Westlife: '10 Years - Live at Croke Park'

It's easy to write Westlife off as just another boyband, yet the (somewhat alarming) statistics speak for themselves: 40 million records sold in a decade with 14 number ones (only Elvis and The Beatles have more), having sold out Wembley Arena on no less than 27 occasions.

Therefore this, their homecoming show at Croke Park on their recent "Back Home" World Tour (surely an oxymoron, what if they were playing in Tokyo for example?!) finds what seems like all of Dublin on hand to greet their homegrown heroes.

Westlife were originally a 5-piece when Louis Walsh first shaped their futures, having marketed Boyzone (his other prodigious group) into the ground until Ronan wanted to go solo. Indeed, for every Ginger and Robbie before them, Westlife had their dark sheep: Brain McFadden, first husband of Kerry "Catastrophe" Katona, now favouring a life of anonymity Down Under with Delta Goodrem (and who can blame him). Yet for the 81,496 women (and four men: Kian, Shane, Nicky and Mark) that fill the stadium, it might as well be “Bryan Who?” as they delight to their Celtic imps gyrating and costume-changing their way through all of their popularist fare at an energetic pace.

The show is shot in a typically quick-cutting way, with the obligatory crowd shots showing the faithful fans ardently singing every cringe-inducing lyric: (“She's a 5 foot 10 in catsuit and bambi eyes / Everybody's who's staring wouldn't believe that this girl was mine”). There are a few mis-steps along the way - an awful cover of Justin Timberlake's 'Sexy Back' shows how PG these boundary pushing boys really are - but by the time 'Flying Without Wings' and 'You Raise Me Up' are rolled out to conclude proceedings, there isn’t a dry eye in the house.



Extras: 30 Minute featurette ‘The Road Home’ and Top 10 Westlife videos

Released on DVD on 24th November 2008 by Sony BMG.

Written by Simon Cole.