Backstreet's back, good as ever

Backstreet Boys still got it goin' on.
The band of boy all grown up but still baby faced sweated and crooned their way straight into fans' hearts at a packed Rogers Arena. The quartet (fifth member Kevin Richardson left the group in 2006 to start a family), proved that they've still got the sex appeal that revved up every female teenager's hormones back in 1996 when they released their self titled debut.
It's quite amazing, actually: 14 years later, and all of those preteen and teenaged girls that pinned up Tiger Beat posters of Nick Carter, Brian Littrell, A.J. McLean and Howie Dorough (can't forget Richardson) on their walls have stayed true to the Boys.
The 20 something year old female fans were there in full support. Dressed to the nines, in sparkly shirts and stilettos, they brought their lungs and their tears.
OK, well the tears weren't of the waterfall variety that we look from Justin Bieber fans today. But they were there, waving from the corners of black lined and mascara coated eyes.
The group dazzled the audience for nearly two hours, playing all the hits to the audience's delight, as well as new material from their 2009 release This Is Us.
They opened with (Everybody) Backstreet's Back from 1997's Backstreet's Back album after jumping through a giant screen onto the stage. The boys pulled out some slick moves to welcome the arena. The screams were deafening.
The audience sang along to every single word. The lyrics to We've Got It Goin' On re-emerged from their collective unconscious. It was like riding a bike.
"Who's been to a Backstreet Boys show before?" Littrell asked the audience. He was answered by a million decibels of noise.
"Is it OK if we go back in time so you can help us sing some songs?" he continued, jumping into Quit Playing Games (With My Heart) and then As Long As You Love Me.
Even though they're one man down and a little rougher around the edges, the Backstreet Boys' voices haven't changed one bit.
They have grown with their audience, though. The concert matched the maturity of the audience, giving fans a trip down memory lane without being too cheesy.
The production values and visual candy have been stripped down since the Backstreet Boys concerts of yore. They threw out the excessive pyrotechnics and intricate choreography for toned down dance numbers and a more mature, music centric approach.
They performed each song harmony for harmony, lyric for lyric. It was like listening to their album. Nothing different. But that's what the fans wanted.
Although the members will likely never be able to shake their '90s boy band persona a la Justin Timberlake and rise to the same heights of success as they did ten years ago, the Backstreet Boys showed that they've got a love for their music and their fans, and they'll keep on singing Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely as long as the music world will let them.
I remember my dad once chuckling at my teenaged obsession over the Backstreet Boys in 1997. "They'll never last that long," he told me.
Um, Dad? I think they have.

Backstreet Boys Lopez Tonight “If I Knew Then”

Backstreet Boys they’re like your old high school friends you hardly ever look anymore in person, but still get updates from via Facebook. Facebook is last night’s episode of Lopez Tonight only in this case, and there’s no Kanye West standing on a table. No matter, at setting the girls the Boys are still masters off screaming. Head below to catch Brian, A.J., Howie and Nick performing their latest single “If I Knew Then,” their third single from seventh album This Is Us.

Arrested 'Backstreet Bandit'

The Boston man known as the Backstreet Bandit is being held on $50,000 cash bail after he allegedly robbed banks in Revere, Saugus and Malden. Rolando Gala, 23, of 56 Fernwood Road, Boston was arraigned in Chelsea District Court on Friday following his arrest in a residence on Broadway Street in Revere for possession of Class A and Class C substances with the intent to distribute. An additional complaint was issued charging him with the June 14 unarmed robbery of the Bank of America on Squire Road.

At $50,000 Judge D. Dunbar Livingston set the bail after revoking an initial $5,000 bail from a June 19 Chelsea home invasion case, but allowed revocation, which means Gala will be held for up to 60 days even if he posts bail. The drug charges for the additional bail of $50,000. On Monday he is due back in court. Police responded to a Broadway residence around 8 p.m. on Thursday to serve an arrest warrant. Inside the residence, police found heroin and the prescription drug Clonazepam. They also found Gala, who they believed resembled the suspect depicted in surveillance footage of the Revere, Saugus and Malden bank robberies, as well as two fedoras similar to the one the suspect wore. Gala was charged with possession of heroin and Clonazepam with the intent to distribute. Three others were found in the apartment, including Dianna Robinson, 39, of 250 Broadway; Sheryl Maloney, 27, of 26 Holley Ave., Lynn and Michael Kelley, 28, of 16A Clinton St., Lynn. Each were charged with being present where heroin was kept. Police found a large amount of cash and two fedora style hats in Gala's room. It has been reported prosecutors said the bank robberies were part of a "drug fueled crime spree."
Gala is believed to be responsible for the June 18 robbery of Eastern Bank, 605 Broadway St. in Saugus and the July 19 robbery of the Bank of America branch on Centre Street in Malden. A teller from the Malden robbery identified him as the robber. The decision to charge Gala in those cases will be determined by prosecutors in Essex and Middlesex counties respectively. The FBI Violent Crimes Task Force said Gala wore a fedora style hat during each of the robberies. He presented a manila envelope to the teller and demanded money. Once the envelope was filled, he took off on foot. Surveillance videos did not reveal the use of a weapon during any of the robberies and no one was physically injured. The FBI nicknamed Gala the Backstreet Bandit because of the fedora style hat and clothes he wore, which are similar to a member of the pop group the Backstreet Boys, though there is no connection between him and the musical group.

