JLS tour 2023: Seeing the boy band pop group of my childhood was the night out I didn’t know I needed

My sister and I went to see JLS ‘The Hits Tour’ on Saturday night (28 October) at Birmingham’s Utilita Arena - and seeing one of my favourite boy bands from my childhood was heartwarming, hilarious and a night I didn’t know I needed. While on the train to the concert my sister and I were laughing to each other trying to remember lyrics to songs and reminiscing about seeing them on X Factor and how young we were at the time.

When we turned up to the arena it was heaving with, well mainly girls, and the odd boyfriend who you would think had been dragged along - but when I looked around me while the show was on I was surprised to see even they knew the lyrics and were dancing along. The support act before JLS was Shab first, a singer originally from Iran with an amazing voice and then next up was Tinchy Stryder.

Tinchy Stryder and his tunes including ‘Number One’ really took my sister and I back a decade. It was one of the songs for my sister that reminded her of when she first used to go out clubbing - and reminded me, being seven years younger, watching and wanting to be old enough to go out with her. My sister especially was getting a lot of “Oh my god I remember this song” while Tinchy was on.

Then it was the main act, JLS. Out of four gaps they all appeared and everyone erupted into screams. Song after song was just one big throwback for my sister and I as we danced away and surprised ourselves as we remembered most of the lyrics.

Aston Merrygold still has his breakdance backflip dance moves that he was famed for on X-Factor and throughout the show they all stopped and engaged with the crowd. Towards the middle of the show they got two girls up on the stage while they sang and danced around - with one girl absolutely loving it and us the crowd loving it too. The guys showed off their Magic Mike-esque dancing, which my sister and I found hilarious, and although in the stadium everyone had seats we weren’t sitting down for very long.

Rochelle Humes and all of the children were in the middle of the arena watching on and during the show the children all came up on stage to have a photo with their dads. Marvin Humes’ son had the microphone at one point where he asked his son: “What’s your name?” to which his son kept replying repeatedly with: “Hi”. It was so cute, and everyone loved the moment when Aston’s little boy ran up to him onto the stage and he picked him up - it was really sweet.

Alongside all of their tunes, including ‘Everybody In Love’, ‘Beat Again’, and ‘She Makes Me Wanna’, there was a section of the show where JLS turned into D-JLS where a pair each had a DJ set and pitted against each other to play some big tunes from other artists. They played songs like ‘Afterglow’ by Wilkinson and Becky Hill and ‘Can’t Hold Us’ by Macklemore and all of a sudden it felt like we were in a big club ready for a night out.

Their slow songs had everyone with phone flashlights lighting up the stadium. And all in all it was a really great night. Aston even treated the crowd to him cheekily taking his top off at the end of the concert before the group disappeared and the night was over.

Their songs took me back to when I was younger which was heartwarming and funny to reminisce. Their voices are exactly like they are on the records and how we heard them back in the day on X-Factor, and I may or may not have added a few of their songs on my Spotify playlists. I think after Saturday night I am now a reborn JLS fan.