Boyzone head for endzone
First Irish boy band’s final fling comprises album and farewell tour
When Boyzone made their Irish TV debut in 1993, host Gay Byrne was scathing. “You don’t play, you don’t sing and you can’t write music,” he pointed out. “There’s no talent whatsoever.” He jokingly concluded: “They’ll go far”.
And they did. In the next decade, Boyzone scored five UK number one albums, 18 top-10 singles and six number ones. They went their separate ways between 2001-2007, but over a 25-year career sold 25 million records. Now, Ireland’s first boy band are calling it quits.
“We were young when we started,” says Shane Lynch, now 42. “We didn’t know what we could or couldn’t do.”
“And by the time we found out, it was too late,” chortles Keith Duffy, 44.
Their final fling comprises an album, Thank You and Goodnight, and a farewell tour next year.
Working on choreography in a London dance studio, the four surviving members are full of affectionate in-jokes, among more poignant memories. This includes staying overnight in church with the body of bandmate Stephen Gately, who died at 33 in 2009, of a heart condition.
“His mother didn’t want him left alone,” explains Duffy. “So we got locked in with the priest.”
“We certainly did get locked with the priest,” laughs Lynch, using Dublin slang for inebriation. “I think it was the communion wine.”
No home-grown pop scene existed in Ireland when manager Louis Walsh assembled the group after 300 youngsters turned up for the audition, including future film star Colin Farrell.
The final five spent the next year driving around Ireland in a van, playing to mostly indifferent audiences. But they were doing something right because by 1994 they had scored their first UK number one, Love Me For a Reason.
Officially, Boyzone’s reasons for stopping involve platitudes about “writing the end of the story ourselves”. Behind the press release, however, is a group of surprisingly well-adjusted middle-aged men for whom a boy band is no longer the centre of their lives.