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As some of you know, I accidentally bought tickets to NKOTBSB in Melbourne. I do not live in Melbourne. Then it turned out they were front row, so I decided maybe I did live in Melbourne, at least for a night, and met Iconis (iconis) down there for some boyband fun.
We ended up against the barrier about two metres down the catwalk, which was the perfect place to watch the show, and when the Boys did their singing to girls they plucked from the audience, Nick was right in front of us. I didn't take many photos, because I'm not much of a photo-taker and I only had my iPhone anyway, but I did take the one above (unzoomed, unedited). Hi!
The show started slow. Nick was in a weird mood, talking to the other guys about something that was wrong with the opening, judging by his gestures, and both bands began with some fairly minor songs. (The One for BSB and Summertime for NKOTB.) There was cheering and singing along and all that, but something felt slightly, indefinably off for the first twenty or thirty minutes. Then the hits came out, and the fans got really into it, and it turned into an awesome party with thousands of your friends.
To both groups, this is clearly a second (third, fourth) chance to do what they love in front of an audience who loves them back. But when I was thinking about it on the way home, I realised what this concert is, really, is a celebration of women, especially women of a certain age. Nick said at one point, "I'm still young, I'm only thirty-two," and in this crowd, he was young, or at least on the low side of average. This wasn't an audience of teenies, any more than these were boybands made up of boys.
When Donnie ripped his tank down the middle and threw it into the screaming crowd, it was ridiculous, and it was cheesy, and it was hot, of course, because the man has an amazing body, but it also felt kind of like a middle finger to anybody who thinks that a woman should stop being sexual once she hits her mid-twenties, or at least keep it behind closed doors so nobody's grossed out by it. Donnie's well-aware of the age of the audience he's playing to, and he doesn't care, and we don't care, because we're all too busy having a good time.
So, boybands as a feminist act. Somebody smarter than me's probably written about that already.
On to the squee.
Nick's early mood passed and he totally got into it, rocking out with the guitarist and throwing himself around on stage. Also, a twirl! I wasn't feeling the long hair at first, it desperately needs a trim, but it does make for fun times when he headbangs and the strands fly everywhere. Also, he wore it back in a tiny ponytail in one of the segments, which was adorable. Also adorable was AJ playing with it.
My favourite Nick moment was when they brought the women up from the audience and serenaded them with I'll Never Break Your Heart. Nick chose a gorgeous, curvy girl and rubbed himself all over her, and she was clearly into it as well, and the fact it was happening right before us made it all the more delightful. At one point, he was dancing in front of her and skimmed his ass across her knees, and she spanked him lightly, and he lifted his jacket and stuck his ass out so she could spank him more. He rolled his eyes at us for whooing about it, but he was totally grinning. Then he fell to his knees and put his head on her lap and over-emoted his little heart out. I do heart you the most, Nicky.
Brian was less of a standout than I remember him bring from the Never Gone tour, where he was a sparkly bundle of adorableness and had the audience eating out of the palm of his hand. He does love making goofy faces, though. Aww, Brian. He sounded on-key but kind of rough, which surprised me, because we saw four shows during NG and his voice was note-perfect and gorgeous in all of them.
AJ seemed much more centred than I remembered, more mellow, like he's finally found himself and his place in the world. Good for him. His opening sleeveless t-shirt read Daddy To Be on the back in rhinestones. JM, he did wear your yellow glasses during the Incredibly Ugly Clothes section!
Howie still has the painting in the attic. He also did some salsa dancing, including that thing where you turn around and sort of wiggle/flex your butt back and forth really fast. He's pretty good at that, I'm just saying.
Joey looked crazy happy to be there and it was infectious. Totally my favourite Kid.
Jordan definitely takes this seriously, possibly more than anybody else in either group, but in an endearing way. Nice falsetto, man. I think he may even have topped Nick in the over-emoting sweepstakes, down on his knees at the end of the catwalk looking like somebody not only kicked his favourite puppy, but took a video of themselves doing it and put it on youtube, and you know Nick's been the reigning champion for years.
Donnie: allergic to shirts, familiar with manscaping.
Some women on the other side of the catwalk had a giant blow-up boxing kangaroo, and Donnie pulled it up onto the stage about half-way through. It was wearing white underpants on its head as a hat.
"I'll just take those," Donnie said, and pulled the underwear off the kangaroo. He sniffed them and put them in his pocket. "Sorry, sorry," he said, as half the audience cheered and the other half laughed. Then, "It sure does smell good down under."
That poor kangaroo. Jordan waltzed around with it like he was Price Charming, Joey said he wanted to kick the shit out of it but couldn't because it represented Australia, and Nick, yeah, you can guess what Nick did with it. It sat on the stage for the rest of the show and got pulled into various numbers. Boybands! Even better with props!
Danny was there, I guess? Kind of a charisma black hole.
Jon, on the other hand, was barely there at all. Did not look particularly into it, and didn't play to the crowd. I get that he's gay and maybe he's not comfortable grinding in front of thousands of women (see also Bass, Lance), but he just seemed so disengaged from everything.
My favourite moment of the night was right near the end. After Backstreet's last block of solo songs, the four of them stood on the stage and looked out at the cheering crowd. I saw Nick say, "Wow. Wow," a couple of times, and then he put his mic to his mouth and said it again so the other Boys could hear, and Brian was wiping tears from the corners of his eyes, and Howie's eyes looked really glassy, too. I was happy in that moment; happy they're still going, happy to have the chance to experience this all over again. There'll always be new boybands, but there'll never be another Backstreet, and they've brought so much joy to my life over the years, both directly and indirectly. Life always needs more joy.
I'm so glad I accidentally ended up in Melbourne, and I can't wait to see the show again in Sydney next week. Thanks to Iconis for coming with me!