More than 44 million people in China tune in to see Westlife in concert

The online concert, which was headlined by the Backstreet Boys, featured an appearance from the Irish boy band who collaborated with the US group on two songs.

The concert, which was held by WeChat to promote the apps video function, lasted two hours and received a total of 44.2 million viewers.

Evoking nostalgia was a big theme of the show, with many viewers taking to the comments to relive their youth.

“I almost cried when the music started; it brought me back to my days of youth,” one person said.

Westlife were one of the first groups to perform live on the video service back in December.

The concert drew an audience of 27 million people and was the Channel’s first breakout success.

The group are currently gearing up for their The Wild Dreams tour, which will see Nicky Byrne, Shane Filan, Kian Egan, and Mark Feehily take to the stage at four massive Irish shows this summer.

They have been busy rehearsing for the tour ahead of their first concert in Kent on July 1st, where they will be performing some of their greatest hits from Swear It Again to What About Now.

The Aviva Stadium will be filled with Westlife fans on Friday, July 8, and Saturday, July 9, as the boys play their first home gig since their 2019 reunion tour.

The first show sold out in minutes due to high demand and a second date was quickly added for the Dublin venue.

They will also take to the stage at Páirc Uí Chaoimh in Cork on August 12 and 13.

Speaking to sundayworld.com in recent days, Nicky Byrne revealed his favourite song to play while on tour.

“It changes from year to year the one that I can never get away from, that I always love, is World of Our Own,” he said.

“But we’ve been lucky over the years, we’ve got some big stalwarts like obviously Flying Without Wings, My Love, You Raise Me Up, When You’re Looking Like That.”

“And then you’ve got the ones that have done well for charity like the Comic Relief single Uptown Girl, which was obviously a Billy Joel song but it was huge around the world for us because it was for Comic Relief. And Claudia Schiffer was in the video!”

Mandy always goes down well too. It’s a great song,” he added.