by Shane Filan
It was too late to back out now, so at the end of my speech, I serenaded Gillian with an a cappella version of our favourite song, ‘our tune’, I suppose: ‘Amazed’ by Lonestar.
‘I don’t know how you do what you do / I’m so in love with you / It just keeps getting better / I want to spend the rest of my life with you by my side / Forever and ever…’
Singing it felt good, truthful and righteous. I looked at my new wife as I sang to her, and she was crying. When I looked around the room, virtually everybody seemed to be clapping and wiping something from their eye.
Well, if you can’t cry at a wedding, when can you? It was one of the many high points of a day that was a fairy tale from start to finish. We could not have been happier.
Gillian and I both stayed sober all through our big day so the next evening we were gagging for a party. We pushed the boat out and hired a helicopter to fly us back to Sligo, where Gillian’s best friend Helena had arranged a big bash for us at McHugh’s pub.
It was a fantastic mad party that went on all night, and at 7 a.m. Gillian and I left to find the town white all over. We walked home hand in hand through the snow. When we got up, my dad asked me what time we had got in.
‘Oh, about 3 o’clock,’ I lied.
‘That’s odd,’ said Dad. ‘You left a trail of footprints in the snow, and it didn’t start snowing till 7!’ Even now I was a married man, he was still keeping an eye on me.
Gillian and I took off to the Maldives for our honeymoon. For the first week, we stayed at a Hilton hotel in a glass-floored suite that was set on stilts in the sea. There were two of them close to each other, reached by a wooden jetty from the beach, and as the porter drove us over on a buggy, he confided, ‘You have a famous neighbour for your stay.’
‘Who’s that?’ I asked him.
‘Sir Paul McCartney.’
Paul McCartney? F**k! I was incredibly excited and my eyes were on stalks as I gazed out of our window trying to spot him. Gillian is rarely starstruck, and she had a word with me: ‘We’re on our honeymoon, Shane! Forget about The Beatles.’
It was hard to forget about Sir Paul the next morning when he sent us a bottle of champagne and a breakfast of strawberries with a congratulatory note. For the rest of the day, I was in a daydream: I’m on my honeymoon; we’re in paradise in the Indian Ocean; a Beatle is sending me breakfast… Gillian and I still have the champagne. We treasured it too much to drink it.
I didn’t bump into Paul, though… until a couple of days later, when I was walking along a little leafy walkway to get a massage in the hotel spa. Suddenly there he was, right in front of me. He gave me a thumbs-up, opened his mouth and started singing:
‘Oh, Mandy! You came and you gave without taking, and I sent you away!’
He sang a few more lines, congratulated me again and walked on. I have had my fair share of surreal moments in my life, but being serenaded by Sir Paul McCartney in the Maldives is up there with them. When I sing ‘Mandy’ live now, even today, Macca pops into my head.
We spent the second week of our honeymoon on an absurdly idyllic neighbouring island. Our villa was right on the beach and even if we walked 500 yards into the turquoise ocean, it only came up to our waists.
We were in paradise. Life was perfect.
When Gillian and I got back to Ireland, we moved into our house in Carraroe. It was a great place to supervise the work on the big family mansion. The roof had gone on now but we were still looking at a few more months before we could all move in. It was wonderful to see it finally come together.
In fact, I made a little move into the property market. The Irish economy was booming, everybody was talking about the Celtic Tiger, and I decided to buy five houses in Sligo and rent them out. I only had to put down a 10 per cent deposit. It seemed like a good investment and a pretty foolproof plan, and was a nice sideline from the band.
After the wedding and the honeymoon, I felt like I had had a great break from Westlife for a few weeks and when we got back together I was raring to go. The Turnaround tour was due to kick off at the end of March 2004 and was to be the usual full-on arena jaunt around Britain and Europe.
Three weeks before the first date, we all went to the Meteor Awards in Dublin. They gave us Best Irish Pop Act, which if I am honest was not a total surprise – it was the third year in a row that we had won it! Even so, it was always grand to win and the Meteors were a great night out.
