Westlife

Last night I went to see Westlife, playing a "Summer Nights" concert at Leeds Castle near Maidstone, in Kent. I went with a colleague/friend, Carol, who is a huge fan, and while I wouldn't describe myself as a fan, I like Westlife's music a lot.

We left Lewes at 3:30, and arrived there at 5pm, just as the gates opened. A nice 20 minute walk through the grounds, watching several free ranging peacocks, including an albino one up on a roof, and we were at the concert arena, along with a few thousand other people. We picked a good spot almost in front of the stage, though a fair way back, behind the seated area, and settled down for a three hour wait before they came on stage.

We'd packed a picnic tea, in my case a chicken and bacon salad, with strawberries, raspberries and cream for dessert, and sitting out in the afternoon sun, with a picnic, and decent background music, was a very nice way to spend an early summer evening.

The support act was Roxanne, who actually has a very powerful voice, but was singing songs that I didn't really feel were 'her'. She got a poor reception, and I think if she had sung more upbeat songs she would have been much more popular. I felt sorry for her, because she obviously has the voice, but her songs were pretty ... blah.

After a break of around 20 minutes, Westlife came on stage at 8:40pm. They put on a good show, which I enjoyed, but I would have liked to see them sing a few more songs, as they only played for an hour and a half, including the 3 song encore. They missed out 'Tonight', 'Unbreakable' and 'My Love', which are three of my favourites, although they did play 'Seasons In The Sun' which they rarely perform live anymore, so that was a treat.

10:10pm and it was all over, so we made our way back to the car park, where we couldn't find the car! After about 20 minutes Carol spotted it, but only because the car behind was ready to leave and had it's headlights shining on the back of her car! Home by midnight, photos transferred to the computer, but not many good ones this time. The stage was about the same distance away as the Bon Jovi one was, but the big screens were only about half the size, so even zooming in, I didn't do very well. Pics to come later.