"Should Nicky move back to Leeds?" Shane Filan asked the crowd of Westlife fans at First Direct Arena.
The audience screamed in approval during the Leeds leg of Westlife's Wild Dreams tour. Group member Nicky Byrne spoke at length about his love for the city. The singer used to live in Roundhay during the 1990s and had a spell as footballer for Leeds United.
He beamed with pride when speaking about his time in our city. On Wednesday evening, at Leeds First Direct Arena, he recalled his time training on the streets of Beeston Hill with the club, and asked 'should I move back?'. Throughout the show Nicky kept chanting the Whites' signature song Marching On Together to the crowd - who were fist pumping and singing the chant loud.
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Shane laughed and said to the crowd: "We hear about Leeds a lot. A lot." Nicky loved interrupting the setlist to sing the famous chant.
Westlife's show was their 12th tour date of the year. The Wild Dreams Tour included some of Westlife’s biggest ever gigs - their show at Wembley Stadium in August 2022 was their biggest concert to date. And, Westlife will be headlining Dublin’s New Year’s Eve Festival for the first time ever.
Their evening in Leeds kicked off with a superb performance from Lyra. Following the mammoth success of release Edge of Seventeen which achieved over 1 million streams across all platforms and garnered 28.5m global radio impacts - Lyra was a great warm-up act.
Her glamour and energy pleased the crowd and provided a great atmosphere ahead of Westlife, and the audience were seen clapping and cheering loudly for her.
Westlife put on a showstopper in Leeds and performed the best of their 20 years of hits. They came out in bold monochrome outfits to their newest hit single Starlight. They came out with a bang, and confetti was fire into the crowd within the first few minutes.
The crowd was delighted to hear classics performed such as When You're Looking Like That, What About Now, and Flying Without Wings. From fire, fireworks, confetti, jazzy outfits, and bold graphics, the show had it all.
However, one part of the setlist which was a bit unusual was the Abba mix - in total they performed eight Abba songs! The crowd initially were pleased to hear these musical classics, but when it got to song five, many appeared confused by their song choice.
The classic arm wave came out for Westlife's final number Flying Without Wings and Shane was seen tearing up. Mark Feehily of course impressed with his powerful vocals and riffs, and Kian offered a cheeky charm with his smirk and swagger.
Setlist
- Starlight
- Uptown Girl
- When You're Looking Like That
- Fool Again
- If I Let You Go
- My Love
- Swear It Again
- Mamma Mia/Gimme Gimme Gimme/Money Money Money/Take A Chance On Me/I Have A Dream/Dancing Queen/Waterloo/Thank You For The Music
- What About Now
- Mandy
- What Makes A Man
- World of Our Own
- I'm Already There
- Flying Without Wings
Encore
- Hello My Love
- You Raise Me Up
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