Crushed: Backstreet Boys disappoint

Back - Index - Submissions - - What is RSS? Date: Nov 17, 2099 Source: The Buffalo News Submitted By: If you would like to comment on this article then click here. By YAN FANG NeXt Correspondent 11/16/99 As my best friend Katie Brown and I learned from the Greek play "Agamemnon" that excessiveness begets evil, our own excessive love for the Backstreet Boys begot great evil at their concert Sunday night at Marine Midland Arena. On Sunday, the love we have for the Backstreet Boys caught up with us and filled us with more pain than we have ever felt before. Being in Section 107, Row 16, Seats 1 and 2, of the arena brought us within 50 feet of the Backstreet Boys, yet somehow the Boys seemed more remote than ever. They were on stage, they were singing, they were dancing, and they were smiling, but for veteran fans like us who have seen their Homecoming in Orlando concert on video and their Disney in Concert Special, the Boys did not seem to be putting forth all their energy. Perhaps the lack of Backstreet Boyism on stage can be attributed to the extravagant amounts of special effects and non-Backstreet Boy dancers that cluttered the stage. Seeing the five guys amidst flashing lights and flashy dancers took away from the intimate connection we fans have experienced in less high-tech concerts. Hearing the Boys make comments describing how Buffalo fans are the loudest and the best made the Boys appear less than sincere. Where their performances on video seem natural, their comments to us Buffalonians seemed scripted and phony. When you hear AJ making a comment about how he would like to move to Buffalo, you could just picture him giving Toronto fans and New York City fans the exact same line. Sitting there with 18,000 fans around us, we felt insignificant, just two girls who love the Boys, and unfortunately, they will never know it. They will never know that we take them to the movies (we wear BSB pins to the theater), we bake cupcakes for them, we throw parties for them, we watch the All Access video and A Night Out with the Backstreet Boys every week, we choreograph dances to their music. When we heard the Boys sing "I'll Never Break Your Heart," we knew that right then and there, our hearts were being broken. The hordes of screaming girls below us, next to us, above us, and all around us further proved that we were just two teeny boppers who will never actually meet the Boys. After spending so much time learning about Howie Dorough and Kevin Richardson (unquestionably our favorite boys), sitting in the magazine aisle of Tops reading SuperTeen and Tigerbeat, pondering the possibility of breathing an O2 molecule that might have touched one of them, it was all too hurtful to see them on that raised circular platform, protected behind silver-steeled barriers. During the concert, Nick Carter was surprisingly good-looking. Where he looked slightly unkempt with his longer blond hair at the MTV Music Video Awards, he looked very cute on Sunday. His address to the Buffalo audience seemed slightly more sincere because he originally hails from Jamestown. Nick also seemed more enthusiastic about performing than the others; perhaps it was because he was near his hometown or perhaps it was because the crowd cheered particularly loudly for him. His constant upbeat attitude and fervent dancing and singing made him one of the best Boys of the night. Brian Littrell, for whom the girls cheered second-loudest, also gave a decent performance. He seemed spirited enough - especially when he spun his basketball during "It's Gotta Be You" - but his overall performance was not as stellar as his performance on the 1998 Saturday Night Live. Brian's song "The Perfect Fan," however, was particularly fan-oriented, as the Boys actually selected five mothers and daughters to serenade. Eccentric AJ McLean in his leopard/cheetah print cowboy hat was undoubtedly the best performer of the night, from the beginning when he welcomed us to "his house." His ripping of his white tank top during the "Everybody," "We've Got it Going On," and "That's the Way I like It" medley was also a highlight. Despite his scripted address to the audience, his actual interaction seemed genuine and truly AJ-esque. His dousing of the audience with his bottled water was welcome and one of the few fan-oriented interactions of the night. Since the concert was only around two hours long, we needed to expend as much time on Kevin and Howie as possible. Howie looked exceptionally handsome, even when his tanned face was covered by a gangster-wannabe Buffalo Bills hat. Howie, however, was one of the "main offenders of the evening," according to Katie. "When it should have been a pleasure to see him on stage, instead, it only reminded me that Howie is a Backstreet Boy, and he is unattainable." Howie's rap near the end of the concert was the highlight of his performance. Seeing Kevin on that small pentagon stage was acutely painful for me. I knew that I was inside the same building as Kevin, yet hearing him sing "All I Have to Give" and "No One Else Comes Close" (my favorite Millennium song) only wrought more agony. Perhaps I was hurt because I knew that the 18,000 girls around me were just as close to Kevin. Perhaps I felt betrayed because I realize that no matter how many times I say good night to Kevin's picture hanging over my bed or how many times I smile at the Kevin stickers plastered on my physics and calculus notebooks, the closest I will ever be to Kevin is through pair of black concert binoculars. Kevin will never know I have named my tennis racket "Boo" because that was his nickname; he will never know that I have made blue Rice Krispie treats to celebrate him because blue is his favorite color, he will never know that I have a blank video tape by my VCR at all times to record any appearances that he or the other boys may make on television. Kevin will never know me, and that is a truth that I have painfully come to understand. The most disheartening aspect of the evening was not the Boys' lackluster performance but the choreography they performed with the female dancers. Not only were the hemlines of the dancers' red lingerie dresses ridiculous, but the sexual dance moves were incredibly inappropriate. Did the arena audience of girls - mean age of 13 - need to see Kevin or Howie gyrating their hips to the hips of scantily clad dancer? Did Katie and I need to see Kevin and Howie sit on top of their respective female dancers after those same girls slide seductively in between their legs? It is bad enough that we know they have girlfriends, but seeing them perform these overtly sexual dances was unbearable. Sadly enough, the most entertaining aspect of the evening involved a touring sales vendor we met while purchasing Millennium photos of Howie and Kevin. "Al" told us he tours with the Backstreet Boys, and we learned that he has spoken with Boys and worked with the Boys. After an hour of speaking with Al, we learned the Boys are always nice when Al sees them and do indeed play basketball when they have free time. Unfortunately, we also learned that the Boys brought their girlfriends along on the Into the Millennium Tour. Needless to say, Katie and I realized that meeting Al was the closest we would ever be to Kevin and Howie. And that's pretty sad. Perhaps it was not the actual Backstreet Boys who disappointed us; perhaps it was just our excessive fondness for the Backstreet Boys that inflated our expectations and cruelly deflated them within less than three hours on Sunday night. We should have learned from Aeschylus' "Agamemnon" that excessive behavior will always be punished; our punishment came when we saw Kevin and Howie on stage, totally unaware of Section 107, Row 16, Seats 1 and 2. Yan Fang is a senior at Amherst High School. If you would like to comment on this article then click here. Comment on this item. Next Item: The Boys awash in cash Prev Item: A Mother's Ode to the Backstreetboys