The Backstreet Boys at PNC Music Pavilion in Charlotte.
Benjamin Robson
For the most part, Friday night’s Backstreet Boys’ concert at PNC Music Pavilion in Charlotte was packed with moments designed to make the 17,000-plus fans feel at least a couple decades younger.
The sunny opening to “Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)“ started up, and suddenly it was 1996 again. The first “eeEEvvvrey-bodddddd-ayyyyyuhh” exploded from the speakers, and the masses responded by immediately waking up parts of their vocal cords they haven’t used since high school. In came the acoustic-guitar strains of “All I Have to Give,” out came the 25-year-old magazines that the soccer moms in the pit wanted Kev and AJ to sign.
But a little more than halfway through their 33-song set, the five guys spent several minutes making eeEEvvvrey-bodddddd-ayyyyyuhh who came out for this trip down memory lane feel the way they’re feeling these days: old.
While harmonizing on “No Place” — a song off of the 2019 album “DNA” (for which the current tour is named) — video screens to the sides of the stage cast glossy scenes of Nick Carter, AJ McLean, Brian Littrell, Howie Dorough and Kevin Richardson spending time with their wives and children.
“Our babies have changed since then, though. Right, AJ?” Richardson said after they finished the number. “That was shot like in 2019.”
McLean nodded. “Yeah, I mean my daughters are — man, they’re teenagers now, and it’s killing me.” Then he mentioned how they’ve been at it as the Backstreet Boys for almost 30 years, using that fact as a segue into a conversation requiring members to state how old they were when the group was born.
“I was just 18,” said Littrell, who is now 47.
“I was a whopping 14 years of age,” said McLean, now 44, who then turned to Richardson and asked: “Kevin, what about you?”
Richardson didn’t answer right away, prompting McLean to tease him. “He can’t remember!”
“I was 21,” Richardson said. He’ll be 51 in October.
Then Carter chimed in. “I was 12 when I met you guys.”
Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys at PNC Music Pavilion in Charlotte. Benjamin Robson
Now, there are few things involving the Backstreet Boys’ legacy that are more brain-melting than the reminder that a 21-year-old man was partnering up and trotting the globe with a 12-year-old boy...
...but one of them has to be the sight of five middle-aged men singing sugary pop songs while doing synchronized dances that were designed for teenagers.
And yet: Because the best of those songs are infectious as ever, and because those dance routines are so delightfully dippy, and because they take themselves seriously but not too seriously, this tour — which originally was set to stop in Charlotte in September 2020 before being axed at the time due to COVID — is as about as perfect as fans could have hoped for.
To probably no one’s surprise, the majority of those fans were women, and the majority of those women were, I’d say, in their 30s and 40s.
Their collective screams for the Backstreet Boys didn’t have quite the same sound-level-meter-busting shrillness that one might hear at a BTS concert, or a Harry Styles show, but rest assured that plenty of the people who were at PNC Friday either went to bed with ringing ears or woke up with a hoarse voice. Or both.
It didn’t take much to get them going.
For instance, during “New Love” — another song off of the “DNA” album — screams surfaced each time Carter, McLean and Richardson grabbed at their crotches; and there was a lot of crotch-grabbing during the choruses of this particular song, so there was a lot of screaming.
Even just a single word could elicit shrieks. Like, say, when Carter sang the first verse of “Don’t Want You Back” from 1999’s “Millennium” album, as he drew out the word sexuality — “sexxxx-choooo-allll-itttt-eeee” — fans let him hear it.
Of course, the bigger (and, often, the cheekier and cheesier) the moment, the louder the crowd. And perhaps the biggest (and cheekiest, and cheesiest) came mid-show, when two gigantic boxes were pushed out to the center of the stage after Carter, Dorough and Littrell had left it to take a break.
“So, I have a question for you Charlotte,” McLean said. “How would you feel if me and Kev got changed right here on stage?”
Cue screams.
AJ McLean of the Backstreet Boys at PNC Music Pavilion in Charlotte. Benjamin Robson
“Be careful what you wish for, Charlotte,” McLean joked. “Be careful what you wish for.”
“I don’t know Charlotte,” Richardson added, as the screams continued. “You know ... it’s been two years. It’s been two years since we’ve been on stage, AJ. Some of us were being our best selves during quarantine. AJ was — you know, AJ wouldn’t stop. He was lifting weights. I was on the couch eatin’ Cheez-Its and watching Netflix.”
The pair then stepped into the boxes — one emblazoned with the letters “BSB” and the other labeled “DNA” — which obscured everything below their shoulders.
