Orlando Sentinel
By Matthew J. Palm | Sentinel Staff Writer
In case you haven't heard, the Backstreet Boys are grateful to their fans for sticking with them. Really, truly, sincerely, deeply grateful.
That was the constant refrain as the Boys' comeback tour stopped Saturday night at the Ford Amphitheater, at the state fairgrounds near Tampa.
The quintet - Nick Carter, Howie Dorough, Brian Littrell, AJ McLean and Kevin Richardson - has been on hiatus for 4 years, an eternity in pop music, though manager Johnny Wright referred to the absence as "a little break" in a preshow address.
In a concert rarity, Wright took the stage to kick off the thanksgiving.
"There's a lot of naysayers that say the fans will never come back," he said to a chorus of boos from the nearly full amphitheater. "As I look at the audience tonight, I can say that is not true of Backstreet Boys fans."
And each of the Boys in turn thanked the fans throughout the 100-minute show. "God bless you all," pronounced Howie.
"Thank you from the bottom of my heart," said Brian. "You blessed our lives."
The crowd, perhaps giddy from hearing blessings from both God and Brian, was as raucous as the fans back in the day when the BSB, which formed in Orlando, sold out arenas in a heartbeat. And a good number of Saturday's crowd looked as though they had grown up with the boys.
There were some young men in the crowd - riding a wave of junior-high nostalgia? - but most of the crowd was female. Of course, growing up brings changes. "I luv AJ," read a female fan's text message, one in a rolling log of messages displayed on a giant screen before the concert began. "I named my son after you."
The Boys have changed, too. Three of them are actually in their 30s. As for how they're aging, Kevin has cut his hair really short, Brian and Howie have been hitting the gym, AJ's hairline has receded a bit farther and Nick, the youngest, has grown into what my grandmother would call "a husky lad."
Their signature five-part harmonies blended better Saturday than on their last tour, especially in the new song "I Still ....." and the 2001 hit "Drowning." Brian can still hit amazing high notes full force, and AJ, clean and sober after a stint in rehab, has never sounded better. Nick also showed off a soaring voice in old hits such as "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely," though he sometimes sounded nasally in his lower register.
The concert was divided into "acts," based on the group's previous albums, with songs from 2000's Black & Blue opening the show. Eight songs from new album Never Gone were sprinkled throughout the show and were received as enthusiastically as the older hits.
Between acts, video screens showed a decade of clips of the Boys. It was the equivalent of thumbing through your high-school yearbook 10 years on - laughing at some moments fondly, but cringing at some of the cheesy stunts, trendy outfits and just plain bad hairstyles.
Adding to the nostalgia factor was the boy-band choreography that BSB stuck with for most of the old hits, whether opening with a synchronized walk down a flight of steps for "The Call" or displaying regimented arm and hand movements in "I'll Be the One." Watching the dance steps was mostly fun, though after all these years, the Boys' choreographed hat play during "All I Have to Give" is just tired.
For their part, the Boys didn't display an iota of self-consciousness or irony during the retro-dancing. In fact, they embraced it with boundless energy despite the wilting humidity. Throughout the show, they displayed camaraderie, joking and mock grandstanding with one another.
And the audience, whether old fans or new, was enjoying itself too, cheering past the final fireworks explosion after the encore "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)." Back, indeed.