Dublin 2013

So London is left behind in a haze of post-concert exhaustion, airport shuttles with no free wi-fi and mazes of security checks (be sure to put all your liquids and gels in a clear plastic bag, but no worries if you completely forget you have about 5 bottles of hand sanitiser in your bag). Before long, we're flying over something very green and, well, island-ish. I think it's safe to assume that this is Ireland. Oh, how I look forward to speaking to people who all sounds as though they've just popped out of an early 2000s boyband (cough, Westlife). On the bus from the airport into town, I'm astounded at how normal Ireland looks. Now don't get me wrong, I didn't think they'd be living in little druid hills, but London just seems to hisorical, and the outskirts of Dublin would probably be mistaken for some cute little central KZN town.

Once in town itself, we dodge a couple of 100 G8 protesters, and luckily are able to find the hotel relatively quickly (this is the last time things work out so easily, sigh). Set above a pub, our room is on the 4th floor, up at least a million narrow stairs. But it's lovely and comfortable and - thankfully - has a shower curtain. We take a quick walk down to the shops, and are rewarded with the presence of an M&S - and our first experience with their outstanding custard slices. Interesting thing in Dublin is that they use Euros here instead of Pounds - so no we get to multiply everything by 14 instead of 16. Oh well, it's something.

While my real mission here is seeing The Gaslight Anthem, I'm quite happy to spend the next morning wandering around the streets, checking out all the cute little souvenir shops full of shamrocks and green and sheep. Turns out Dublin is really quite tiny and we're able to get everywhere on foot, even the Olympia Theatre, where Gaslight are to perform, is only a ten minute walk from the hotel.

Although we've got seats for the concert (due to my failed creeping skills resulting in my not knowing Gaslight were even playing until a few weeks before), I've decided that we need to get to the venue early so that we can creep the tourbus and make buddies with the roadies. And if we just happen to run into frontman Brian Fallon and his neck tattoo, then so be it.

The tour bus is - of course - outside the stage entrance by the time we get there, and a small group of hopeful fans have gathered outside, hoping for a glimpse of the band. Said group includes two young teenage boys, a guy with a camera bigger than his face, a reporter-type in a U2 t-shirt, and his buddy who keeps asking me who my favourite bands are, so that Reporter-type can show me photos of himself with them. When he says that The Killers were pretty stand-offish and didn't stop to speak to him, I tell him how they came to hug the fans at Leeds and he seems to believe me. We're best buddies for about 5 minutes til he wanders off. Report-type (in my head I am referring to him as 'NME' by now) disappears too, and the five or so of us remaining are left to jump everytime the door opens. Sadly it's always a member of staff. We're eventually rewarded when a pair of tattooed knuckles appears in the window above our heads. It's none other than Brian himself, having a sneaky smoke out the window in hopes that no one will see him. He doesn't respond to Giant Camera's request to please come down for an autograph, but I forgive him - he's shy and we're creepy.

Inside, we discover our seats are in the second row on the bottom level, so we're basically looking down on the band, and it's a great angle. Support act Jogging are not exactly my cup of tea, but I tolerate them because they're Irish and when they say their name it comes out 'Joggin' ' and it sounds really cute.

By then end of Gaslight's first song, 'Handwritten', I've already decided that I'll have to get tickets for their show here tomorrow night as well - perfection like this needs to be witnessed on as many occasions as possible. Although I saw Gaslight last year at Reading, nothing can compare to seeing a band at a show that is entirely their own. Brian's on top form, making quips about everything from Obama who's in town visiting to how Jon Bon Jovi couldn't possibly reach the high notes in 'Living on a Prayer' anymore. He also tells of his love for the song 'Blue Dahlia', and how sad he is that it didn't make the final cut of Handwritten. 'Film Noir', 'Keepsake' and 'The Queen of Lower Chelsea' are my three standout songs of the night, but absolutely every track was perfect. Brian's voice is beautiful, and he puts an unbelievable amount of feeling into his performance. Right, that's settled then, tomorrow I'm booking the next set of tickets.

As it turns out, the only tickets left happen to be in the unassigned seating area right on the top level, but it's really not that bad. We can still see and hear perfectly, and are still 100x closer to the stage than at 90% of the stadium shows I've been to in the past few years.

