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They may be older, but group proves they have what it takes to wow their mostly female fans
Sarah Petrescu, Victoria Times Colonist
Published: Saturday, September 06, 2008

The Backstreet Boys are still heavyweights in the boy band arena, if last night’s show at the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre is any indication.

Sure they are old (like, 30ish!), a little thicker around the middles and the hair is not quite as thick. Some are married, even have kids.

But when the boys took the stage in boxing gloves and a full ring for their first song Larger than Life they sent the message to the mass of screaming fans: Backstreet Boys are fighting boy band champions.

Fear of cheesiness, mocking critics and those ringleted Jonas Brothers be damned.

The Backstreet Boys danced hard, sang well and fully committed to giving their fans a high-energy, fun two-hour show.

The highlight was by far a medley of their hits Quit Playing Games With my Heart, As Long as You Love Me and All I Have to Give. Followed, of course, by a rockish Everybody and good harmonies on Incomplete.

The Backstreet Boys were hot stuff in the 90s. I was a little old (and stuck on the New Kids on the Block) for their mania but I vividly recall a friend’s little sister making out with her Nick doll and blasting Quit Playing Games With My Heart on her ghetto blaster. And who couldn’t help but bust out the hip hop moves to Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)?

I still do.

Though their followups to that initial explosion of hits, Millenium in 1999, Black and Blue in 2000, Never Gone in 2005 and Unbreakable in 2008, sold millions of albums, the songs and the crush appeal of the Boys never reached its previous height. But they have a massive loyal fan base. Many in the audience were singing along to every song.

Who goes to a Backstreet Boys concert these days? Women. Lots of them. From kids to seniors, but mostly in their early 20s.

The majority of women at last night’s show were likely way too young to consider their fave squeaky clean B-Boy a prospect when they discovered them. A decade later, they know different.

Women held up signs saying everything from “AJ, I’m Pregnant” and “Threesome?” to “Marry Me” and “Drunk (with an arrow pointing down.”

But the Boys did a good job of keeping the show clean fun. After 15 years together they run a tight ship, but their best songs and dance moves are still their oldies.

One disappointment was that Girlicious - product of the Pussycat Dolls’ catty reality-TV group search - cancelled as the opener. Vancouver’s Elise Estrada performed instead. The former beauty queen brought along a surprise Victoria party legend, Troy the Barber T-Bone, to hype up the crowd.

Source: Canada.Com

CONCERT REVIEW: Backstreet Boys woo the Garage girls
By HOSEA CHEUNG, 24 HOURS

The buzz: Backstreet was back alright, albeit one man short. The four-singer “boy” group revived the late ’90s at GM Place Thursday night with a set list meant to show Vancouver why the Backstreet Boys were on top of the music world at one point in time.

Cute beginnings: When you start off the show with Brian Littrell’s five-year-old son Baylee coming on stage to aww the female contingent with a cute rendition of “Are you ready for the Backstreet Boys?”, you know you’re off to a great start - in terms of making hearts melt.

Tatted up with wrong: The songs coming out of A.J. McLean definitely did not match his appearance to start off with, as the rocker-like outfit along with his full arm tattoos mirrored characters out of West Coast Choppers as opposed to a heart-throbbing boy band member. Oh, there were also “Queen Tour ‘75″ and “Black Sabbath” T-shirts amongst the other singers to go with the leather jackets. Wrong genre.

…

Target audience: The much older Backstreet Boys did not fail to disappoint when it came to wooing fans, since entering the crowd to give kisses and hugs to adoring fans sure helped their cause.

Loudest sing-along: It had to be a tie between “I Want It That Way” and “Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely”. Seven women miraculously got pregnant the moment those first notes played. It was that good.

…

Encore: BSB started strong and ended strong, and with a pretty upbeat version of “Shape of my Heart” to close out the night, plenty of fans definitely went home happy. Also, gotta love the confetti.

