JLS fans have 'emotional' time as popstars wow at concert

JLS tore up the stage at their concert in Taunton last weekend. The boyband - whose collection of #1 hits include Beat Again, The Club is Alive, and She Makes Me Wanna - took to Vivary Park on Saturday, August 24 to perform for their adoring fans.

It would not be an exaggeration to say many fans had been waiting their whole lives for this. Having rose to fame on the X Factor in 2008, some of the audience grew up with JLS and have finally gotten the chance to see them in concert.

Sasha, 24, has loved the group since she was eight-years-old. This is her first JLS concert, and for her it definitely lived up to the hype: "The emotions were running [high]. My friend was asking 'are you ok, are you ok?'. I was just crying as soon as they came on."

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"I did run for my life to get to the front!", she admitted.

Not only did many fans grow up with the band, people were spotted taking their children to the family-friendly gig. Georgie, 29, spotted people from a whole range of age groups - from people in their thirties and forties to children as young as ten with their parents.

Georgie would love to take her own children to a JLS concert one day - and in a way, she has. The mum-of-one is expecting her second child this year, who already seems to be on the JLS train: "Although I've seen them before, This was double emotional because I'm pregnant again, and my little one inside me was moving around, I could fill them kicking.

"[It's like they were saying] 'I'm enjoying the music, mummy!'."

The concert was part of JLS's triumphant Summer Hits Tour, something of a victory lap after fifteen years of tearing up the charts. Their first #1 was in 2009 with Beat Again, a song about a man who's told by doctors that his heart stopped after he and his girlfriend broke up.

From there followed ten top ten hits, including Sasha's personal favourite, Everybody in Love. Sasha recalls that the crowd became emotional when they played the romantic ballad: "A few people close by were crying, so luckily it wasn't just me."

After cementing their place in the pantheon of great boy bands, JLS went on a hiatus in 2013. From there, the guys pursued their own projects: Aston became a solo pop star with his own top thirty hit, Oritsé won the ITV talent show Stepping Out, and JB became a farmer.

Marvin had an especially dazzling post-JLS career, becoming a star presenter for shows like The Voice UK, The Hit List, and The Official Big Top 40. He married fellow popstar Rochelle Humes, who fans might remember from The Saturdays.

JLS got back together in 2020. You can book tickets to their Summer Hits tour on their website.