BSB
Before my tiny, young heart could even know heartbreak or romance or longing, I knew the Backstreet Boys.
As a child growing up in the late ’90s, the Backstreet Boys were instrumental in my introduction to the world of popular culture. They helped me learn to contextualize my taste in music; everything else I heard on the radio was good or bad in terms relative to the Backstreet Boys.
Listening to the Boys on cassette while running errands with my mom or heading to kindergarten was a ritual. I was far too young to even possibly consider going to a concert, but when my older cousin got to go see A.J., Howie, Kevin, Brian and Nick, I was envious. Though I was far younger than the group’s target demographic, I wanted to see my heroes live.
I never imagined that 12 years later, I might get that chance.
Mixfest 2010 was a one-of-a-kind concert experience; held at the Pier Six Concert Pavilion in Baltimore, the festival seemed to try to actively define a generation’s pop music in one event. Train and Hanson were on the bill, and once the Backstreet Boys were added to the lineup, all of my reservations were gone. I had to go.
As the warm, late August afternoon faded into a cool evening and Hanson finished up their lighthearted, nostalgic set, my anticipation rose. Without even consciously realizing it, I had been looking forward to this moment for years.
The Backstreet Boys took the stage, and regardless of the age of the audience members, everyone on the pier was suddenly transformed into a lovelorn teenager. All around me, ladies that were the same age as my mom screamed and cheered like schoolgirls. My brother’s girlfriend and I used this frenzy to slip to the front of the crowd to get a better view of the stage.
From the fog and brightly colored stage lights, there emerged four music icons — Howie, Nick, A.J. and Brian — and even I started shrieking with delight.
There was a time when the Backstreet Boys wore coordinated outfits. In their old music videos, they each wore various degrees of what was considered “cool” for young men at the time — though, of course, each Boy wore the coolest clothes that suited his personality within the group.
Looking down at the stage from the lawn, they were now dressed in what could still be construed as “cool,” but instead it was what was cool for casual Friday, or perhaps what the cool guys wore at the trendy new tech startups. They no longer looked like godly teenagers, walking in a realm of sublime awesome that hung far above us mere mortals. Instead, they reminded me of the young male teachers in my high school whom students flocked to because the teachers were funny and interesting. Several of my classmates had unrequited crushes on them.
Seeing my childhood heroes perform well after their prime was a jarring yet nostalgic experience. I could still sing along to every word, just as I had sung to the pink boombox in my room when I was little. The group performed only five songs, including a new track from their upcoming album, which was the mellowest the crowd acted for the entire set. Though they were no longer in their prime, they still poured a lot of energy into each song.
However, I realized from early on in the performance that something felt uncanny.
While their harmonies were as vibrant as ever, it was the experience of watching the show that was eerie; there were no instruments or musicians onstage with the Boys. Though I had become accustomed to seeing the lead singers of rock bands jumping and thrashing around with the other band members, the Backstreet Boys did something startling — they danced.
Time had not been unkind to the Backstreet Boys; it would be fairly ruthless to say otherwise. Time simply happened to the boy band (which is now definitely a man-band). The group’s age just happened to show more prominently than most other musicians’ because they used the conventions of a performance style that was itself a little outdated; many male musical acts, even of the boy band persuasion, have drifted away from incorporating dancing into their performances for a while now. It didn’t help that the dance moves themselves seemed very late ’90s.
However, to their credit, every step and arm motion, no matter how corny, was in sync with the moves of the others. The crowd was more than into the set; everyone was chanting and begging for more, even though Train was supposed to come on to finish off the show. Even after all this time, some fans still followed the Boys to their tour bus behind the stage to beg for autographs.
Some things never change.
