Review: Amid all that screaming, were the Jonas Brothers really, truly happy to be here?
Imagine if, every time you tried to try to say something you thought was kind of profound, an ocean of 17,000-plus people started shrieking like Drew Barrymore when the killer leaps out at her in “Scream”?
That’s what Nick Jonas — the youngest member of The Jonas Brothers — found himself up against at Spectrum Center midway through the boy band’s Wednesday-night concert, which marked their first tour stop in Charlotte in more than six years and tested the physical thresholds of the brawniest of eardrums.
“It’s a very special day,” Nick, 27, told the crowd after he and his brothers wrapped a rendition of “I Believe,” a pop-soft-rock track from their 2019 album “Happiness Begins.” “We found out this morning that we were nominated for a Gra —”
The rest of that word was inaudible thanks to a massive tidal wave of screams; but one can assume it was “mmy” considering the fact that, hours earlier, the freshly reunited trio of Nick, Joe and Kevin scored a nomination in the Best Pop Duo/Group Performance category for comeback hit “Sucker” (their first recognition by the Recording Academy since a nod for Best New Artist a full 11 years ago).
Nick continued: “I gotta say, a year ago right now, we were all sitting around asking ourselves a question: ‘Would anybody actually care if —’”
And for all anybody knows, the rest of that sentence could have been “‘— Joe, Kevin and I all had a really bad case of diarrhea.” Whatever it was he really said, however, got buried under an avalanche of “AAIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”s.
Indeed, Jonas Brothers fans reveled on Wednesday night like it was the 2000s again, erupting into eardrum-obliterating screams so many times I lost count ... but particularly (and predictably) at the first signs of their most successful songs: the jaunty guitar intro on Disney Channel-era rocker “S.O.S.,” for instance, or the shimmery guitar intro on Disney Channel-era ballad “When You Look Me in the Eyes.”
They also went bananas, though, during moments that highlighted periods in their collective relationship that weren’t so smooth: The three teamed up on a performance of Nick’s 2014 swaggering solo hit “Jealous,” which came less than a year after their big breakup; and followed that with a three-lead-singer rendition of 2015’s “Cake by the Ocean,” originally recorded by Joe’s post-breakup project DNCE.
The decibel level was, in fact, way, way, way higher than at the Jonases’ last show in Charlotte, back in July 2013, when — with their ability to make hit records faltering and overall interest in boy bands sagging — they headlined at Uptown Amphitheatre, which can accommodate just 5,000 people. (During their original heyday, they’d sold out Time Warner Cable arena in 2009 and Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre in 2008.)
Interesting note, by the way: Last time they were here, Nick was still about two months shy of being old enough to drink. (!)
On this night, though, Nick knocked back a shot of tequila with his older brothers as they celebrated the Grammy recognition and toasted Charlotte, which sits across the Catawba River from their parents’ adopted hometown of Belmont. (They’re originally from Wyckoff, N.J., but their father, Kevin Sr., is a native of Gastonia, and he and their mother Denise relocated to Belmont after the boys were out of the house.)
Which brings me to a couple of key points:
First of all, while they had very good reason to celebrate on Wednesday — and while their fans were more than happy to celebrate with them — for whatever reason, Nick, Joe and Kevin seemed to be having to force themselves to come off as enthusiastic. And it didn’t always work.
They move from spot to spot on the stage (right side, middle, left side ... right side, middle, left side ... repeat) in a fashion that feels mechanical when it should feel organic, and the only who one seems to truly go out of their way to showcase something resembling a personality is Joe.
At the beginning of 2009’s “Fly With Me,” for instance, as Kevin played the guitar, Joe put his left arm around his big brother and strummed with his right hand as Kevin worked the frets with his left; Joe also was the only one of the three, for instance, who tinked his shot glass against a series of fans’ cups before downing his tequila.
But otherwise, the brothers barely interacted — with each other, or the fans.
Meanwhile (and I realize I run the very real risk of getting piled on by the Jonas Brothers’ faithful over this), in my opinion it didn’t seem like Nick was having a whole lot of fun up there. Maybe it’s not that he was phoning it in; maybe it’s more just that he doesn’t have a ton of charisma to begin with. And that’s not inherently a major character flaw — I mean, I don’t have a ton of charisma either.
But there’s just this jarring disconnect, I think, when you’ve got this jam-packed arena full of screamers/revelers/seat-dancers and then in the middle of it all you’ve got this guy who doesn’t even seem to come close to mirroring that energy back.
The second key point I wanted to make is a lot shorter, and has to do with the fact that I’m just a little surprised they didn’t go out of their way to acknowledge how special the area is to them. Not that they’re obligated to. I was just a little surprised, that’s all. It seemed like a missed opportunity to connect with the Charlotte audience in a pretty simple way.
(I could see something like, “I don’t know if you know this, but North Carolina is a pretty special place for us because —” ... and then the rest of the sentence being drowned out by screaming.)
Look, I’m not a hater. I happily accepted an invitation from tour sponsor American Airlines MasterCard to get my photo taken with Kevin, Joe and Nick before the show, and I’ve had “Sucker” locked into my primary Spotify playlist for months now.
But I did not see, at any time, the look of genuine joy on any of the brothers’ faces that I saw opener Bebe Rexha wearing when she brought two superfans up on stage to sing and dance with her (a young man named Austin during “Take Me Home” and a young woman named Lauren during “Meant to Be” may have stolen the entire night — if you were there you know what I’m talking about, for real).
Of course, at the end of the day, (spoiler alert) HARDCORE JONAS BROTHERS FANS COULD NOT CARE LESS ABOUT MY THOUGHTS ON THIS SHOW. Am I right?
All that matters to them is that, for 98 minutes on a Wednesday night in Charlotte, Joe, Nick and Kevin were together again — something that even the brothers admit wasn’t ever guaranteed.
“A lot of things had to go right for us to be back in this position,” Nick said. “The first thing was we had to be right, the three of us. We had to get our s--- together.”
He said something else after that, but I couldn’t make it out over the screams.
The Jonas Brothers’ setlist
1. “Rollercoaster”
2. “S.O.S.”
3. “Cool”
4. “Only Human”
5. “Strangers”
6. “That’s Just the Way We Roll”
7. “Fly With Me”
8. “Used to Be”
9. “Hesitate”
10. “Don’t Speak”
11. “Gotta Find You” (Joe Jonas song)
12. “Jealous” (Nick Jonas song)
13. “Cake by the Ocean” (DNCE cover)
14. “Comeback”
15. “When You Look Me in the Eyes”
16. “I Believe”
17. Medley including ... “Mandy,” “Paranoid,” “Got Me Going Crazy,” “Play My Music,” “World War III,” “Hold On,” “Tonight”
18. “Lovebug”
19. “Year 3000”
Encore:
20. “Burnin’ Up”
21. “Sucker”
This story was originally published November 21, 2019 at 11:15 AM.
