Westlife 3Arena, Dublin★★★⯪☆
If critics in the year 2001 had been asked to predict the future of music, few would have bet on Westlife being the band to jubilantly command a 13-night residency in Dublin’s Point Theatre an entire quarter of a century later.
Louis Walsh may have opined there were “no passengers” in the Sligo-Dublin pop act, but even among their own peer group (top 10-bothering whelps like Boyzone and Take That), Westlife were known as the tamer, safer, harmony-loving boy band option. A dance routine in Westlife’s world involved getting up off a bar stool. A change of direction meant a less syrupy ballad to cover. You did not need a trigger warning to listen to a Westlife record. Cool did not come knocking at this band’s door. Mammies loved them. They seemed relatable, likable and ephemeral.
It’s a turn of events that seems to have even surprised Westlife. “We’re pinching ourselves,” said Kian Egan in an interview with Kathryn Thomas on Q102 recently, noting they had more than 150 live shows booked across the globe for their 25th anniversary tour. “How are we still doing this? How is this going so well after so long?”
At Dublin’s 3Arena tonight, the mood is upbeat: the crowd begin chanting Olé! Olé! Olé! Olé! before the band arrives, letting out a delighted roar as they spot Katie Taylor slipping into the stands.
Technically this is not really Westlife’s 25th anniversary, the band having formed in 1998, but softening hard edges and making things seem polished and palatable is Westlife’s trademark – this is the band, after all, who adapted the lyrics to Relish’s Rainbow Zephyr to Hey Whatever just in case anyone found the line tricksy. “It’s 25 years plus VAT,” says Nicky Egan from the stage, with a grin.
Perhaps for the same reason of preserving a sense of smoothness, no mention is made tonight of Mark Feehily’s absence from the tour due to health issues. Instead, there’s a brashly bold opening montage that involves blindingly bright red lasers etching a map of the world, tectonic plates shifting, a Star Trek-style beaming down to earth of Shane Filan, before – suddenly – Filan, Egan and Byrne emerge on stage to sing World of Our Own followed by Uptown Girl, their take on the Billy Joel classic, and their own Bop bop Baby.
Olivia with her mother, Jade Davies, from Liverpool, outside the 3Arena, Dublin, for the first Westlife Concert. Photograph: Sam BOAL/Collins 
Eleven-year-old Ellen O’Connor and eight-year-old Kiera Flynn from Co Kerry. Photograph Sam Boal/Collins
Clad in black leather jackets, there’s a touch of the Ken dolls-by-way-of-a-more-coy Chippendales about the three members of Westlife tonight. There’s a lot of power posing, legs spread apart, hands down by the sides, hair impeccably coiffed. “They’re stunning men; they should have me permanently,” support act Garron Noone quipped earlier, and if the band don’t quite flirt with the audience, their smiles are on full wattage, their gaze is beatific – and as the cameras bring the front rows up the big screen, the endorphin rush from the predominantly female audience seems very real. “Still got it,” grins Byrne, holding up a white lacy bra that has appeared on stage, before passing it to Shane Filan.
Westlife have always been about the ballads, but in a set that lasts nearly two hours, they manage to make this less of a problem than it really should be. It helps that at 10pm, they start singing Olé! Olé! Olé! themselves before bringing Katie Taylor out on stage for a five-minute interview. Along with several costume changes and further montages, it’s a nice way to break up their set, reaffirming their natural warmth as a band, and reminding the crowd of their guest appearance at her farewell Croke Park fight last weekend.
Laura Cotton and Lesley Hart from Blackpool outside the 3Arena for the first Westlife Concert. Photograph: Sam Boal/Collins
Their recent Ed Sheeran-penned Chariot is another zippy number that gives a lift to the crowd as they embark on a conga line through the photographers’ pit. Egan also somehow drops a guitar solo of Guns ‘N Roses Sweet Child of Mine into proceedings, a nice touch which had not been on this reviewer’s bingo card.
Some songs, however, cannot be rescued – as part of their closing sequence, they deliver Mandy, that drip of a cover song, before segueing into You Raise Me Up, a song that for this reviewer has always had the opposite effect intended. Still, you can’t win them all.
Maybe in a world that often feels genuinely alarming, a sense of wholesome predictability is what many of us crave in our tunes. Westlife may be a Xanax in musical format, but they’re very good at what they do. White suits, winning smiles and winsome balladeering? Come on in, the water’s warm.