Grade: B - Although I’m not the biggest supporter of boy bands, the overwhelming roar of approval all concert long definitely revived the popularity of BSB in Vancouver, even if it’s just for one night only. However, the four singers have their past to thank for the outcome because if a group of unknowns did the exact same act, it would have been just another Thursday night.

REGINA — The big tease worked to a T.

The Backstreet Boys blew a thousand kisses, vowed more than once to perform in Regina again, jumped into the crowd to exchange hugs with front-row females and even suggested they should move to the Queen City during a powerful concert that pushed two hours.

All of this, of course, was met with waves of screams and flailing arms from a sea of mostly young, gussied-up girls and young women who figured this was more than a concert, but rather a significant event.

And, on many levels, it was. This was a confident, talent foursome that had a similarly powerful backup band and technicians behind them - all three factions combined to make one slick show. And even though the “unrehearsed” between-song banter and playful antics on stage were anything but, it all seemed fresh and genuine.

It was a fine showcase for great voices and athleticism.

Even before the show, the teasing began when one of the Boys waved to the crowd from the sides of the stage, prompting a hopeless rush toward him and the waiting security.

When the curtain fell, Nick Carter, Howie Dorough, Brian Littrell, A.J. McLean were introduced on the screens above playing the role of boxers on their way to a boxing match before appearing in person in a ring.

They launched into “Larger Than Life” as they shadow-boxed and sang into their famous headset microphones that made them look like rock star restaurant drive-through attendants.

We might think this was a metaphor for the band’s battle for respectability in the contemporary music world or perhaps a fight to return to their lost success, but no such cerebral debate was happening last night as the Boys winked, raised their fists and gestured to a Brandt Centre nearly crammed with female faces.

The best thing about the show was how it kept the songs as its main feature, and the four musicians were left to play their instruments in the shadows behind the Boys and bring an arena rock feel to Backstreet hits like “I Want it That Way,” “Shape of My Heart” and “Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely.” This helped make it seem we were at a rock concert rather than a Backsteet Boys show, something that appeared to be a success given all the dancing and singing in the parking lot afterwards.

Lots of planning also went into to the video production, which was the best I’d seen at any concert. The cameras put the singing faces on the big screen with seamless precision, something this video music generation demands.

The cameras followed the Boys’ grinning faces as they performed Backstreet hits, danced through choreographed numbers and exchanged high-fives as they passed each other. The show, which was acceptably cheesy at times, was careful to highlight each member equally — McLean (the troubled one) helped raise the crowd’s volume after the lift of an eyebrow or when his crotch was a seen on the screens, Dorough (the cultural one) accepted flowers and panties like it was another day at the office, Littrell (the religious one) traded gestures with those in the front row while he sang, and Carter (the sweaty one) pushed his face into cameras more than once, hamming it up like he was having the best time of his bandmates.

No mention, however, was made of former member Kevin Richardson, who left the group in 2006. I have no idea how he earns his living today, but my guess, judging from the success of Saturday’s show, quitting was a mistake.

The show’s slickness was evident, too, when each Boy took turns singing a song from their solo efforts — two have CDs out, two have CDs in the hopper — and Littrell made a clever mention of the entire Backstreet Boys catalogue, even describing a couple of CD covers.

The evening began with a comparatively short show performed by reality show product Girlicious, the four-member group of models who can sing, or singers who look like models, or something.

The whole deal was lost on me - when we sing over recorded music and background vocals, we call this karaoke, which was essentially what this was, but with some choreography and exposed midriffs. There was also lots of wriggling of bums and heaving chests. I don’t understand how this combination of catchy songs and adult entertainment is appealing to a teen girl audience, so I’ll leave it at that.

Source: Canada.com, Canada

4,000 fans, about 90 percent female screamed for hours in delight as the Back Street Boys took to the stage at the ESSAR CENTRE.

The Sault Ste. Marie stop in the bands North American tour didn’t disappoint, that is if you could hear the music over the enthusiastic crowd.

