BACKSTREET'S BACK IN BLACK&BLUE:UPDATED:3/16/01
Backstreet's back...and they're even better than before! On the opening night of their BLACK&BLUE Tour in FT. LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA, the Boys gave thE CONCERT OF THEIR LIVES.
The show began with a funky space-age effect-a sparkling black backdrop and a video screen that showed planet EARTH getting pumeled by asteroids. Fireworks the exploded inside the NATIONAL CAR RENTAL CENTER and blue flames shot up from the stage as the guys finally emerged amidst dry-ice fog. The group then launched into "EVERYONE" from the BLACK&BLUE CD as the sold-ot crowd of over 15,000 fans roared.
One J-14 reader, Heather of Boca Raton, scored a great spot near the wings of the stage and got to see and touch the guys as they came up, "IT was an awesome concert. I hope to see them again!" she told us.
Meanwhile, the show did not lose the high-energy vibe as the group went through "LAGER THAN LIFE" from Millennium, their signature tribute song to their fans. Kevin then took a break to catch his breath and give props to the audience: "IT's good to feel your love."
One of the coolest moments during the performance occured in the middle of the show when AJ addressed the crowd: "Do you like these outfits we're wearing now? Why don't you guys come down into our dressing rooms and watch us change?" The BOYS made good on the invite as they disappeared below the stage and a screen above revealed what was going on behind the scenes. Everybody in the audience was treated to a view of the guys changing shirts and getting into water gun fights!
BSB fan Mavari tells J-14, "It was the best concert I have ever been to!" We have a feeling that evryone who was there agrees with her!
BSB MAKES TOUGH "CALL"
FOR "THE CALL," THE BACKSTREET BOYS got gritty again. It's been more than a year since the guys introduced an action video to MTV with the sci-fi epic "Larger Than Life." But once again, the hearts of many BSB fans are racing as they watch their fave singers fly through the air and run for their lives.
IN order to add the element of danger to the latest clip from BLACK&BLUE, the Boys enlisted the help of Francis Lawrence, director of Destiny's Child's "Indepent WOMAN PART 1" video. Lawrence took some of the high-tech techniques featured in his previous work and applied them to "THE CALL." The final result produced some of the most intense scenes ever in a BSB video!
While AJ, BRIAN, AND KEVIN run through darkened streets in prusuit of the girl of their dreams, Nick races across town to get Howie-but he gets the worng one! The Howie imposter then jumps from a speeding car and takes off a well-crafted disguise to reveal the women beneath.
How did they do it all? With the help of the stunt men and brak away glass, the director was able to spilce in footage of the actual BSB members sprawled on the floor while their doubles did the tough stuff. The director also employed the same effects used in the MISSION IMPOSSIBLE movies to make sure the Howie "face mask" fooled even the keenest eye. It sure fooled us!
NEW COMERS IS IN.....BACKSTREET IS OUT!
O-TOWN who's debut album debuted at no.5 on the Billboard Charts. Also they are the first group to ever have a single off their debut album(by the name of "Liquid Dreams) to debut at number 1 in sales. Is it possible that newcomers O-Town could make Backstreet and Nsync sales figures drop. Not at all! Even though the Backstreet Boys didn't break Nsync's first week record sales, they are still saling out concerts in a matter of minutes.
With Kevin Richardson(the eldest) pushing 30 and both him and Brian Littrell now being married, how many more times will we'll be able to say "Backstreet is Back!" Will the Backstreet Boys still be able to steal young girls hearts? This is a question many are starting to ask.
"The sound is becoming so popular now, that the only way for us to seprate ourselves is to write our own music," Kevin says. And as soon as the Backstreet Boys write more than half of their album, their sales figures drop. That's right....Black&Blue was and still is consider a big disappointment due to the fact that the album only stay at number 1 on Billboard Charts for two weeks. Now Black&Blue is dropping fastly on the charts. Black&Blue remains at number 43.
