Boyzone are celebrating their 20th anniversary a special one off music spectacular, Boyzone at 20: No Matter What (9pm ITV, December 13th).
Hosted by Dannii Minogue, the special will see Ronan Keating, Keith Duffy, Shane Lynch and Mikey Graham perform their biggest and best-loved hits and share intimate insights into their career including their bitter break up and the death of band mate Stephen Gately.
The four will give exclusive performances of classics such as Love Me For A Reason, Picture of You, When The Going Gets Tough, a medley of Words and Father and Son, as well as their new single Love Will Save The Day.
The show includes footage charting the band’s career from and exclusive interviews where each band member has the opportunity to tell their part of the Boyzone story.
When discussing Boyzone’s formative years, the band is open about how instrumental their ex-manager Louis Walsh was despite his recent criticism of them. Shane says: “He promised us the sun, moon and stars and gave it to us, so we can’t knock him for that.”
Boyzone are joined on stage for the first time with Melanie C to perform the band’s biggest selling hit ‘No Matter What’.
The band talk candidly about the tensions within Boyzone that saw them split at the height of their fame.
Mikey says: “I just was never quite sure where I fitted in. At times I felt lost in the band as to what role was I actually playing here.”
Keith says: “It took a while to deal with the fact that, you weren’t one of the popular ones. Ronan said he wanted to take a break. At the time I remember thinking ‘This is crazy.’”
Ronan says: “I had to stand up for myself. If I’m honest, I worked harder than anyone else in the band. Non-stop. That’s part of the reason I went ‘Hang on a second. I’m gonna do this lads, and I’m ok about it, because I’ve been doing it anyway.’ And I think the lads knew that. I don’t think we’ve ever really actually openly said that to each other, but I’m saying it now.”
Shane says: “I hated Ronan Keating with a passion, I hated the boy.”
As the band watch each other’s revelations in the studio, Mikey asks Ronan ‘What do you make of that?’ Ronan replies: “Sometimes you don’t say things, and we are like brothers. And like any family, we have our moments, we fight, we fall out. When we came back in 2007, we had the best time. I just wish we’d had more years together.”
The band pay tribute to Stephen Gately, who passed away in 2009, and reflect on life without him in the band.
Fighting back tears, Ronan says: “To lose Steo was just the most devastating thing I’ve ever known. He loved being in Boyzone. He loved it. He was on fire, he was fitter than he’d ever been, he looked better than he ever looked. He was so happy, he was in love and life was amazing. And that’s one of the things that makes me angry.”
Shane says: “Whether you can see him or not means nothing to us, but he’s there with us. One of the reasons me and the boys like to get back together and why we like spending time with each other is because he’s not distant from us at all.
“He’s very much present when us four are together. The bubble of Boyzone consisted of five and it still does to us guys. Four guys are standing on stage, as five – and we always will be.”