We should have brought our earplugs. No, we're not making some snotty comment about blocking out the music, nor did the Backstreet Boys rock loud and/or hard enough for our eardrums to sustain damage. We just didn't realize the effect 20,000 some-odd screaming underage girls would have on our hearing. (Ultrasonic squeals + raging hormones = pierced eardrums.) But now that the tinnitus has subsided, we have to admit the BSBs put on an admirable show, considering the odds stacked against them. If you can call selling four million albums domestically a shortcoming, that is. Basically "admirable" boils down to the fact that the cheese on the Live BSB Deli Tray is pretty mild. (Then again, our collective development of taste for the tasteless has shorted out our irony detection devices.)
Where white bread žber-teen sensations are concerned, the BSBs deserve plenty of credit -- and not just because the guys managed to keep straight faces through the whole ordeal. First of all, their live vocals are solid. (And you can't really say that about, um, Liz Phair.) Their harmonizing is actually quite precise; their dancing sometimes manages to impress. Yeah, unlike the on-stage version of the oft-compared New Kids on the Block nearly a decade ago, the BSBs live are slick and polished and surprisingly adult.
The entire night was far from sanitized; it was phallicized. Big, loud, powerful Roman candles were fired not upwards but out from the stage and over our heads; "A.J." McLean (a.k.a. the Tattooed One) frequently -- no, obsessively -- demonstrated how much repeated pounding and thrusting his crotch could withstand; all five guys "handled their instruments," wink-wink, when they played and sang "Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)"; and Nick Carter (a.k.a. the Leonardo DiCaprio One) punctuated everyone's favorite musical question, "Am I sexual?" by humping the nearest railing. If a girl (or guy, let's be real) hasn't gone through puberty before seeing the BSBs, it's likely the collective phallic signifiers will provide some hurried rite of maturity.
In retrospect, we did find some faults even more troubling than the minimal costume changes and the fact that the guys never once got all wet. We can't get over the disturbing BSB Hierarchy, by which each band member is introduced in ascending order of hysteria-inducement. Hence sweet, puppy-dog-eyed "Howie D." Dorough was always first up (instantly earning him our admiration), followed by Kevin "Kevin" Richardson (the severe-looking Tall One), then that tantalizingly dangerous (to some, anyway) A.J., followed by Brian "I'm no Wahlberg" Littrell (who tries the least, thereby achieving the most). And always gloating atop his wood-sprite throne sat that too-blond, too-wispy Nick, who appeared to really expect his ear-splitting adoration. (We had to smile in schadenfreude when the guy took a header in mid-pirouette.)
And consider how the show is basically an endless string of Slow Jams, during which the BSBs insist they'll never break our hearts, that their hearts will stay with us, that they'd go anywhere for us, that without us, they don't think they can live... c'mon, where's the challenge? Don't these guys understand that unwavering devotion gets a little tired after an hour? And don't they realize we'd have been just as happy (if not more so) with one long epic rock-opera performance of "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)"? Since you're already wheeling yourselves out in individual coffins and having a guy dressed as Death groove through the band with a scythe, why not go for the gusto? We love you guys, but really, forget playing your own instruments, and scratch that softie love-daddy routine. Think high-concept. Think FX. Give Pete Townshend a call. And remember to thank us later.
-- Kim Stitzel
Source: MTV Online