The two-hour concert included a line-up of hits such as I Want It That Way,Quit Playing Games (With My Heart) and Backstreet’s Back.

The group originally formed in the 1990’s and are known as the best selling boy band of all time.

The four-member group consists of Nick Carter (Pictured), Howie Dorough, Brian Littrell and A.J. McLean. Original member Kevin Richardson left the group in 2006 to begin a family.

Opening for the Backstreet Boys was Girlicious, a pop group formed as a result of the reality TV show Pussycat Dolls Present: Girlicious.

The band is made up of Tiffanie Anderson, Chrystina Sayers Nichole Cordova and Natalie Mejia.

Source: Soonews.ca, Canada

CONCERT PREVIEW | Group aims to regain steam after hiatus, defection

August 21, 2008

Recommend (7)

BY MISHA DAVENPORT mdavenport@suntimes.com

They may be older, wiser and short one original member, but the Backstreet Boys are still a hot ticket. Reserved seats for their concert at Ravinia are sold out, and the remaining lawn tickets are going fast.

Just don’t call this a “reunion” tour.

“There are a lot of misconceptions out there,” says founding member Nick Carter, laughing. “People think we broke up or are returning after some time off.”

In fact, other than a two-year hiatus that ended in 2004, the band has continued to record and tour steadily. After 13 years with the group, Kevin Richardson quit in 2006 to pursue other interests. He’s composing the soundtrack for an animated movie, “The Spirit Bear.”

Misconceptions aside — and despite the make-nice comments to other media outlets — Carter says Richardson’s departure was a good thing.

“Kevin just wasn’t into recording [the 2005 album] ‘Never Gone’ in a creative way. There were disagreements on every direction the band was taking, and he left because he realized he was hurting the group,” Carter says. “With him gone, there don’t seem to be as many conflicts, we aren’t bumping heads anymore and things are flowing better musically.”

Though the remaining members have repeatedly told the press Richardson is welcome back any time, Carter says he’s not so sure.

“The dynamic of the band has changed,” he says. “There can be no room for doubt — four is the strongest. We are the Backstreet Boys.”

The band formed in 1992. Richardson’s cousin Brian Littrell came aboard in 1993. The Boys’ first U.S. release was 1997’s self-titled album, which delivered several huge hits, including “Quit Playing Games (With My Heart),” “As Long as You Love Me” and “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back).”

The band’s biggest success to date was 1999’s “Millennium,” which sold more than a million copies in its debut week and was that year’s top-selling album. Hits from that include “I Want It That Way,” “Larger Than Life” and “Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely.”

The band has had to re- establish itself as a quartet. The group’s last album, “Unbreakable,” was the first recorded without Richardson. It sold 81,000 in its first week but dropped out of Billboard’s Hot 100 two weeks later.

“Working hard to prove ourselves isn’t something we aren’t familiar with,” the 28-year-old says. “On the one hand, radio stations aren’t playing us as much as they used to, but then again we know how it feels to see something begin to build again.”

Carter knows a little bit about rebranding, having spent the last two years doing damage control after appearing on the 2006 reality series “House of Carter.” The E! show featured the singer sharing a house with other members of his family. It didn’t show him in the most flattering light.

“I was thrown into the whole reality TV world before I should have been. I had issues I had to go through and, unfortunately, I went through them on television,” he says.

The camera frequently caught the Carter clan’s dysfunction and disputes. Watching himself on the small screen was a wake-up call for Carter to finally grow up.

“I saw myself on television in an unhealthy state, both physically and mentally. It opened my eyes,” he says. “I stopped drinking. I got back in shape. It took me two years, but I’ve changed my life around.”

The Backstreet Boys return to the recording studio this fall. Carter hopes the new album, due out in the second half of 2009, will feature a more urban pop sound.

“I’m not sure if we got ahead of or fell behind our fans, but we are paying close attention to current music, and the next album is going to reflect that,” Carter says. “We want to be played on Top 40 stations. If adult contemporary radio wants to play us, that’s great, but we consider ourselves a pop band.”