We don't feel the need to creep around the tour bus for hours today, so we wander through the town looking at various churches, parks and ... the Dublin Castle, which is really not that impressive. Later on, we're rewarded with a Gaslight set slightly varied from last night's, including 'Meet Me By The River's Edge', which I'd not heard live before.

All in all, a more than successful trip to Dublin, which ends off with a quick and painless ride back to the airport, to begin London: Round Two.

This Love is Unbreakable

"Took my hand, touched my heart, held me close. you were always there, by my side, night and day, through it all, baby come what may. Swept away on a wave of emotion, we're caught in the eye of the storm..."

Yes, I like Westlife. Go ahead, judge me, I don’t really care. Yes, I’m a rock fan, but there’s just something about those little Irish boys that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. What, is there nothing from your childhood that you still hold dear? Perhaps a favourite teddy bear, or a comfort blanket? Well, Westlife is my comfort blanket. No matter what goes wrong in life, listening to them can make me feel like everything will be ok. Tonight, Westlife perform their last ever concert, meaning that I have to come to terms with the fact that my childhood is well and truly over. I am 21-years-old, after all, so technically I guess my childhood ended a while ago, but with the final note sung, when the curtain closes in Ireland tonight, and my four favourite lads troop off the stage, I will shed my final tear as a child, and face the world with the knowledge that nothing is as simple as a Westlife song anymore.

Damn, that was dramatic. Moving along then…

I was a huge Boyzone fan as a seven-year-old, and getting to know Westlife’s music was the next natural step. I’m not sure how old I was when ‘Swear It Again’ was tearing up the charts, but I was young enough for the song to be branded upon my mind forever more. I listened to this band so much that each of their albums defines an era in my life. Their first saw me through two years in a foreign country, and when I returned to South Africa ‘Coast To Coast’ had just come out, and this has remained my favourite Westlife album. The second half of 2001 was when I was the happiest I’d ever been: the last time that everything was simple, there was nothing to worry about, and happiness was an easy state to achieve. Yes, it may have been because I was only 10, and too young to worry about much, but I don’t think that’s the case, and when I reminisce, that’s not how I see it. The skies above my hometown were blue, the smell of the sea was in the air, and everywhere I went, Westlife’s ‘My Love’ was on the radio. And it was so appropriate: “overseas from coast to coast, to find the place I love the most, where the skies are blue…” Perhaps that’s why this song reminds me so much of home.  To this day, if I’m sad or homesick, this is the song I’ll turn to. Last weekend I visited my hometown for the first time in half a year, and ‘My Love’ was on repeat all the way to the airport. Unfortunately the song evokes some sadness in me and can make me feel even more homesick…sometimes I think I’m just a sucker for punishment.

I started grade seven in 2002, Westlife still making my little world go round. ‘Bop Bop Baby’, ‘Queen of My Heart’… I played ‘Seasons in the Sun’ as my favourite song in class. I don’t know why it reminds me of going to the library and borrowing books, but it does. “We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun…” we did. We did. The whole year was spent sitting in the car waiting for school to start, the ‘World of Our Own’ album in the car’s tape deck. The car’s still going, and it still has a tape deck. Some things never change, but others do.

2004 was grade 9, and I was slowly starting to think that liking Westlife was uncool. All my friends liked Usher, so I simply didn’t tell me that every weekend on the way home I listened to Westlife’s ‘Turnaround’ album in the new car, the car that had a CD player. Whatever. I’d rather have been in the old car. The car with the tape deck. Life would have simpler, but I still had Westlife, and nothing could touch me when I closed my eyes and sang along.

I barely remember the Westlife concert I went to in 2005. I was 14, but my friends were 16 and they sure weren’t listening to Westlife. In fact, I didn’t even tell anyone where I was going. Adolescence had obviously gotten to me, and I regret that now. Anyway, I remember standing even though I had a seat, and singing along all night. It was beautiful. A dream come true, although I’m sure I’d appreciate it more now.

My love for Westlife slowed down a bit after that, I bought most of their new albums, but hardly listened to them. The old ones, however, remained as a standby for long road trips. Eventually I got over trying to be cool, and embraced how much I love Westlife. I found out that many of my friends love them too. But it’s still difficult to explain the way their songs make me feel. I’d do anything to be in Ireland tonight, screaming my lungs out at that stadium, but more than that, I’d do anything to be 10-years-old again, strolling with my family through my local shopping centre, ‘My Love’ playing on the radio.