Maybe it's starting to look a little silly for BSB to still be singing teeny bobby tunes. Is that why on Black&Blue, they changed their sound to being more adult? Probably so. The Backstreet Boys understand that they are gonna have to change their sound to fit their ages."I think their going to have a hard time making that transition," Hoffman says.
Maybe it will be hard for the Backstreet Boys to change their sound. But, the fans are still around and according to the fans, the music is still there. Their first single off of Black&Blue did break Canadian Charts by staying number 1 for 14 weeks. "They're still making a gazillion dollars," according to Garrison. So, maybe it'll be years before Backstreet is competely out of the limelight. "We could be around for as long as the STONES," AJ says.
FROM THE UNOFFICIAL BACKSTREET BOYS BOOK BY ELIZABETH MCDONALD! UPDATED:3/13/01
QUIT PLAYING GAMES, TOO MUCH FUN.........!
OF COURSE, IT'S NOT ALL WORK, WORK, WORK BEING A BACKSTREET BOY-AS YOU CAN IMAGINE, WITH A PAIR OF JOKERS LIKE BRIAN AND AJ IN THE GROUP, THERE'S A LOT OF FUN TO BE HAD TOO.
Brian is particularly good at winding up the rest of the group and is such an uncannily talented impersonator. Nothing lightens up the atmosphere backstage better than a spot of ickey-taking and luckily all the boys are able to join in and laugh at themselves when they are the butt of a joke. Nick is often on the receiving end because the rest of the guys think it's funny that he's the most popular with the fans. They amuse themselves by making Nick go first when they are trying to leave a venue or hotel that is besieged by fans so that he gets mobbed and the rest of them can sneak past while Nick is getting the brunt of all the attention! Once AJ, BRIAN, KEVIN, AND HOWIE took this a bit far, shoving Nick out of the dressing room into a crowd of waiting fans while he was wearing nothing more than his underwear! Needless to say, the fans couldn't believe their luck....Nick took his revenge by sneaking into AJ'S hotel room and stealing all AJ'S clothes, causing Mr. Fashion to freak when he woke in the morning
and realized half his beloved wardrobe had gone missing.
The crew that travel with the boys on tour-the lighting techs, roadies, and sound people-also enjoy a good luagh at the boys' expense. Before a soundcheck at a huge venue they once replaced all the microphones on stage with carrots, turned down the lights and waited to see the boys' expressions when they came on stage and started singing!
Some of the awards that they have won have often caused the boys to chuckle. Most recently Kevin was voted the Sexiest Pop Star' by PEOPLE MAGAZINE. The rest of the group still haven't stopped ribbing him about it-he's become known in band circles as "MR SEXY!" Kevin came in for even more stick when soon after wards a European magazine crowned him "MR BODY BEAUTIFUL." It mgiht have caused Kevin's bandmates to fall off their chair laughing, but you'll probably agree that he was very deserving of the title.
Some of the laughs come from accidents that happen the boys are on stage. One time, AJ was hit in the crotch by a sunglasses-wearing banana that had been thrown by a fan in the audience and admits that he was laughing so hard that he couldn't sing for a while! Another time Nick threw his arms out during a dance-move and knocked poor Howie right off the stage! That wasn't the only time Howie landed up where he shouldn't have been-he once rolled so close to the edge of the stage that a security guard had to grab his T-shirt to stop him falling into the pit far below. And Aj still cringes when he recalls the time that halfway through a concert, his jacket got caught in the percussionist's drumkit and he knocked the whole thing right over!Not the sort of thing he really wanted to happen, especially in front of thousands of fans. But he had to laugh-after all, the rest of the band (and the audience) thought it was hysterical.
FROM M FEB 2001 ISSUE.