Source: SunTimes

My cousin and I went to see the boys tonight at Ravinia. If you heard someone singing “Bye, Bye, Bye,” that was probably my cousin being stupid. He was a little drunk, but that’s a different story.

The Boys came on at 8:10 PM after a horrible performance by Girlilisous ( I don’t know how it’s spelled). I couldn’t really see the concert that well but I could hear them. They sounded great the whole night. At one point in the show they were giving girls in the front row kisses (I envy you guys). The boys did their solos. They sounded great, but I didn’t really like Howie’s song (sorry Howie). I liked Nick’s solo the best and I think AJ could be successful with his solo album. The crowd seemed to really like it. My cousin said he liked Nick and AJ’s solos too, and he’s not really that much of a BSB fan.

I’m sorry if this review doesn’t make that much since because I just got back and I’m kind of tired. lol I’ll write more tomorrow.

I also got some pics and some videos from the show. I had my cousin taking pictures and videos of the show since I couldn’t really see. I told him to focus on Nick and Brian

Source/Credit: Sarah1124 at LD

Hundreds of fans gathered Friday for the return of the boy- band phenomenon, Backstreet Boys.

As the members took stage, the big screens featured each member walking out in boxing robes, each with a different color around the edges. Simultaneously, a photograph was shown of each member with miscellaneous information next to it, as though they were athletes.

Jessica Collier, freshman elementary education major, has been a fan of the Backstreet Boys since she first heard them. She was wearing a black T-shirt that said, “As long as he loves me” on the front and “A.J.” on the back. Collier had two friends who were wearing shirts that said, “He’s got it going on” with “Nick” on the back and “Helpless when he smiles” with “B-Rock” on the back.

When asked how she feels about Kevin Richardson recently leaving the band, Collier said, “It’s okay. I would have rather it been Brian.”

Sans Kevin, bSb entered a boxing ring set up on the stage and acted as though they were fighting while they danced and simultaneously sang bSb top hit, “Larger Than Life.” A silver bSb emblem shimmered in the background of the stage.

For the next song, they quickly switched into black leather jackets. Ironically, A.J. McLean was wearing a black, sleeveless Black Sabbath shirt for the next few songs and Brian Littrell was wearing a sleeveless Black Queen Tour ‘73 shirt. This was only the first of several clothing changes.

For most of the show, McLean bore the resemblance of a rocker, sporting many tattoos and wearing eyeliner and black fingernail polish on every nail except the pinky finger, which was red. Most of the other band members have maintained their original, boyish image.

From the interesting wardrobe to the seductive dance moves, the performance was simply bSb. Most of the songs sounded exactly as they did on the radio around 10 years ago, with catchy lyrics and an upbeat sound.

For another song, the boys were sitting at a card table pretending to play poker and drink liquor while they sang, “Show me the Meaning.” Before they started to sing, one of them asked, “Did you see all of those sexy girls out there tonight?” This provoked extremely high-pitched shrieks from the highly feminine audience.

Not everyone who enjoyed the show was female, though. Scott Alvarado and Jake Richards, both students at Streator Township High School, were very pleased as well.

“I loved it. I thought it was exhilarating. I could feel it in my blood. You’ve got to feel it in your heart or it’s not going to be there, ” Alvarado said.

“It makes you relive your youth. I loved it before, and I still love it,” Richards said.

Littrell played the title track from his recent contemporary Christian solo album, “Welcome Home (You).” This “story of his life” was accompanied by an acoustic guitar, which gave the song a different style than what is usually associated with bSb.

Sarah Croteau, a 21 year-old Backstreet Boys fan, decided to attend the show on Friday after seeing a sign outside.

Croteau was excited to finally see the Backstreet Boys in concert.

“It’s just too bad they had to lose a member before I could see them. I don’t think they’ll ever be as popular as they were, but I think they’ll be able to hold out for a few more years,” Croteau said.

