CityLife

Ronan Keating

Ronan Keating

Ronan Keating
Apollo
March 13, 2010

Before Ronan Keating even takes to the stage the entire crowd are on their feet to give the Boyzone singer a polite welcome.

Opening on familiar ground with his solo hits I Love It When, If Tomorrow Never Comes and The Way You Make Me Feel, Ronan is a solid singer who can perform his best-known songs live while sounding exactly like the finished studio version.

Backed by a string quartet, he turns his distinctive husky vocals to a beautiful version of the Cyndi Lauper classic Time After Time - an early Mother’s Day treat for the predominantly female audience.

His fans are so nice and polite they remain on their feet throughout the entire show, even when it starts to sag a little in the middle under the weight of perhaps one too many ballads - music to wake up to on a Sunday morning.

The crowd perks up whenever he mentions his Boyzone band mates, and especially when he plugs their tour this October.

And there is a poignant section when he pays tribute to the late Stephen Gately - whose amazing harmonies, he says, will be with them forever.

A photo is held aloft by someone in the crowd and a picture of his friend ‘Steo’ is beamed onto a giant screen as Ronan kisses his fingers and lifts his arm skywards.

The icy blast of Winter Song, with projected images of Ronan and falling snow, feels out of place in March, as do falling autumnal leaves for the folk song Wild Mountain Thyme/Will You Go Lassie Go from Songs for My Mother.

And then we’re looking forward to the next season with Summer Outside.

Ronan dedicates When You Say Nothing At All to his beautiful wife Yvonne and her mother Ann, who were seated next to this reviewer with the three Keating children.

A set of pom-poms in the crowd are waved along with Lovin Each Day.

And another Mother’s Day gift arrives when band mate Keith Duffy joins him from the cobbles of Weatherfield to sing the blast that is Life is a Rollercoaster..

The Coronation Street star is back again for Boyzone’s Picture of You in the encore, followed by the final song of the night The Long Goodbye - a rather sombre note to end the show with.

Not that his fans seem to mind.