Brian was there with Kerry. I had last seen them at our wedding and they had been on great form. They had had their second daughter, Lilly-Sue, in the February of the year before, and they should have been on top of the world.
But Brian was not a happy man at the Meteors. It seemed like he was in a sulk and just didn’t want to be there. When we won our award, he reluctantly came up to the stage with us to get it, but then he wouldn’t come to the press room afterwards so the photographers could take a winners’ snap.
It didn’t seem like a big deal. Louis stood in on the photos to bring the number up to five and we covered for Brian, saying he and Kerry had had to get home for family reasons. It sounded reasonable and no journalists questioned it. Why would they?
We figured it was just Brian being Brian. We had seen him plenty of times before being in a strop and acting the maggot, and then suddenly snapping out of it and being his usual happy-go-lucky self. A couple of days later we all met up again at the Factory Studios in Dublin to start rehearsals for the Turnaround tour.
First days of rehearsals, when you are all rusty and out of practice, can be a bit dodgy, but we all nailed it that day, both with the singing and dancing. We were all congratulating each other afterwards and saying how good it was looking when Brian suddenly asked, ‘Can we meet up tonight, lads? I want to have a chat.’
Kian, Mark and I had rented an apartment in Dublin for the length of the rehearsal period so we all agreed to meet there that evening. As we waited for Brian to arrive, the rest of us idly speculated on what he wanted to talk about.
We hadn’t got a clue. We guessed that it might be about songwriting again: Brian had been the band member who was the most into writing our own material, and he had been the most pissed off when Simon called us in, gave us his talking-to and asked us to cover ‘Mandy’. We figured he might want to let off a bit more steam about that.
In any case, we didn’t imagine it was anything serious; he had seemed happy as could be that day in rehearsals, and we were looking forward to clearing the air before sitting back and all having a beer and a laugh.
Brian arrived, looking a bit awkward. Any time that he was embarrassed, he always had a weird little smirk on his face, and he had it now. We did our usual hugs and handshakes, sat down and waited to be enlightened.
‘Well, what’s happening?’ asked Nicky. ‘What’s up?’
‘I’m hanging up my boots, lads,’ said Brian.
What? What the f**k? We were all dumbfounded… then we started grinning. We were being Punk’d! Brian was doing a windup on us for Ashton Kutcher’s new MTV show. Ah, good one!
‘You f**king joker, Brian!’ Nicky told him. ‘You’re having a laugh, right? There are cameras in here!’ He even patted him down for microphone wires.
‘There are no cameras, lads, and I’m not messing,’ Brian said. ‘I’m serious. I’m hanging up my boots.’
There was a stunned silence in the room. Then we all spoke at once.
‘Eh? What do you mean?’ ‘Hanging up what boots?’ ‘You mean walk away?’ ‘What?’
‘I want to leave the band,’ Brian said. He was still smirking unhappily. ‘I don’t want to be in Westlife any more.’
We all gazed at each other as the penny dropped. Shit. He really meant it. We all reacted in different ways. Mark sat quietly (I found out later that Brian had already confided in him, but Mark hadn’t thought he would go through with it). Kian and I went into shock. Nicky shot Brian three questions at once.
‘What’s the problem – is it one of us tha
t you don’t like? Are you sick? Is it Kerry or the kids, are they OK?’
Brian didn’t really give any details. He just said that he was not enjoying it any more and hadn’t been content in the band for a while. ‘It’s not you,’ he said. ‘You’re my best friends. I’m just not happy.’
I was flabbergasted. Westlife was the best job in the world. ‘Brian,’ I asked, ‘how can you not enjoy being in this band?’
For the next hour, the conversation went in circles. Nicky was finding it the hardest to accept what Brian was saying. ‘Ah, c’mon man, whatever it is, we can fix it,’ he was telling him. ‘That’s what we’re here for. We’re a band. Shall we get counselling? Yeah, let’s all get band counselling!’
