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OTTAWA -- The Backstreet Boys went away for a while but now they're back, older, wiser, even a little beaten up and vulnerable.
And all the more loveable as far as the 8,000 glowstick waving teenaged girls were concerned at last night's Corel Centre show.
For the first time in five years, the Backstreet Boys have a new album, ironically titled Never Gone. Their first since 2000's Black and Blue, Never Gone proves that, love 'em or hate 'em, the Boys have transcended the genre they helped to create in the first place.
Obviously, I'm not going to argue about whether bubblegum boy bands in general, and BSB in particular, is the best, or worst thing to happen to American pop music, at least since Mitsou or the CB radio song craze of the mid-1970s. For the more than 8,000 fans, the question is not why BSB, but why not? Between 1996 and 2000, the year of their last release Black and Blue, BSB sold an astounding 73 million records because of hits such as Everybody, I Want It That Way and Quit Playing Games with My Heart.
BALLADS APLENTY
Now, they'll sell another 73 million copies of the new disc, stoked and steeped with 12 heart-wrenching love ballads that sound as if a lovelorn 15-year old wrote the lyrics. But if that's the worst thing about the Backstreet Boys, spare me your sympathy.
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Without question, they delivered a fantastic Vegas-style show, beginning with a video of themselves as young boys just starting out, while all five -- Brian Littrell, Nick Carter, A.J. McLean, Kevin Richardson and Howie Dorough stepped choreographically down a blindingly bright stairwell a la Sunset Boulevard while the loudest shriek of girl-power I've ever heard drowned out their opener The Call.
If the boys really are a pre-packaged entertainment commodity, as they say in marketing lingo, at least they're a very good one, as their opening set proved, delivering three torch-songs in three-, four- and even five-part harmonies with dazzling choreography and special effects while constantly charming the fans into a frenzy and making it appear as easy and spontaneous as it is highly rehearsed.
Everyone seemed to have their own favourite BSB to cheer for, with A.J. and Paris Hilton's ex and the youngest in the group, Nick Carter, running about even in the squeal department.
They might look a little older, a tad rougher around the edges, but as the 20-songs in their set list showed, they're still teddy-bears inside.
Surely this is one of the better bubblegum pop shows on the market today, but for one essential flaw. Their songs all sound the same after a while, thanks to their broken-hearted, dear diary nature.
C'mon, with a set list that includes titles such as Climbing the Walls, Shape of my Heart, The One, I Still ..., I Want It That Way and their tearjerker Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely, the tender shtick was starting to wear thin.
SIBERIA STANDS ALONE
Luckily, they stuck with the new material, which has more edge than the older songs.
One of the standouts was Siberia, complete with clouds of dry ice and snow as well as My Beautiful Woman and Crawling Back to You, Weird World and for their encore, the single Incomplete after deadline.
Opening for BSB was the next-generation boy-band du jour The Click Five. With their Beatle-esque matching suits, mop-top hair, frisky personality and head-shaking, power-popping sound, The Click Five just might be the next band to watch if you're into that 1980s sound. The Knack, Blondie and Cheap Trick, when music could still be loud and fun.
Although they on occasion come dangerously close to parodying The Beatles, their tightly knit set, which included covers of I Think We're Alone Now and She's a Girl knocked me off my feet for their energy and style. But then, I'm a sucker for retro-pop.