Concert Review: The Boys are back: new songs, fewer fans
By John Young
August 20, 2005
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

This past spring they played the club Rock Jungle at Station Square to work out new material and gauge fan interest in their return. Wednesday night they headlined at the Post-Gazette Pavilion. Backstreet's back, right?

Sort of.

In their '90s heyday, Backstreet Boys sold out outdoor sheds and stadiums. Wednesday night's show featured an empty lawn and pavilion-only seating. But the listeners who remain in the vocal quintet's camp couldn't be any more faithful, dutifully screaming during every one of the 21 tunes BSB performed. They clearly did their homework on the band's first disc in five years, "Never Gone," too, singing along loudly to the new fare. Good thing, as three-fourths of the album made the Boys' set.

Nick Carter introduced BSB's latest single by noting that "it has a little bit of rock 'n' roll in it." Indeed, "Just Want You to Know" rocked a la Meat Loaf or Bon Jovi. And the new power ballads "Incomplete" and "Crawling Back to You" had a Def Leppard feel with their layered harmonies and epic synthesizer swells. The most distinctive new tune was the dark, quirky "Siberia," which concluded with the Boys singing under realistic-looking falling snow.

Luckily, the group had a fistful of old hits to play whenever the energy flagged. Many a pretty melody graced ballads like "More Than That," "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely," "All I Have to Give" and the omnipresent smash of yore "I Want It That Way." Up-tempo tunes like "The One," "Larger Than Life" and the lone encore, "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)," featured huge choruses and most of the band's choreographed stage moves.

Backstreet Boys sounded best when they took risks in search of soulfulness. Most interesting was when their five-piece backing band laid down the groove from the Spinners' classic "I'll Be Around" and BSB sang their hit "As Long As You Love Me." "I'll Never Break Your Heart" is no classic tune, but the band's Temptations-inspired dance moves and A.J. McLean's big vocal coda injected the track with unexpected life.

How long this reunion of the second-biggest boy band of the '90s lasts remains to be seen. The group members at least appeared to have fun on stage, Brian Littrell bouncing a beach ball off McLean's head, Kevin Richardson laughing off the out-of-tune piano he was supposed to play to close the set, Carter doing his best Tommy Smothers impression in a goofy bit to introduce "Climbing the Walls." With goals of reaching more modest attendance figures, perhaps Backstreet Boys really are back to write an unanticipated second chapter to their success story.