Westlife, Bestwife No Life

If you saw the Westlife concert last May 29 at the Araneta Coliseum, you’d think that the entire teen, pre-teen and even preschool population in Manila was there. With all their ear-piercing screams, you’d think that the hostage crisis at a Palawan resort had never happened and that everything was going well on this side of town.

I was at the concert with my son, who is turning six and whose fondness for the music of Westlife still baffles me up to now. It was the first time he had listed a date on my desk calendar aside from the usual scribbles. I thought that he would be the only six-year-old there until I saw rows and rows of kids his age. That’s when I realized that it wasn’t my son who was too young, it was I who was too old.

We arrived at the Araneta Coliseum at 6 p.m. hoping to have dinner in time for the 8 p.m. show. I thought we looked like silly eager beavers, arriving two hours before the show, until I saw this long and winding line at the parking lot. It looked like it had stretched out far back two kilometers and had no end in sight. In fact, I never figured out where the end of the line was. These were people who had bought bleacher seat tickets and had been lining up the whole afternoon. They wanted to make sure they’d get a good view even if the five members of Westlife would look only an inch tall from where they sat.

I didn’t know who Westlife was until my son introduced them to me two years ago. If not for the videoke channel on TV and the posters in the music stores, I’d think that Westlife was a store selling European furniture.

With all the screaming fans, I thought I’d get crushed, but luckily, the only thing that got crushed, although temporarily, was my eardrums. The fans actually behaved, if you ask me. Except for some who ran to the center aisle to be near the stage, there was no pushing and shoving. The security people were quite efficent; they were able to convince these people to please go back to their seats. This was one concert where they didn’t have to remind people to turn off their cellphones. You couldn’t hear anything else but the screaming anyway. The only one who was probably using a cellphone that night was me as I wanted my husband, whose taste for music doesn’t go beyond Duke Ellington, to hear what was going on at least for a few seconds. He said that his eardrums almost broke, too. You’re getting old, too, I told him.

Well, not everyone was screaming. There were about 500 of us oldies who had to take our kids to watch the concert, and I could see from the look on their faces that they couldn’t understand what the commotion was all about.

Looking back, my first exposure to fans’ hysteria was during the Beatlemania in the ’60s. Who wouldn’t forget all those film clips of teenagers who were screaming their lungs out and even sobbing as they watched the Beatles perform? I couldn’t understand the fuss then, but after finally watching a boy band perform, I suddenly began to understand the excitement of those Beatles fans more than 30 years ago.

However, I am still lost as to why preschool kids would appreciate and even join the screaming during a concert. When I was a six-year-old, our songs were limited to "Jack and Jill Went Up the Hill," "London Bridge is Falling Down" and other nursery rhymes. Then when we got a little older, we would learn how to sing the national anthem and in religion class, the nuns would teach us some songs on love and sharing. The only time we screamed was when one of our classmates would fall from the jungle gym at the school playground.

It was only when I turned 16 and was in high school that I had my own share of pop idols. I had posters of Andy Gibb (eeeh, baduy!) and Duran Duran (eeeh, baduy pa rin!) in my bedroom. For some of my friends, there was Leif Garrett who sang "Surfin’ USA" and Shawn Cassidy and Parker Stevenson of Hardy Boys fame.

Back to the concert, the usual "I Love You!" cartolina signs were there, and I remember hearing two ladies complaining as we were leaving the concert area that they wanted to wring the necks of those girls and their cartolina signs because they were blocking the view. I particularly loved one cartolina sign that said "Take me!" I was lucky enough to get seats somewhere in front, so I didn’t have too many problems with cartolina signs, except that I had gotten an aisle seat and those girls who ran to the stage weren’t giving me much air to breathe. At the start of the concert, one of them even approached me and begged, "Please please please? Can I make you katabi? Please?" I had barely grasped what she was saying when she suddenly pushed her hips against mine and took a third of my seat.

She kept on saying "Oh thank you oh thank you oh thank you!" As I was about to call the usherette to ask for a refund of one-third of what I had paid for, security came to my rescue and ushered my surprised seatmate back to her seat. Of all people, she had to choose me. Did I look like her mother, her tita or her yaya?

When the five members of Westlife said goodbye, another horde of teenage girls ran to the stage with teddy bears, roses and greeting cards. They desperately wanted to give the gifts personally to the band members but security took the gifts on their behalf.

One girl was so frustrated about not being able to give her teddy bears personally that she just sat on the floor and cried. She looked like one of those Erap loyalists who cried when their idol was forced to leave Malacañang last January.

After the concert, my son told me that he was coming back to the Araneta Coliseum on May 29, 2002. In his excitement, he already imagined a date for the next Westlife concert.

For going through all this for our son, my husband ought to call me "Bestwife."