NKOTBSB makes for a winning team in Anaheim

July 7th, 2011, 12:30 pm posted by LAUREN WILSON, FOR THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

NKOTBSB is a brilliant idea. Unite two of the most popular boy bands of all time in one show, up the production value, halve the performance time for each group — and rake in the cash. It really makes you wonder why no one thought of it sooner.

It’s like in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers when they’d all combine and transform into one colossal Megazord to defeat the bad guy. That’s NKOTBSB: the undefeatable Megazord of pop music.

They’ve really made the most of this new merged moniker. About a third of the way through Wednesday’s show at Honda Center in Anaheim, New Kids on the Block joined Backstreet Boys onstage for “Larger Than Life” and switched up the lyrics: “All you people / Can’t you see / Can’t you see / N-K-O-T-B-S-B.” The change fit nicely, something that could be said of this fusion in general.

The show made no pretense to mask its throwback exploitation, which was precisely what the crowd (or, rather, throngs of women) wanted: a one-way ticket on a nostalgia train with the still-dashing dreamboats from their teenage years. The guys certainly know their audience, foregoing the “gentlemen” part entirely and addressing fans simply as “ladies.” (The arena prepared for the estrogen invasion accordingly, turning all but one of the men’s restrooms into women’s facilities.)

Along with an array of hit songs, delightfully over-the-top special effects further stoked the general mayhem inside the Ducks’ home. Streamers were already shot by the second song and plumes of flames heated up the stage by the third.

After a short set from neophyte outfit Midnight Red and a well-received turn from Glee star (and O.C. native) Matthew Morrison — and then a dramatic black-and-white opening montage that introduced each member of the headlining team — NKOTBSB made an epic entrance on a raised platform with booming fireworks that would’ve made my ears bleed if they weren’t already doing so from the frenzied shrieking.

But the real hysteria ensued whenever any of the guys indulged a teasing shirt raise or a PG pelvic thrust, or one of those “taking off my jacket … just kidding, I’m totally not!” moves. That is, until Donnie, in true Wahlberg fashion, just plain tore his shirt off during “Cover Girl,” allowing the camera crew to shamelessly pan his abs for JumboTron projection. The middle-aged NKOTB über-fans in front of me high-fived gleefully.

Honda Center isn’t exactly a great place for pop-concert acoustics, something the tour’s sound engineers tried to get around by simply cranking the volume all the way. Of course, considering the deafening screaming a show like this inspires, I’m not quite sure how much acoustics matter.

The entire NKOTBSB production ran like a well-oiled machine. BSB, still without Kevin Richardson (he left in 2006), deferred to their elders and gave New Kids the first solo performance of the night — “Summertime,” off their 2008 reunion record The Block. As soon as they finished, Backstreet was already in place for “The Call.” That pattern carried on throughout the night. Each band would perform a bit until the other reappeared to snag the spotlight.

Both groups took turns at slowing things down in the middle of the set. After NKOTB’s “Please Don’t Go Girl,” BSB commandeered the show with “Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely,” “10,000 Promises,” a swoon-worthy “I’ll Never Break Your Heart” (during which each of the four Boys selected a lady to bring onstage and serenade), “Drowning” and “Incomplete.” Then NKOTB came marching back in military gear for a deliciously ’80s-sounding “Step by Step.”

“We have come to realize that there are two generations in the house tonight,” Joey McIntyre proclaimed afterward. “For some of us, it feels like 1989 all over again … and for some of us, it feels like 1999 again.”

There were definitely die-hards from each era in the crowd, but for the most part the guys got equal lovin’; note the entire audience’s arena-shaking belting for both “You Got It (The Right Stuff)” and “I Want It That Way.”

After their final solo numbers, “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” for Backstreet and “Hangin’ Tough” for New Kids, the combined group, decked out in bedazzled versions of their respective hometown NBA jerseys, mashed the two songs together, engaging in a goofy dance- and sing-off. A forest’s worth of white confetti dumped on the audience signaled the show’s end.

If the giddy crowd that filed out of Honda Center was any indication, this NKOTBSB Megazord is a winning beast, one that will keep their money bags full and their fans feeling young. They could conceivably do it again and again — at least until Jonas Brothers and Justin Bieber render them obsolete with their JBX2 tour in 2031.

Photo by Kevin Sullivan, The Orange County Register.

Source: http://soundcheck.ocregister.com/2011/07/07/nkotbsb-makes-for-a-winning-team-in-anaheim/54709/