April and I slid into our seats about 10 minutes before BSB were on and the ent cent was already quite full and excited. The audience was older than expected at your average teeny-pop concert; my theory is, Backstreet Boys aren’t hot enough now for a great deal of teens, but they still hold a lot of memory for teens in the last ten years (ie. people around my age, in their 20s).
There wasn’t a huge build up before the actual start – it went dark, music started playing, some video montages flashed across the giant screens. Then, pretty much straight into The Call with its dramatic lightning, opening chords, and some pyrotechnics (it’s not a pop concert without fireworks), which suited the big stadium atmosphere. The concert itself wasn’t too flashy, it was mostly just the five guys wandering all over the stage, the band behind them, and the occasional effect – strobe lighting, lasers over the crowd, videos on the screen. Not overwhelming, added to the overall feel of the concert, didn’t detract from the guys and the music.
Each of the guys got at least one moment in the spotlight on their own. Howie pretty much only piped up for a welcome to Sydney (as with all big concert performers, they felt the need to make “Syyyyyyyyyydney Austraaaaaaaaalia” calls every now and then), and then he didn’t much make his presence felt for the rest of the night. I think he only got one solo of note. After More Than That, Brian did his bit, and I think he had the best audience banter going on – he was lovely, absolutely sweet and gorgeous and relaxed in his attitude and looks and voice, the whole night. I can definitely see why he’s a lot of people’s favourite BSB member now. He went back in time, calling out each album from Never Gone all the way to the eponymous album, and asked the audience each time to yell if they owned it (and after each yell, he’d go, “Oh, I’ve got that one too!”) Then when he got to the first album, he pointed to some girls and said, “You guys weren’t even born then!" He then got the audience to sing along to We Got It Going On from that first album, which was a partial success – everyone knew the chorus but faltered after that.
After that, he segued into asking everyone if they wanted to hear Nick play the guitar tonight. Obviously they did, and over the screams Nick walked out with an acoustic guitar, and after a very cute intro where Brian mentions that Nick just turned 26 and starts singing a little birthday ditty they start Climbing the Walls. But Shape of My Heart was when the audience really started to get into it as a whole. It was a great concert for the audience sing-a-long. In the video for I Want It That Way, I can clearly hear April asking, “Why is this song so popular?” because the audience participation went nuts. Siberia was terribly corny (“My heart spent time in Siberia…”) and they added to the unironic earnestness with fake snow, to my immense amusement. They then followed this up with All I Have to Give, complete with white suits and fedoras, and of course, the hat dance.
Actually, the dancing was all of the good. There wasn’t as much of it as could be expected – quite often you had the lead doing the solo and the other four doing some simple dance movies behind him - but for some songs there were full routines of co-ordinated dancing (such as for Larger Than Life). Also, there was some really cute moments from the guys. Nick wasn’t looking his best last night, and he was very incoherent in his audience speech/banter, but he was so cute rocking all over the stage - there’s many a video where he’s either twirling around, or air-guitaring, or collapsing onto his knees for no good reason but emoting.
They finished with two ballads with Kevin on a grand piano (Weird World, Incomplete) and the other guys circled around it on stools. After the shortest wait, they came back on for a planned encore of Everybody (Backstreet’s Back) which was the perfect song to finish on – energetic, defiant, fun.
Overall, I really really enjoyed this concert. I had this big grin on my face from start to finish; they were charming and cute and sang really nicely; in return, I sang tunelessly to everything I could; they played hit after hit and all my favourite ballads which was greatly nostalgic, then they made me like all the new songs too; and when it finished I wanted to listen to all the songs all over again (and I did, when I got home). You can’t ask for a much better concert experience than that.
Set List
The Call
Beautiful Woman
More Than That
Climbing the Walls
Shape of My Heart
(video - Don't Want You Back)
The One
I Still
I Want it That Way
Show Me The Meaning of Being Lonely
Larger than Life
Siberia
(video - We Got It Going On)
All I Have to Give
As Long As You Love Me
I'll Never Break Your Heart
I Just Want You to Know
Crawling Back to You
Drowning
Quit Playing Games
(video - Never Gone)
Weird World
Incomplete
Everybody (Backstreet's Back)
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