In a new interview entitled “It’s a Drum Do for Pope, Idols Westlife” from the July 30th issue of Plymouth, UK’s “Evening Herald,” Irish boyband Westlife explain how Dolores O’Riordan rescued their performance of “Little Drummer Boy” at the 9th Vatican Christmas Concert. Nicky Byrne explains in the interview:
“But the single biggest plus for me was being invited over to the Vatican to perform in person for the Pope, even though the experience didn’t go quite as planned.
“We had to perform two songs, live on TV as part of the deal, one of which had to be a carol. We chose Little Drummer Boy, but unfortunately they pitched it in a key that was too high.
“We tried to do it in rehearsal and couldn’t pull it o . The music director didn’t speak English and we had an hour before we were due to perform live for the Pope in a packed arena of 10,000 for a show going out live on TV.
“Fortunately the day was saved when we managed to recruit the lead singer with the Cranberries, who were also there to perform [sic], to help us out.”
Source: Evening Herald