catchy beats and their dance moves weren’t always that energetic. So when their 22nd anniversary tour stopped in Bangkok last Sunday, I couldn’t help but think of them as “Dadzone”.
Ronan Keating and Shane Lynch are both 38, while Mikey Graham and Keith Duffy are already in their 40s. On stage at the almost sold-out concert, they were visibly more mature and also boasted a lot more facial hair than in their younger days. Still, life begins at 40, so they say, and it’s certainly true for Boyzone. I don’t remember ever seeing them dance so much, on stage or on music video, as they did at the concert.
Just as in their earlier years, Boyzone is really about Ronan Keating and his popularity was |evident during the concert held at Impact Arena, Muang Thong Thani. The audience went wild when Keating came out on stage; |he is after all the lead singer and who isn’t charmed by his chiselled good looks? To be shamelessly |shallow, Keating is indisputably handsome. He looks even better with age, had an easy charm on stage and seemed to revel in all the female attention heaped on him.
Despite Keating being the centre of the band, the concert tried hard to give equal focus to all the other members. With Gately gone, Graham came out more prominently to share vocal duties with Keating. Lynch and Duffy too had their share of limelight, singing the lead vocals in a couple of songs. But as Duffy said, Gately’s high-pitch vocals are irreplaceable. The band kept Gately’s presence alive by interlacing his vocals with their performance in “Gave It All Away” and “Everyday I Love You”. For the single “No Matter What”, on which Gately was the lead vocalist, a back-up female vocalist stood in for him. Yet, the song can never be the same without Gately, no matter what (pun intended).
As Gately was my favourite member, he was certainly missed at the concert. The mood at the |concert turned a bit sombre when recordings of his vocals were played over the slideshows of his photos. Gately died in 2009 from an undiagnosed heart condition. Keating said being in Bangkok made Gately’s absence even more acutely felt as he was with them the last time the band performed here seven or eight years ago.
 “Being here again brings back all the memories, we remember what Steo did, what said… ” said Keating, calling Gately by his nickname.
Speaking of nostalgia, the band’s medley of earlier hits was better received by fans than their less-recognised recent songs. The band opened the show with “Love is a Hurricane”, but when the “Mr Bean” theme song “Picture of You” came along, the crowd broke into a cheer. For a band with a 22-year-history, Boyzone appears to have a surprisingly young audience with some of the fans in their late teens, though most concertgoers look to be in their mid-20s.
Boyzone has enjoyed phenomenal success with cover versions. My introduction to songs like “You Needed Me”, “Words” and “Love Me For a Reason” was through them and I am betting it was the same for many of the concertgoers, since the songs were crowd favourites that night.
And in acknowledgement of Boyzone being mostly about Keating, the band also performed his solo hits, the saccharine sweet “When You Say Nothing At All” from the soundtrack of |“Notting Hill” and “Life is a Rollercoaster”.
My only gripe was the huge |volume of acoustics at the hall that drowned out the vocals when all members of the band were singing. The show was a tad too short too, with the band bidding goodbye after a 75-minute performance and returning for an encore that only included “Different Beat” and “Love Me for a Reason” though it did end on a high note with “Life is a Rollercoaster”.
Despite its shortcomings, it was still quite a memorable night. Perhaps it was the bittersweet |feeling that overcame me when watching childhood idols up close – a dream come true but |looking at how the stars have aged, also a sharp reminder of my own mortality.