Some other hits played by the Backstreet Boys included “I Want It That Way,” “More Than That,” “Incomplete,” “Backstreets Back,” and “Shape of My Heart.”

Girlicious opened for the Backstreet Boys, but only played a handful of songs. The singers, dressed in tight black spandex pants and belly shirts, had a similar sound to Destiny’s Child, and impressed the audience with their quick, synchronized dance movements.

Daily Vidette

By Ross Raihala

Backstreet was back Saturday night at the Minnesota State Fair, and, what do you know, they were all right.

It’s getting close to a decade since the aging teen-pop act still known as the Backstreet Boys hit the peak of their fame, but they’ve somehow figured out how to keep a spark of the old days going, even though these Boys are mostly in their 30s these days.

It probably helps matters that they’re now down one Boy — Kevin Richardson left the group in 2006 — because Saturday’s show felt leaner, looser and much more fun than the last time the Twin Cities saw them, at the Target Center in summer 2005. Back then, the Backstreet Boys were in the midst of a mostly unsuccessful campaign to act all grown-up and transition into the light-rock radio realm.

On Saturday, though, the Boys re-embraced the campy, goofy aspects of the boy-band genre, which meant more costume changes, more synchronized dancing and more smiling. And this sort of music is much, much easier to digest when the performers aren’t taking themselves too seriously. Not only did the boys deliver a breezy, freewheeling show, it actually felt like they, too, were having a good time. The equally relaxed vibe of the Fair only helped matters and probably had much to do with the attendance of 8,687, up more than 3,000 from that Target Center gig.

Perhaps Richardson was the problem all along. His absence wasn’t really that noticeable, and, if anything, it just further focused the attention on
the remaining four: Brian Littrell (the cute one), Nick Carter (at 28, the “young” one), A.J. McLean (the bad boy) and Howie Dorough (the, uh, Howie one).

They boogied in unison, waved to the crowd, cracked jokes amongst themselves and even hopped down to kiss a few ladies in the front row, all the while bouncing between their turn-of-the-millennium hits (”Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely,” “As Long as You Love Me”) and more recent, less-familiar material (”Incomplete,” “Inconsolable”). Along the way, some of the oldies received trendy makeovers, like the snippet of Kanye West’s “Stronger” that was skillfully incorporated into set-opener “Larger than Life.”

Of course, the fresher stuff didn’t glean the same lustful reaction as the standards, and the breaks for each of the four Boys to perform a solo song felt a little indulgent. But like a lot of the Fair’s food, the show was sticky and sweet, if utterly devoid of any nutritional value.

Source: Twin Cities

Pic at source.

OTTAWA - The red carpet looked a little worse for wear, but that didn’t stop the Backstreet Boys from basking in the glory of screaming fans and bursting flashbulbs Monday night at an after-party following their concert at Scotiabank Place.

A throng of young women - and a few young men - took over half a block of Clarence Street in advance of the Boys’ arrival at the Tila Tequila nightclub. Traffic on the street was chaos as party-goers and curious on-lookers also jammed the street in front of the club, hoping to catch a glimpse of the longtime heartthrobs, known for such hits as, I Want It That Way and Larger Than Life.

A short burst of screams greeted a pristine, white stretch limousine as it pulled up and stopped in front of the club, but it did not contain the guests of honour. They arrived, instead, minutes later in a green minivan and entered the club surrounded by a flank of beefy security guards.

Nick Carter, AJ. McLean and Howie Dorough posed for photos on the red carpet before entering the club, which was packed to the rafters with rambunctious fans, some waving homemade cardboard signs. The group’s fourth member, Brian Littrell, was not at the party.

The club throbbed with dance music, but the sound was pierced by screams as the Boys commandeered a small V.I.P. area adjacent to the bar. There they snacked on snacked on sandwiches, fresh veggies and sipped champagne while being surrounded on all sides - and from a small landing above - by seemingly adoring fans.

