Return of Ireland’s awesome foursome: Westlife talk ahead of Birmingham shows

They’ll headline Birmingham Arena tonight, tomorrow and on Sunday as part of their Twenty Tour, which celebrates two decades in music.

The tour will be the boys’ first in the UK for seven years and fans can look forward to a set packed with hits.

The band have been away for most of the decade, having announced their split on 19 October 2011. They told fans they’d lived the dream but wanted a break.

In a statement which described the split as “entirely amicable”, Westlife broke the hearts of their legions of fans by revealing they would go their separate ways.

After numerous rumours, the band finally got back together in 2018 and their reunion story caused huge fan reaction worldwide. According to the reports, they had been preparing for their comeback for a year.

Kian Egan, 38, said the reason for the band getting back together was simple: they’d missed it.

“We spent a long time away from it,” he said. “We started Westlife when we were very young. And we did it for a long time. And for the last six to seven years, we’ve all missed it.

“We all missed the feeling of being on stage. We’ve missed the audiences. We’ve missed making music, the buzz of making a new album, the buzz of flying around the world, promoting that record, doing big concert tours and all.

“When you start living a normal life and when you see people on the talent shows on TV trying to do what you used to do, and then going to concerts and seeing them play arenas and stadiums, it’s like, ‘Hey, that’s what we used to do!’

“There was also the feeling from social media that our fans wanted us back.”

Nicky Byrne added: “We have such an amazing fan base across the whole world. They are the most supportive and loyal. They are the reason we’re back, because they want us back.

“It’s beautiful to think that we were big poignant moments in their childhood, and now they are women and probably married with their own children. We equally share that same love. It’s as exciting for us as with them hearing that Westlife are back.”

Shane Filan said it was important that the boys returned to their best.

“To come back, we had to come back with amazing new music and make an amazing album that was current, that was 2019, and that would fit with every other artiste in the world.” he said.

Markus Feehily said: “We all felt that this could be the perfect time for us to come back. Because with the music that we make, we can be ourselves and fit in. We don’t have to pretend. Or try and come back and make music that wasn’t us, just to try and fit in.”