Contest for Backstreet Boys

Get Up Close & Personal with the Backstreet Boys!
Win the Grand Prize:
A Soundcheck Party for 2
2 Tickets
A CD Copy of This Is Us
Plus 5 Secondary Prizes of 2 tickets and a CD Copy of This Is Us
BACKSTREET BOYS as your subject line. In the body of your email you must also include your full name, complete mailing address, day time phone number and what your favorite Backstreet Boys song is.
NOT A SUBSCRIBER? Visit edmontonjournal.com and click on Subscriber Services to find out how.
Deadline: 12Noon, Monday, July 26, 2010. Winners will be contacted by email no later than 5:00 p.m. on Monday, July 26. Limit of one entry per household per day.

Still fromt and center Backstreet Boys

Even as they make their way across the country playing a string of sold out concert dates, including two shows at the Warfield tonight and Monday, Backstreet Boys members seem more baffled by their enduring popularity than anyone else.
Or as Nick Carter, 30, checking in from rehearsals just a few days before the launch of the tour, puts it: "We can't believe that we still got it."
The band (which also headlines the San Francisco Pride event at the Civic Center today) may have sold more than 76 million albums and lodged eight albums into the Top 10 over its 17 year career, but these haven't exactly been boom times for the group that, alongside rivals 'N SYNC, dominated the tail end of the '90s music scene with weepy pop hits such as "Quit Playing Games With My Heart" and "I Want It That Way."
In 2005 since getting back together after stints in rehab and the bottom rungs of the charts with their respective solo albums, Carter and his Backstreet Boys bandmates - A.J. McLean, Brian Littrell and Howie Dorough (Kevin Richardson left for good in 2006) - have been leading a relatively quiet, sepia-toned comeback effort reflective of a group of men inching into their 30s.
Their songs no longer provide the soundtrack for school dances. Valuable wall space in adolescent bedrooms has been given over to the Jonas Brothers and Justin Bieber. And their longtime label Jive currently cut them loose.
On the upside, walking through the mall has become a much easier endeavor. "It is a lot easier," Carter admits. "People love us. They just don't know where we went. We get that all the time: 'Hey, what are you guys doing now?' Well, we're doing what we've always done."
At least the fans who used to camp outside the hotels where the Backstreet Boys stayed and obsessively vote for the band's videos on MTV's "Total Request Live" remain just as passionate about the band, even with the distraction of their own careers and children. "They're actually worse now." Carter says. "If they want a kiss, they're going to get it."

And there are a lot of them.
Tickets for the tour in support of the Backstreet Boys' most current album, "This Is Us," were snatched up almost as soon as they went on sale. "I think we ended up in a position where we should have been in bigger venues," he says.
The greatest hits collection, "Playlist: The Very Best of Backstreet Boys," released earlier this year, has been selling steadily. There's even a Backstreet Boys cruise, which puts the band members out to sea with its followers on a journey from Miami to Cozumel, Mexico, from Dec. 9 to 13 that's totally sold out. "The hard-core fans find us," Carter says.
The Backstreet Boys are only too glad to reciprocate the love. Even though they're playing to smaller rooms, their concerts are still stuffed with lasers, costume changes, video montages and, yes, even full scale dance routines for all the hits.
"We're not just entertainers anymore," Carter says. "We're part athlete now. We have to be to dance for 2 1/2 hours every night, especially at our age."
While no one expects any more platinum albums to arrive in the mail anytime soon, the band members haven't exactly scaled back their ambitions either. When they perform the hit "Backstreet's Back" every night, they're not merely offering up nostalgia but also hope.
"We look at every day as if it's the beginning of our career," Carter says. "We think that's what it's all about.

Backstreet Boys: Tailors show to fans

The Backstreet Boys are back.
The singing quartet — Nick Carter, Howie Dorough, Brian Littrell and A.J. McLean — have sold more than 76 million records worldwide and won a bucketload of MTV Music Awards on both sides of the Atlantic, VH1 Music Awards, Teen Choice Awards and Grammy Nominations.
Its albums the pair has also seen two ("Backstreet Boys" and "Millennium") sell more than 10 million copies each.
As current at 2008, the boys were voted No. 2 and 3 on MTV's TRL list for Top 10 Best Boy Band and Most Iconic Video, respectively, for "I Want It That Way."
Last October, the Backstreet Boys released its ninth CD, "This Is Us."
In addition, the singers are each involved in their own solo careers and other projects.
Carter, calling from the Backstreet Boys stop in Connecticut, said the group's lives rely on priorities.
"The Backstreet Boys takes a lot of time and energy," he said. "And it takes a lot of balance to do what is expected of us and what we need to do."
Carter, who has had his share of trials with substance addiction, said each of the singers has a good support group.

Backstreet Boys and Korn Join Forces to Boycott BP

Backstreet Boys and Korn may not have much in common in terms of their music but they are both backing the boycott of British Petroleum (BP) during their tours. The two groups have announced that they will not be refueling at any of the companies stations while using their tour buses.
Korn frontman, Jonathan Davis stated, "We need to do our part to let BP know there are consequences for causing something like this. We want to send a message to corporations like BP so that they will take more preventative measures in the future."
Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys was profoundly affected during a recent performance in Biloxi, Mississipi after witnessing the effects of the oil spill first hand. After seeing the animals covered in oil, Nick spoke of his heartbreak at the sight.
Made by scientists there are new claims that the oil spill is perhaps double what what first estimated, as noted by Seth Borenstein on Yahoo news. With the initial blast having killed 11 workers and BP stocks only sinking further, the company is definitely swimming in the deep end.
With all the environmental issues the world is already facing, BP have been caught at a time when the public concerns are only rising. Rock and pop may not always mix too well in the music world, but it seems they make a better concoction than the oil and water floating in the Gulf of Mexico. This may be the start of a worldwide boycott.