“This is friggin’ amazing,” a smiling Nick Carter said, scanning the packed club. The Boys are attending similar events in Toronto and Montreal as part of their current, 13-stop Canadian tour, in support of their 2007 record, Unbreakable.

This tour is their first as a quartet. Kevin Richardson left the group in 2006 to start a family. When asked if being down a man means they each have to work harder, the trio joked it just means they’re on time now.

But soft-spoken Dorough added, “It’s a bit more work, but I think we’re up for the challenge.”

McLean agreed. Sporting a bushy beard and a white knitted cap, he called the Canadian stops so far “amazing” and singled out Ottawa’s crowd of about 6,000 people as particularly raucous.

“Our sound engineer told us tonight the screams were louder decibels than a gun shot, which is pretty insane,” he said.

It’s been more than 15 years since the Backstreet Boys performed their first concert at SeaWorld in Orlando, Florida.

Carter said the group’s longevity is a sign that fans still like what the Boys are doing, even if, as he admitted, Unbreakable did not feature the same calibre of hit single as previous records.

“We know we’re a couple steps away and a song away from reaching our second peak,” he said.

With that, the few members of the media were ushered out, leaving the Backstreet Boys alone with all of those fans.

Source: Ottawa Citizen

It was what the Backstreet Boys do best, whipping a crowd of young adoring women into a bouncing sing-a-long frenzy, through warm harmonies and dizzying dance moves.

A decade ago, the five boys were the dreams of teeny-boppers across the world, but it was clear last night at

Scotiabank Place that the Backstreet Boys haven’t strayed far from those same hearts

The crowd of around 6,000 consisted of mostly women — young adults in their 20s and 30s — the very fans whose teenage bedrooms would have been plastered with posters of the boys.

The night opened with Girlicious, a sexy, gyrating foursome created by Pussycat Dolls’s founder, Robin Antin. The popular group’s eye-catching dance moves and feminine lyrics energized the expectant crowd till they were shrill with excitement for the headlining act.

The reunion tour is called the Unbreakable World Tour, a nod at the longevity of the boy-band’s famous pop-songs.

With the crowd’s vocal chords warmed up by Girlicious, the Backstreet Boys entered the stage to deafening screams. In sensational lighting, they wore bright satin boxing robes, leaping onstage into a boxing ring for the 1999 single, Larger than Life. Tight, loud and ferocious, they danced through choreographed punches, hooks and ducks.

Now only a foursome — Kevin Richardson left in 2006 — it didn’t take long to reconcile the four men on stage with the boys they were during their early international success. While they may be sporting a few grey hairs, the years hadn’t touched their warm harmonies, nor taken the edge off their dance moves.

Arms waved and lighters were held up as the four offered up the hits from their earlier albums: the 1997 Backstreet’s Back; 1999’s Millennium and from 2000, Black and Blue.

Known for their theatrical shows, last night’s audience was not to be

disappointed.

With a costume change for almost every song, the boxing ring was soon replaced by a card table around which the boys sat, singing through Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely. Then, bar stools lined up along the stage, they crooned through I Will Love You More Than That.

With their years of experience showing in the flawless performance, the whole experience — costume changes, smooth lighting and the four-part dances — may have seemed clichéd, but admittedly, even for this rocker, it was riveting.

And yet with everything a nostalgic memory, it was refreshing to see the band introduce live versions of their 2007 album, Unbreakable. With the maturity level stepped up a notch, in was in these songs that one saw live instruments highlighted through harder, grittier rock.

But as if wary of alienating their long-time fans with their new tunes, it wasn’t long before the boys dove back into their long-time singles and famous crooning — always in step with each other, always smiling and chatting with their audience.

As they reached out, mid-song, to touch the hands of front-row fans, it was evident the affection went both ways.

Sure, the crowd hadn’t forgotten their favourite boy-band. But what was touching, was that in turn, the Backstreet Boys had clearly not forgotten their fans.

Source: Ottawa Citizen