|
Houston Chronicle Review: 2/28/00, Houston, TX
|
|
Back -
Index
- Submissions
- 
- What is RSS?
Date: Mar 01, 2000 The Backstreet Boys are the main men By MICHAEL D. CLARK Copyright 2000 Houston Chronicle Like it or not, the Backstreet Boys are the Elvis Presleys of the moment. If you don't believe it, ask the 18,000-plus who filled Compaq Center on Monday (and no doubt will again tonight) with screams that would make the King's appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show seem like a wake. Better yet, ask the parents who accompanied their teens and sub-teens to the show and are suffering this morning from high-range hearing loss. There hasn't been frenzy like this in Houston since ... well, since Enrique Iglesias played the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo last week. But this was even bigger. The Boys are no longer just entertainers, like Iglesias, or even just a boy band, like N'Sync and 98 Degrees. The fivesome are a marketing machine. Before a note of the albums Millennium or Backstreet's Back was performed, they had sold enough shirts ($25-30), programs ($20) and glo-sticks ($6) to keep them in hair gel for months (days anyway). And the machine is well-oiled. For more than two hours they harmonized and danced like break-boys who had learned it on the modern theater assembly line. This wasn't any Disney on Ice festival, this was "The Matrix: The Musical." On a pizza tin the size of a crop circle in the center of the basketball court, the group announced its presence with authority. To an overture of the Star Wars Theme, and in a haze of laser fire, fog and futuristic tiki torches, the five levitated into the arena on what could only be described as flying skateboards. Dressed in Universal Soldier suits, the Boys marched and moonwalked in formation around the stage to the bass plunges of Larger Than Life. Inside the circle was a full band of guitars, drums and percussion players dressed in white casuals, but the players were lost in the cacophony of the Backstreet back-up dancers dressed in silver-and-black mechanic's outfits. Not to worry. They played proficient pop loops all night, but no one came to see the band. "You guys notice anything different?" asked blond heartthrob Nick Carter. "I cut my hair. Am I going to grow it back or leave it this way?" The fans expressed their approval of both options. It's hard to concentrate on any one aspect of their show for too long. Besides numerous outfit changes from trenchcoats to leather jackets to black T-shirts, the guys have more toys in the box than most children of privilege. On Quit Playing Games (With My Heart) the boys hovered over the crowd on gymnast safety wires. And on Don't Want You Back, they popped metal ladders into the stage and climbed them as gracefully as a Cirque du Soleil act. The midshow highlight was a medley Everybody (Backstreet's Back), We've Got It Goin' On, and That's The Way I Like It done as a high-energy Stomp number without the trash cans. They left briefly and returned in pinstriped tuxes, spats and silver vests for a romantic Spanish Eyes. Sitting on bar stools arranged in a circle, they took turns singing verses and harmonizing in Spanish looking like the world's most GQ barbershop quintet. The boys have bells and whistles galore and they have some shouts and steps, but the question for the future is can they survive without the laser show and exploding confetti finale? More to the point, can they survive together? On this night, anyone thinking such thoughts would be a killjoy. For now they came and conquered Houston with Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely, I Want It That Way and every other hit from their millions of albums sold. In the process they left a lot of young Texans with a memory of a lifetime.
Comment on this item.
Recent Comments Submitted by: cheap seo servicesComment on this item.
Next Item: Houston Chronicle Fan Reviews 2/28-29/00, Houston, TX |
Translate To: Spanish German French Italian Portuguese Japanese Korean Chinese
This is a fan site. This is a Backstreet archive. This is Your site.
Serving fans since 1997.