Backstreet Boys are winners in Vegas
A thirtysomething fangirl’s nostalgic but honest review
Oh my god, they’re LAS VEGAS back again.
That phrase was literally written in glitter on attendees’ T-shirts as a crowd of 4,600 piled into the kick-off of the Backstreet Boys’ 10-week Las Vegas residency at Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino. We’re all just a bit older now. Thirtysomethings, the ones who used to lose their minds over these guys on TRL, queue up with semi-forlorn husbands and boyfriends. Bachelorettes wear tiaras and shirts that read “I still BSB”; others gulp ' shots while waiting to weave through metal detectors.
And then, just after 9 p.m., Nick Carter, Howie Dorough, Brian Littrell, AJ McLean and Kevin Richardson, dressed in pure white, descend from glowing red boxes inside the Axis theater and immediately launch into Larger Than Life.
Yes, we wanted it that way.
“How many ladies got a hall pass to come spend the night with the Backstreet Boys?” asks Carter.
The men of BSB said they’d spent eight weeks of dance prep and vocal training to prepare for the 20-song set, and it showed. Song after song, they nailed a dance-heavy program peppered with favorites.
“(Expletive) Las Vegas, baby!” yells McLean, breathing heavily into the mike after their first song.
These Boys have firmly been in the ‘men’ camp for some time: Richardson is 45, Dorough is 43, Littrell is 42, McLean is 39 and Carter, 37, had a baby with his wife the year after his Dancing With the Stars run.
Times, they have changed. They know it. We know it.
But this time around we’re all over 21 (for $24 you get 26 ounces of booze – it’s Vegas, baby!) and a little wiser about the merchandise table. ($100 for a satin BSB bomber jacket? Pass.)
So come for the music, but stay for a grin-inducing sense of unity. As Carter hits the octave in Incomplete on how he “doesn’t want to face the world aloneeee,” a 45+ man in the row behind chugs wine from a large solo cup. When the boy-banders move through the crowd to sing All I Have to Give, fangirls reach out to cop a feel.
(This writer obviously did not, but as a jet-haired Richardson danced close by, she took in his MJ moves and cherry-red stage shoes with new appreciation.)
During Quit Playing Games With My Heart the Boys clap overhead ... bigly. We respond in kind. My neighbor and I debate who, in 2017, is the best dancer (a three-way tie between Carter, Richardson and McLean).
After a quick-change into hotpink pants, McLean realizes his fly is down, and zips up onstage with a grin and a shrug. That’s so A.J., says my 16-year-old self.
Suckers for synchronized dancing will not be disappointed, and there’s pride in seeing Howie D. get into his groove in the second half of the show. While the bass is cranked so high it covers much of the vocals, they’re all singing live, so kudos.
After 100 minutes, the Backstreet Boys close with Everybody. And as pink confetti streams overhead, you won’t care if this Vegas run is a cash grab to pay off mortgages, or to fund a BSB baby college payment, or whether J.Lo and Britney sanctioned it by signing on first.
The teenager in you, who can now swing the price of a ticket ($159 and up) without putting in an extra shift at Planet Smoothie, will be thrilled.
The Backstreet Boys Larger Than Life show will run for 17 more performances on various dates through July 1.