Eh? Steady on, Nicky! Brian looked awkward, like he hated being there, but he just kept saying the same things. It wasn’t any of us; it wasn’t anything to do with Kerry; he just wanted out. It became clear that this wasn’t Brian’s usual messing. He wasn’t going to change his mind.
Shite. We had a massive tour starting in nineteen days… what the hell were we going to do?
And another thought began to form in my mind. Jesus. I had just got married, I had built a huge mansion, I had five rented properties and a massive mortgage… but this could be the end of the band. This could be it, where it all ends, right here. The terrible scenario played out in my head. Pop bands just don’t go on when a member leaves. Look at the Spice Girls after Geri left, or Take That after Robbie quit… they were all over. Why should Westlife be any different?
We could not have been more stunned. Brian couldn’t wait to get out of the room. As he left, we all hugged him and said, ‘Look, have a think about it, let’s talk tomorrow.’
‘We can chat tomorrow, lads,’ said Brian. ‘But I’ve made up my mind.’
And he was gone.
As the door closed behind him, we all stared at each other. Nicky just looked devastated. Kian was in tears. Mark was silent, apart from occasionally mouthing, ‘Jesus Christ.’ I felt hollow, helpless… then suddenly I felt very angry.
There was a big fireplace on one side of the room, and I leapt up and started pacing up and down in front of it. Pacing, and shouting.
‘What the f**k is that about?’ I asked the others. ‘What does he think he’s doing, leaving us? Well, you know what, f**k him! If he wants to f**king leave, good luck to him! We can go on without him!’
The other lads looked doubtful, and I wasn’t even sure if I believed what I was saying. But that didn’t stop me carrying on.
‘We can do the band with four of us. Mark and I are still here and we do all the lead vocals. We can still do the show… we are the show! We’ve got f**king thousands of fans waiting for us and he’s not going to end this band and ruin our lives!’
I wasn’t even angry at Brian while I was ranting. He had to do what he had to do. I was angry at the thought of Westlife, of our lives, being snatched away from us. We couldn’t let that happen.
Kian phoned Louis and kept it simple: ‘Louis, Brian’s after leaving the band.’
Louis kept it simpler: ‘What the f**k? I’m on my way now!’
He made it from south of the Liffey in fifteen minutes flat. He must have jumped every red light in Dublin.
Louis was great. He came into the room going, ‘What the f**k happened?’ but quickly saw that we were in a state. He sat and listened carefully as we relayed what Brian had told us, and nodded when we said it didn’t look like Brian was going to change his mind. And then he started to lift us.
‘Look, you can go on with four of you,’ he said. ‘Nicky and Kian can pick up all of Brian’s singing parts. You can just split everything four ways. Don’t forget, there were only four in The Beatles!’
‘Ah, come on, Louis,’ we told him. ‘Don’t go comparing us to The Beatles. We’re no Beatles.’
‘OK, then. You can only fit four in a taxi!’
We looked at each other and we all cracked up. And I think then, at that moment, we knew that we were going to try to make a go of it.
We were all too much in shock to rehearse for the tour the next day, so instead we reconvened at Nicky’s house. Louis had phoned Simon, who simply said, ‘OK. Do we replace him? It’s your call.’
Louis put it to us, and for a split-second we wondered about bringing somebody else in, but… no. There wasn’t even a conversation to be had. Now it was all about the four of us, and it was down to us to make it work.
We had loads of fears, though. What about the Turnaround tour? Fans had bought tickets expecting to see Brian there – would they still come? Our booking agent, John Giddings, came to Nicky’s house to discuss it with us. He explained that the whole tour was sold out, but anybody who was disappointed that Brian wasn’t there could get a refund.
Then we saw Brian again. He came out to Nicky’s house for a meeting to decide how we were going to announce that he was leaving the band. As you might expect, the atmosphere was fairly tense.
It was a bit weird. Brian offered to do the Turnaround tour with us. I suppose he was just trying to soften the blow. He suggested that he did the whole tour and we didn’t tell anybody that he was leaving. We could put out a statement at the end instead.