“It’s a family show,” Richardson explained. “We got little ones in here. We don’t wanna expose them to any, uh, you know, uncouthness.”
And then, a few seconds after that, couth went flying out the window when they sent their underwear sailing into the pit. Cue more screams. Oh, and then McLean emerged from his box wearing a fresh outfit, walked onto the mini-stage that jutted out into the pit, and commenced to, uh, you know, twerking. Cue even more screams.
His rump-shaking wasn’t as hot, though, as some of the outfits the Backstreet Boys donned over the course of the evening.
We’re talking heavy hoodies and baggy cargo pants and combat boots and trenchcoats and denim jackets. On a humid 85-degree evening in the summertime in Charlotte.
It didn’t even make sense to the guys who had to wear this stuff.
Less than 40 minutes into the show, Carter came to the head of the stage, looking as incredulous as he did overheated. “Why should I be wearing a leather jacket when it’s so damn hot outside?” he said, mopping sweat from his forehead. “Is it always this hot?”
Then, playing to the crowd: “The only reason it’s hot is because of all of you out there tonight.”
After a quick nod to Nelly (Carter: “It’s gettin’ hot in here, so take off all your clothes”; crowd: “I am gettin’ so hot, I wanna take my clothes off!”), he added: “Man, I feel like it’s the dirty south down here in Charlotte.” And yes, that generated yet more very, very enthusiastic screams.
The Backstreet Boys at PNC Music Pavilion in Charlotte. Benjamin Robson
To be sure, the show wasn’t entirely without awkward moments.
At the beginning of 2001 single “Drowning,” there seemed to be a little confusion on who was supposed to lead off as the soloist, with McLean saying “the old switcheroo” as an apparent attempt to cover for their mistake before Littrell started singing.
There also were multiple occasions during several songs — including “Incomplete,” “More Than That,” and show-closer “Larger Than Life” — when I saw Littrell, McLean and Richardson playing air guitar ... which in my mind just underscored how weird it is these days for a tour with this big of a budget to not have any live musicians. They exclusively used pre-recorded music tracks.
On top of that, it seemed pretty clear to me that they were at least sometimes using pre-recorded vocal tracks.
It bothered me during the show. I spent a lot of time trying to spot instances of lip-syncing. But afterward, my thinking started to shift. They clearly don’t want to be stuck totally in the past; if they did, they wouldn’t include nine selections from their new album in the setlist (although they smartly didn’t overplay that hand and by and large just did a verse and a chorus from the newer songs).
When it comes to the classics, though, maybe using pre-recorded music tracks and pre-recorded vocal tracks is a totally ’90s move of them, ya know?
I mean, would you want the Backstreet Boys to be up there sharing the stage with guitarists and bassists and keyboardists and drummers and backup singers? Or do you want to see them — and only them — as we saw them Friday night in Charlotte?
That is: Just five guys; just singing their hits when it mattered but relying on backing tracks when it didn’t as much; just playing their air guitars and grabbing their crotches; just kicking and shaking and hopping and spinning and sliding and snapping and clapping in delightfully dippy unison.
Not quite just like old times.
But certainly close enough.
The Backstreet Boys at PNC Music Pavilion in Charlotte. Benjamin Robson
Backstreet Boys’ setlist
1. “Everyone”
2. “I Wanna Be With You”
3. “The Call”
4. “Don’t Want You Back”
5. “Nobody Else”
6. “New Love”
7. “Get Down (You’re the One for Me)“
8. “Chateau”
9. “Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely”
10. “Incomplete”
11. “Undone”
12. “More Than That”
13. “The Way It Was”
14. “Chances”
15. “Shape of My Heart”
16. “Drowning”
17. “Passionate”
18. “Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)“
19. “As Long as You Love Me”
20. “No Place”
21. “Breathe” (A capella)
22. “Don’t Wanna Lose You Now”
23. “I’ll Never Break Your Heart”
24. “All I Have to Give”
25. “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)“
26. “We’ve Got It Goin’ On”
27. “It’s Gotta Be You”
28. “That’s the Way I Like It”
29. “Get Another Boyfriend”
30. “The One”
31. “I Want It That Way”
Encore:
32. “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”
33. “Larger Than Life”
This story was originally published June 25, 2022 at 11:36 AM.
Théoden Janes has spent nearly 20 years covering entertainment and pop culture for the Observer. He also thrives on telling emotive long-form stories about extraordinary Charlotteans and — as a veteran of three dozen marathons and two Ironman triathlons — occasionally writes about endurance and other sports.Support my work with a digital subscription
