Halifax goes wild for the return of its favorite teen pop band
The Backstreet Boys carnival rolled into Halifax on Tuesday and thousands of young fans screamed at the top of their lungs.
A caller late Tuesday night to the newsroom said you could hear the tunes and the crowd's roar all the way to Dartmouth.
"Girl power rocks, but boy power reigns," said one sign a young teenage gal held up among the 27,000 who blanketed the Garrison Grounds of Citadel Hill.
The Backstreet Boys returned to Halifax for the second time in almost eight months. The show had a lot of the same format as the Dec. 27 concert at the Metro Centre, but the fan base almost tripled.
The Backstreet party began with That's the Way I Like It and a blaze of pyrotechnics.
An announcer broke the news to the fans just before the show that A.J. McLean would not be performing because he was injured at the Toronto concert. Apparently, A.J. suffered a pulled muscle in his right thigh.
The disappointment lasted only as long as the announcer mentioned the four other Boys: Kevin "Kev" Richardson, Howie D. Dorough, Brian Littrell and Nick Carter.
Carter, the youngest of the group and the only teen, seemed to get the loudest squeal, Littrell a close second.
Almost at the end of the show, A.J. limped on stage with the aid of a cane and sang I'll Never Break Your Heart with his fellow group members.
The Backstreet Boys have spawned a rash of boy bands in the past two years. In Canada, V.I.P. and The Moffatts are favored, but the indication among the Citadel Hill audience is that the Backstreet Boys are tops.
The average age at the show seemed to be about 15. Many of the kids arrived with their parents for the biggest outdoor concert in Halifax this year.
Tunes from their two albums, Backstreet Boys and Backstreet's Back rang through the darkened sky, with the audience screaming along to most of them.
Their smash hits, I'll Never Break Your Heart, Quit Playing Games With My Heart, We've Got It Goin' On and Everybody (Backstreet's Back), sing to this young generation - songs of love, first love, relationships and other topics that are all very new to them.
The lyrics are catchy, the dancing well-choreographed and the harmonies not bad at all. The young voices blend nicely together.
What makes this package work is the Boys' showmanship - the constant movement, the air punching, the Michael Jackson-styled turns and the high energy.
The marketing behind them doesn't hurt either. This band is one money-making machine. They have sold about 22 million albums worldwide, two million in Canada alone.
After the show's opening, each performer got a chance to sing a solo tune. Howie D. began the segment with My Heart Stays With You while tossing roses to the adoring and crying gals near the front of the stage. By the song's end, he decided to toss off his shirt to even more screams, then disappeared through the stage with the use of hydraulics.
Littrell followed in an unplugged moment strumming a guitar to the song That's What She Said from their second album.
Richardson came out singing Nobody But You, and Carter followed. The audience swayed in a sea of glow sticks.
Like the Metro Centre concert, the Backstreet Boys' hit video Everybody played on two large screens near the end of the almost 90-minute performance.
Out of the darkness came a red-eyed Grim Reaper and four standing coffins. When the open coffins faced the audience, out jumped the four gyrating Boys and again the crowd went wild.
Opening the show to get the audience energized, as if they needed it, was dance-tune queen, Emjay.
She was followed by the four-foot-high pixie, Aaron Carter, who just happens to be the 10-year-old brother of Backstreet Boy, Nick.
Aaron cartwheeled his way around the stage with two dancers to five of his hits, including I've Got a Crush on You, done in the '80s by the Jets, the Beach Boys Surfin' USA and his new single Shake It. During Surfin' USA one of the dancers tried to attack the little guy with an inflatable shark.
Boy power seems to be gathering steam, particularly in Halifax.
With a blast of fireworks, the BSB bus headed out of the Garrison Grounds. The crowd continued a deafening cry.
It would appear that the 27,000 went away happy, many of them having witnessed their first big concert.
If boy power reigns, let's give girl power a chance. Like I said the last time after the Backstreet Boys left town - oh, what the heck, bring on the Spice Girls.