Brian McFadden and Keith Duffy are set to achieve a milestone that eluded them during their time with Westlife and Boyzone: performing in the United States.
Despite their bands' dominance in the '90s and '00s, amassing over 21 UK number-one singles and embarking on global tours, neither group performed live in the U.S,
While both released music stateside with moderate success, they didn't replicate their international acclaim.
Now, as Boyzlife, McFadden, 44, and Duffy, 50, plan to change that with a worldwide tour in 2025.
Speaking to The Standard, Duffy explained: “For both of us, America is a huge excitement for us because it’s the one place that even though both bands released records there and we did okay, we had some hit singles and the albums sold well, obviously it wasn’t as big as it was everywhere else in the world.”
Agreeing, McFadden continued: “We never got to do proper shows there, we never got to do concerts because by the time it got around to us doing America at that stage, certainly in Westlife’s case, we were already doing arenas all over the world and at that stage because America was only just beginning, we would have had to go back to doing smaller venues so I think at that stage it just didn’t make any sense to take it there.
“As the years went by America kind of fell by the wayside and we forgot about it so I think for both of us this is a huge excitement to be landing in America and to be playing shows like New York, Chicago, Boston and LA, all of these major cities.
“It’s going to be brilliant and it’s crazy that it has taken over 30 years for us to play concerts there but it’s definitely the part that I’m intrigued and excited about.”
Their tour will also see them take in 14 dates across the UK, which will run January through until March, including a show at the London Indigo at the O2 on February 8.
They will perform a mixture of Boyzone and Westlife’s classic tracks, plus, their own original material, such as recent single I Would.
Neither believed that they would be in this position as Boyzlife had originally been envisioned as a one-off autobiographical tour to share stories from their time in the bands and perform a couple of the songs.
“I think about Keith and I sitting in Dublin and having a conversation about doing the show, we said we’d do it and agreed to do one tour and it’d probably only be four weeks. It’s just gas to think that eight years later, that four weeks has turned into eight years, it’s funny”, laughed McFadden.
While there’s no chance of other Westlife or Boyzone members joining them, Duffy says his old bandmates have “certainly shown the support”.
“Shane Lynch especially, he has come along to quite a few of our gigs and he will jump on stage for the encore and sing a few of the songs with us and have some fun on stage. No negatives, I think Kian Egan from Westlife might have been a bit negative at one point, but that’s all. Everyone else has been very supportive.”
McFadden jumped in: “It’s not that he was being negative, I think back when we started Kian was probably a bit miffed at why I was singing Westlife songs again seeing as that I wasn’t in Westlife anymore but I think now that everybody kind of understands that Boyzlife isn’t just Keith and I singing the old Boyzone and Westlife songs, we’re actually an act now that write and perform our own songs. We’re on our third album now with new music and it started off with us just performing the old stuff but it’s down to us making new music which we’re really excited about.”
Boyzlife’s UK tour begins in January 2025. For tickets please visit Ticketmaster.co.uk
