BASINGSTOKE boy band Concept have made it through to the next stage of The X Factor after surviving the nail-biting boot camp stage of the show.

The five lads – Karim Newton, Matt Goodenough, Scott Dicks, Nathan Gittens and Ben Selley, who is the cousin of One Direction star Harry Styles – are now one of six acts bidding to be among the three groups who will go through to the live finals.

Judge Louis Walsh is mentoring this year’s groups, and it was he who had to decide which six acts would go through to the judges’ houses stage of the contest.

After hearing Concept’s performance of Snow Patrol’s hit Run, which aired on last Sunday night’s show, fellow judge Cheryl Fernandez-Versini told Concept: “I think you have just made Louis’s job a lot harder than he was expecting.”

Louis, who had already selected six finalists, gave the Basingstoke boy band a place in his top six, swapping them for one of his other picks in the six-seat challenge.

Band member Scott Dicks told The Gazette: “It was so up and down. We went on 11th and all six seats were filled, and we just said to each other ‘let’s go and fight for it and if it is not good enough, it is not good enough’.

“We wanted to show what we are capable of and see if we were what they wanted, and luckily we were.”

When asked how it felt to get a seat, Scott added: “That was probably the best moment of my life, and there were around 5,000 people at Wembley Arena screaming for us. It was just incredible.”

The band, who have been together for three-and-a-half years, will now fight for a place on the live finals show.

To watch the judges’ houses episodes of The X Factor, tune in to ITV1 on Friday, Saturday and Sunday night.