erilyn | Good review, but huh?

gacked from LiveDaily

BOYS ARE BACK by DAN AQUILANTE
July 29, 2005 http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/50527.htm

The Backstreet Boys are catnip for chicks.

Radio City Music Hall was packed with women — from the girls with homemade posters that expressed devotion in glue 'n' glitter to Hollywood hottie Cameron Diaz, who looked ready to make the Boys into men.

At this sold-out show Wednesday, the vocal quintet seems to have picked up right where it left off five years ago.

The choreographed dance moves that suddenly freeze and then shatter back to action were intact, the high-tech lasers and fireworks staging was terrific and Nick Carter, A.J. McLean, Brian Littrell, Kevin Richardson and Howie Dorough all can still sing.

They weren't lying when they belted out their razzle-dazzle encore "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)."

OK, if you don't want to get hung up in your locker at school or become the subject of giggles at the office water cooler, you must insist that every Backstreet Boys song is a vapid pop confection that'll send you into a sugar coma.

But if you dare chuck your boy-band prejudice aside and ignore your pals who'll slag you mercilessly, one must admit that the Boys put on a hell of a show.

At the Music Hall, the BSBs' first show there since 1998, the overblown arena spectacles were visually engaging, giving the concert the electric charge that was missing when the guys played a stripped-down gig at Irving Plaza early this spring.

During the almost two-hour performance, the Backstreet Boys were refreshingly wholesome, especially when they sang and danced their way through the old hits like "Shape of My Heart," "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely" and "Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)."

Much of the new music actually overshadowed those radio hits. The best of those was the near-rock of "Climbing the Walls," which featured Carter strumming along on acoustic guitar to Richardson's lead vocals. "Incomplete," the single from the new disc, was one of the few tunes in concert where the warbles were wobbly.

With Backstreet having survived rehab and unsuccessful solo careers, it might be time for the guys to reclaim their boy-band crowns, considering that they're basically the last ones standing.

Opening act the Click Five did offer BSB some competition during the warm-up set. Wearing matching gray suits and playing instruments, this new pop band was especially good when the guys reprised the old Tommy James and the Shondells' tune "I Think We're Alone Now." The group nailed the sexual tension of innocents about to be lost to lust in this wonderful old tune.

***

Cameron was there? But no mention of JC, alas.