New Kids break out old and new tunes to rock BJC crowd
By Jonathan F. McVerry
- For the CDTThose walking into the Bryce Jordan Center fearing the worst or expecting a clinic on corniness forgot something about the New Kids on the Block. They forgot that the boys are now seasoned performers and know very well how to entertain a crowd.
It has been nearly 20 years since the five energetic and youthful teenagers from Boston were filling up some of the world’s largest stadiums with die-hard, passionate and screaming teenaged girls.
Today, the names and faces are the same, but the atmospheres are a little different. The screams aren’t quite as loud. The dances are a little slower and the stadiums are now arenas. But along with a live band of grungy guitars and thumping drums, these guys still rock it out.
The men of New Kids on the Block, the quintessential boy band of the late 80s and early 90s, strutted their aged Converse All-Stars onto the stage in front of nearly 3,000 screaming female fans.
The dreamy smiles that once sold every piece of merchandise imaginable to teen girls two decades ago, from curtains to marbles, are flashing once more on a monster comeback tour that is trucking from coast to coast.
Even though over the past two decades the fandom has died down, the show, the lights, the music and the voices are as big as ever. The screaming fans that once filled stadiums are now holding jobs, maintaining families and living a drastically different life than their former teenage selves. But for one night, these women were able to rekindle their lost teenager, dust off their cassette tapes, and sing the hits one more time along with Jonathan, Joe, Jordan, Danny and Donnie.
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Aside from a few concert clichés that dated the quintet, including crotch grabbing and telling the fans to put “their hands in the air,” the boys put on a fresh, upbeat, and loud performance.
Most of the guys still have their pipes and the same energy as their twenty-something selves. Jordan Knight and Joe McIntire don’t miss a step with their clean and powerful vocals, and shiny, picture-perfect smiles.
The guys mixed old and new tunes together to create a bumping club atmosphere. Lights, dancers and effects created a truly compelling event—an experience that only true, passionate performers could pull off 20 years after their debut.
During their 14-year hiatus, the group’s members did not exactly stay in hiding. Some pursued solo careers, acting careers and some showed up on reality TV. However, beginning last year they aimed to garner the energy and excitement of old and bring their sound back to the ears of America.
With several months and many stops to go on the tour, the group seems to be enjoying themselves. Chronicling their escapades in a blog on the group’s Web site, McIntire and Donnie Wahlberg write about each show with uninhibited enthusiasm.
“Tulsa was on fire,” Wahlberg writes. McIntire chimes in with “These crowds are sick. These shows are sick. This tour is sick. Viva The Block.”
Wahlberg said the noise Tuesday night in the BJC was comparable to the Baltimore show, which had previously been tabbed as the best crowd on the tour.
Stopping into a college town might seem like an unusual step for a group who was popular when most of today’s college students were toddlers, but the crowd’s energy still stayed strong and the boys from the block fed off that liveliness.
Twenty years after conquering the world, the kids come back as men and the crowds, although smaller, still go nuts and sing loud. They are conquering something different today. They are coming full circle and winning over each crowd they step in front of once again.
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