JUST WHEN FANS THOUGHT THEY'D BECOME AS POPULAR AS EVER, THE BACKSTREET BOYS CAME BACK EVEN STRONGER WITH THE RELEASE OF BLACK&BLUE AND IT'S first single, "Shape Of My Heart." You kept them at the top of TRL's charts for weeks, which helped silence those who said Backstreet had seen it's day, and that it was time for the Boys to grow up and get real jobs. But none of those critics, in the whole history of BSB, has ever taken into consideration the secret weapon
Kevin, Brian, AJ,Nick and Howie have been keeping close to their hearts all this time. And that weapon would be-you -BsB's biggest fans. You're everywhere! All around the world, watching their every move, catching every song, keeping the Big Five on top no matter who says they're not as good as they used to be.
Love is a two-way street, and as you love BSB, the boys send it right back to the people they know are truly responsible for their success. "It was kind of strange at first," admits kevin. "Our popularity in Europe was so big and the number of fans was amazing. Our success started there. We would leave Europe and have a couple of hundred fans at the airport. Then we would come home to the U.S. and no one knew us," remembers Kevin.
But as fans know, that quickly changed, thanks to an appearance on Saturday Night Live, the riding of a float during Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, and a heck of a ,ot of airplay that caught the attention of listeners who wanted a change from the alternative and rap music that they heard.
THEIR FANS ROCK!
Backstreet Boys' love their fans continues to gro. The guys always say that they really want their fans to be true to themselves. "My advice to the fans is that nobody should conform," says Howie. "I know that there is a lot of peer pressure but if you can stay with your family and surround yourself with good, positive people and friends, and have good morals," he says. "I think it would be easier for kids not to put themselves in that position with that pressure. And they would know when to say no," he adds.
THE GUYS FOUND STRENGTH
You can believe that the boys know about the pressures of life. Just because they are successful and loved around the world, and have cherished families and good friends doesn't mean things are always easy for them. Each guy has had his own personal problems at the time of the band's greatest success. For instance, you might know about Brian's heart history, which nearly killed him when he was very young. But as bad as it got, Brian never let that very serious health problem get in his way. He just kept going.
"It mean absolutely nothing to me if I can't be healthy and have a proper mindset about doind something that I love," he says. What means the world to him is to "get out on stage and sing," says Brian. "And that's why we are the Backstreet Boys, because we love to do this."
Kevin took many of the group's problems to heart while dealing with his own personal sadness. "1998 was probably the most successful year of our lives," Kevin says. "From the outside it probably looked like we were just having a great time. But there was a lot of internal stuff going on. Brian, my cousin, went through heart surgery and then we lost our grandfather to cancer. We lost one of our producers to cancer, and had been working with him for the past four and a half years. And, Howie lost his sister to Lupus," says Kevin.
HELPING OTHERS
But out of those losses came good things. The Brian Littrell Endowment Fund and Brian Littrell's Healthy Heart Club was formed to help kids with heart conditions. From Howie's greif came the Caroline Dorough Cochran Lupus Memorial Foundation at Florida Hospital to helo others with the condition that took his sister at such a young age. Grief became the group's strength, and that strength helped them to continue making good music.
"We're stronger now than ever and we all have each other's backs," says Howie. Together, Brian, Kevin, Howie, A.J. and Nick are virtually unstoppable. They made it through some very hard times in the late 1990s, and now their blasting into the 21st Century with a new 2001 tour, which kicks off in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on January 23.(It has already begun!)
PLAN FOR A WORLD TOUR
"We'll probably spend a month or two in America," Howie says, "then take a little time off, then go to South East Asia and Australia. Then a little time off, then Europe, and again, a little time off. Then South America and probably end the tour in America again."
Brian revealed that the guys will use most of December and most of January for rehearsing. Now that they have a slew of new repeat-worthy hits, like "Shape Of My Heart," and others, the guys have to nail down flawless performances for each song. That way, they make their tour the best fans ever seen. This is important to them because they love performing in front of their fans.
With Madonna hitting the road at around at the same time, there are two incredible shows to catch, although we know where you BSB fans will be. The Boys still need their secret weapon to keep them on top a place you have kept them for years!
|