Brian was trying to help, but his idea made us angry. None of us liked the thought of touring what would basically be a lie. We wanted to be upfront with the fans – we didn’t want to end the tour, make an announcement and have them all saying to us, ‘Why didn’t you tell us earlier?’
We also figured that we would need this tour to see if we could make Westlife work as a four-piece. It was time for a fresh start.
‘No,’ we told Brian. ‘If you’re going to leave, leave now.’
He agreed. In fact, he looked pretty relieved.
We decided to hold a press conference to announce that Brian was quitting. It was Kian’s idea. Looking back, I’m not sure we should have done it given the emotionally fraught nature of the whole thing, but it felt like we had had a death in the band, and we wanted some sort of ritual, or funeral, to mark it.
Our press agent, Joanne Byrne, set up the press conference at the Four Seasons hotel in Dublin. She had her work cut out. The day before, word leaked out that Brian was leaving, and all the papers started writing about how much money we had all made from the band, and asking if it was all over for Westlife.
The day itself was bizarre. It just felt like a really weird, f**ked-up day. It was certainly big news, and we all filed into the room to face an arsenal of cameras and microphones. The hotel suite was packed with journalists; Sky News even flew Kay Burley out to cover it live.
Brian spoke first and confirmed that he was leaving. He didn’t really say anything he hadn’t told us already; just repeated that he hadn’t been happy in the band for a while, and he wanted to be able to spend more time with his family, especially his two young daughters.
Kian had written a letter to Brian from the rest of the band and planned to read it aloud. Some of us weren’t so sure about this and thought it would be better given to Brian in private, but Kian felt strongly that we had all been through a lot together and he really wanted to do it.
He stood up at the press conference and read it out, thanking Brian for everything we had all been through together.
‘We have shared some unbelievable times throughout the years and will always hold them, and you, very close to our hearts,’ he said. ‘We have shared laughter, tears, success, weddings and babies, but most of all we’ve shared our dreams.’
Kian is a very emotional guy and he couldn’t get through the letter without tearing up. By the end, he was almost bawling. It was awkward, and Brian sat at the end of the table, looking down, with that smirk back on his face.
I think afterwards Kian really wished that he hadn’t done it. He was pissed off because he felt Brian had been laughing at him for crying on national TV. That wasn’t true; it was just the face that Brian always unknowingly pulled when he was embarrassed. But the whole day was a g
rim ordeal.
In the middle of this crazy media storm, of course, we had the little matter of the Turnaround tour to prepare for.
By now we were on a mission with this. We had something to prove. As well as relearning all of Brian’s vocal parts, we also asked Priscilla to give us harder dance moves than usual. We had to prove – to ourselves, as well as to the fans – that we could be f**king brilliant without Brian.
We were going to be wearing pinstripe gangster suits and white hats, and Priscilla came up with a routine where we opened the show by each doing individual dances one by one, caught in a spotlight. It looked amazing, really cool.
Fuelled by adrenaline, anger and panic, I don’t think Westlife had ever worked harder than in those rehearsals for Turnaround. Shit, we were going to give it our best shot – and if we were going to go down, we were going down fighting! By the first date, we were a well-oiled machine.
The tour kicked off at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast, which was always a great city for Westlife. I have to say, we were fantastic that night. We were fighting fit, it was a chance to shed all the fear and frustration we had carried for weeks, and I genuinely think that it was one of the best shows we had ever played.
We were in great voice, it was slick, and everything we had painstakingly rehearsed, all the adjustments we had had to make to cope with losing a member, went like a dream. We kept catching each other’s eye onstage, and grinning. Yes! We can do this!
The crowd’s screams nearly took the roof off, and in our dressing room afterwards, Louis, Sonny, John Giddings, our families and friends all fell over themselves to inform us how great we had been and tell us that we were better as a four-piece. We knew they weren’t just saying it, and it was great to hear.
The whole tour was amazing. The fans were just brilliant. Everywhere we went, they told us: ‘We love you – if Brian wanted to leave, that’s his business, but we love you forever.’ Before the tour, we had been braced for thousands of fans demanding their money back. John Giddings told Louis that not one person had returned their ticket.
