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Plain Dealer Preview: 3/7/00, St. Louis, MO
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Date: Mar 07, 2000 Backstreet Boys don't take a back seat to anyone in this young 'Millennium' Friday, March 03, 2000
By GARY GRAFF, Dropped off about a mile from the All state Arena in Rose mont, Ill., Patricia Kepinski and Anna Iskra epitomize Backstreet Boys ma nia as they walk toward the suburban Chicago venue. The two teens sport T-shirts from the pop quintet's last visit to their town, and a laminated Backstreet Boys badge hangs around Iskra's neck. They scream back at honking cars that drive by. And they carry a sign proclaiming their devotion - which they'll scream during tonight's show from first-row upper-tier seats they bought for $95 apiece, nearly $60 more than face value. Crazy? "Yeah," says Kepinski, 15. But there was no way either girl was going to miss this show. "They look good!" Kepinski proclaims. "They have talent, too," chimes in Iskra, 14. What the Backstreet Boys really have is magnetism - the kind that's sold more than 30 million copies of the Orlando, Fla.-based group's second album, "Millennium." That follows sales of 27 million copies of 1997's "Backstreet Boys," which kicked off a resurgence in teen pop and launched a legion of acts such as 'N Sync, Britney Spears, 98 Degrees, LFO, Christina Aguilera and scores of others. But the Boys clearly rule the scene - despite their recent shut-out at the Grammys and the recent teen-heartbreaking announcement that cousins Kevin Richardson and Brian Littrel have gotten engaged. Theirs has been the hottest concert ticket of all; last August, it sold 765,000 seats for the first North American leg of the "Into the Millennium" tour. Every show since has been an instant, and often record-breaking, sell-out. On top of that, "Into the Millennium" souvenirs - $5 photos (group or individual), $10 posters, $20 programs, $25-$40 T-shirts - are digging into piggy banks and parents' pockets for a whopping $16 per person average, a figure one concert merchandiser says is "beyond huge, the other side of huge." And on the qualitative front, their performance of "Philadelphia Freedom" with Elton John prompted the elder pop sensation to issue an unconditional post-show endorsement: "They can sing their (rears) off. I'm not so sure about those other boy bands. But Backstreet Boys have my ultimate respect." The object of this adulation certainly repays in kind. The "Millennium" show is a tightly scripted two-hour blast of sound and vision that dazzles from the Boys' entrance - "skateboarding" above the crowd a la Michael J. Fox in "Back to the Future 2" while the "Star Wars" theme plays - through a succession of choreographed routines with 10 dancers around a pentagon-shaped stage positioned in the center of the hall. Amidst all this, each of the five tooth some Boys - Richardson, Littrel, Nick Carter, A.J. McLean and Howie Do rough - take turns greeting the crowd and performing their hits, "As Long as You Love Me," "Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)," "I Want it That Way," "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)," "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely." The sex appeal washes over the crowd as screams of concussive force rain towards the stage, but the Boys go for a little aw-shucks as well, bringing groups of mothers and daughters onstage for "The Perfect Fan." "Being that the album was titled 'Millennium,' we wanted to make the show a futuristic trip," explains Richardson, who, despite being the oldest Boy at 27, rivals Carter and McLean for screams when his close-ups appear on the video screens above the stage, or when he plays a white grand piano during "Back to Your Heart." "I think people are really shocked when they see it. It's like a journey; when you walk into the arena, there's an atmosphere. I feel like we're taking people somewhere. We're in a position now where we have this ability to put together and come up with some creative ideas, and we're trying to take it as far as we can." The Boys are certainly operating in high gear now, which is some relief considering that not long ago they were wrapped in some controversy with their record company and the group generally considered their greatest rival, 'N Sync. Having parted ways during 1998 with its management and production company after Orlando's Trans Continental Records also launched 'N Sync, the Boys were shocked last fall when their record label, Jive, began wooing 'N Sync away from RCA. The Boys responded by threatening to leave Jive, with speculation that its new home would be at Interscope Records, where the group's current management company, the Firm, has acts such as Limp Bizkit and Korn. Jive eventually did sign 'N Sync and persuaded the Boys to stay on. And Richardson claims the rumors of rivalry between the two acts are overstated, anyway. "There's been a lot of stuff in the press between us and 'N Sync, saying ... we're fighting and competing, but a lot of that is media hype," he says. "We don't have anything against those guys personally at all. We think they're good singers. "We thought it might be a conflict, having two of the same thing, that's all ... They're trying to pursue their dreams like we're trying to pursue ours. We're just concerned about what we're doing, not everybody else." And the Boys have quite a bit to do, in fact. Marvel Comics founder Stan Lee recently announced that he's signed the group to star in an animated cartoon series on the Internet which depicts the fivesome as super heroes. Lee also cast the Boys in a special edition comic book that's for sale at the shows. Meanwhile, the Boys are working on a new album that's slated for release this fall. Richardson - who co-wrote a song for "Millennium" - says to expect the singers to continue to be more involved in the creative process, and for the songs to continue to evolve into a more sophisticated and edgier sound, though without sacrificing the easily digestible popcraft that's the Boys' stock in trade. "We're just trying to evolve with the times in order to stay in the pop music scene," Richardson explains, "just like Madonna's done, just like Janet and Michael (Jackson), so we have a long career. "We're not trying to be the Joni Mitchell. of our time, or the Jimi Hendrix of our time. We're just trying to make good music and make people happy and forget their problems. We're not trying to send a message. We're happy with what we're putting out, and so are millions of other people. We're happy about that, too." Graff is a free-lance writer in Beverly Hills, Mich.
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