It’s a brave man who mentions 5ive in front of
Westlife and their legion, of fans. But it’s an even
braver one who gets a ladder, climbs above the heads
of screaming fans and tries to drown them out with
chants of adoration for the British bad boys of pop.
“You’re not as good as Westlife”, was the comment that
made 5ive members J and Ritchie see red before
Christmas landing both of them in an Irish court. And
yesterday, there was almost a rematch as Kian and
Nicky from Westlife arrived in the Stephens Green
Centre to launch a new Coca-Cola promotion, a sales
assistant in one of the nearby clothes shops stacked
up the ammunition – a ladder and 5ive’s album. With
the music blasting out of the store, the assistant
danced on top of his ladder shouting the band’s name
and giving their familiar five-fingered salute.
But Kian and Nicky didn’t rise to the bait. Maybe it
was because instead of downing pints like 5ive, the
lads were slurping Coca-Cola. Or maybe they just
couldn’t hear over the hundreds of teenagers cheering
them.
The two were in the Dublin shopping centre to announce
details of Ireland’s biggest ever “instant win”
promotion with one million free bottles of Coke up for
grabs. The promotion begins on Monday, the same day
the band start rehearsing for their world tour.
“If this year is even half as good as last year or the
year before that, we will be very happy”, said Nicky
whose New Years resolution was to get back to work as
soon as possible.
And their failure to get the Christmas number one
ahead of cartoon character Bob the Builder has not
gutted them as some would like to imagine. “I am happy
we didn’t do it (beat the Beatles number one record).
We can get rid of this number one thing and get on
with making good music” said Kian.