Shane Filan steals city show
The former leader of Irish boyband Westlife, Shane Filan, played 18 songs to entertain over 1,000 fans in his “You & Me Tour Live in Saigon 2014” concert on Tuesday night at Cargo Bar in HCMC’s District 4.
Irish singer-songwriter Shane Filan takes a selfie with a fan girl at his concert in Saigon on Tuesday night.
This is his second performance in Vietnam after the first in late 2012 with Westlife at My Dinh National Stadium in Hanoi. He opened the night by a track called “When I Met You” in his “You & Me” album in big cheer and non-stop applause from audiences. Filan had a great combination with other five members from the band playing drums, guitar, keyboard, and violin to revive the heyday of Westlife through some old hits, including My Love, Flying Without Wings, Everytime and Uptown Girl in the first half of the show.
After an exciting beginning, Filan leaded the crowd into a gentle and emotional ambience of his ballads song Amazed played in acoustic style. Shane said that he and his band men usually sing this song when they practice together. Thus, he wanted to bring this song on stage to show the close relationship between all the members.
Audiences once again fell into nostalgic moments of Westlife’s days of glory with You Raise Me Up and What Makes A Man. Especially, the concert had an invited guest, local singer Tia Hai Chau who won “I am the winner” reality show to perform the song Flying Without Wings with Filan. Tia who was in beautiful white ao dai (Vietnam’s long dress) presented non la (Vietnam-style conical hat) with an image of the country’s flag to Filan.
Filan surprised fans in the second half of the show when he played two hits “Blurred Lines” (Robin Thicke) and Wake Me Up (Avicii) with exciting and fast beats accompanied with dance moves.
A lucky fan girl named Ly who had a hand-made poster stating “One more baby” with an image of Filan and his wife and three children was invited on stage to perform the song Mandy with him. She burst into tears and received hugs from Filan and had some selfies with the singer for his Facebook page.
At the end of the show, Filan once again surprised all the fans by dressing a traditional ao dai of Vietnam, a gift from his fan in Meet & Greet event which took place prior to the show. He contributed two songs “Everything To Me” and “Knee Deep in my Heart” from his solo album before saying “Good night” to the crowd after a two-hour show. Le Quan, a 23-year-old graduate from HCMC-based International
University, told the Daily, “I have been a loyal fan of Westlife since I was a teenager ten years ago. My student life was attached to Westlife’s songs. I was so sad when the band said they no longer exist. When I heard that Shane Filan would have a concert in Saigon I spent part of my savings to buy a ticket to see him. The love for Shane as well as Westlife will never fade in my heart.
