Boyzone have insisted they “are not going to be a band again” after their final concerts next week.
The quartet – comprising Ronan Keating, Keith Duffy, Shane Lynch and Mikey Graham – will take to the stage at London’s Emirates stadium for two nights, their first concerts since the Thank You and Goodnight tour came to an end in 2019, and after that, they insisted won’t be performing together again.
Shane told The Sun newspaper: “This is the final chapter and I think it has to be.
“You can’t follow up what we’ve just done. We weren’t meant to be here sharing a stage together again.
“It is a pleasure to be doing this but look, whatever the future holds, we go away and we come back together in friendships and stuff and our paths do cross.
“But we are not going to be a band again. We are very much separate individuals.”
And while there is still previously unheard Boyzone music hidden away, Ronan insisted fans will never get to hear the songs because they aren’t very good.
He said: “There are a lot of songs we wrote and recorded that have never seen the light of day, and rightly so, because they are s****.”
The No Matter What group teased there will be a “special moment” during the London concerts that allows them to pay tribute to late bandmate Stephen Gately, who died from an undisclosed heart condition in October 2009.
Ronan said: “I am finding this especially hard because I know Stephen would have been in his element next week.
“It is going to be very heavy on my heart next week. I will be carrying that. But there is a moment for him in the show. It’s a special moment, it’s Steo’s moment. It is going to be visually something.
“Steo would have lapped this all up, more than anything we had ever done as a band. It’s going to be hard.”
The group reflected on their previous tours without Stephen and admitted they previously rushed into getting back on stage.
Keith said: “We came back together in 2008 and we were flying. We were on the crest of a wave until we lost Steo.
“We toured again in 2011 but it was too soon after Steo passed.
“That tour was a disaster, not on a working level or on a business level but on an emotional level.
“We decided for the 20th anniversary in 2013.
“That was a nicer feeling than the one in 2011 because we had become more understanding of Stephen’s loss. Time is a great healer.”