Heavier, sporting a guitar, Carter does a competent job

By NICK CARTER
ncarter@journalsentinel.com

March 2, 2003

The faces are a bit more mature, the screams a little less high pitched.

But it was still pretty much an underage brigade accounting for the mobbed ground-level Rave Saturday night, where former Backstreet Boy Nick Carter performed before an audience of about 1,200.

Carter, in town as part of a tour to support his debut solo album of last fall, "Now or Never," has changed both his look and repertoire in the last year: gone are the sleek white suits and other dapper accoutrements he wore while working his way through a repertoire of smooth dance pop and balladry.

Carter now affects more the lone rocker persona - baggy blue jeans, a red pullover sweater and his blond hair now styled into a punky display of razor-edged tufts. It also can't help but be noted that there's a lot more Nick in that sweater nowadays, as well, as the singer appears to be at least 50 pounds heavier than he was in his late-'90s splendor.

Carter also mixes a lot more traditional rockers, even some classic-rock covers, into his teen pop attack. But perhaps the biggest shock came right away Saturday on the first number, "Girls in the USA," a straight-ahead guitar-pop rocker that had Nick himself fiercely strumming away on guitar, which he also played on a couple other numbers.

Soon after came "Heart Without a Home (I'll Be Yours)," which has more of an '80s pop-rock flavor than anything traceable to the Backstreet sound.

Carter, however, did pay heed to his past by offering a few reworked Backstreet Boy hits: "Shape of my Heart," from their 2000 album "Black & Blue," and "I Want It That Way," from the "Millennium" album of a year earlier. The latter was converted into a nearly all-acoustic ballad and went over particularly well.
Between numbers, Carter alternately caught his breath and remained silent and engaged in coy crowd banter: "How many of you ever heard of the band I was with the last time I was in town," he said about midway through the set.

Despite the big crowd, the audience was well-behaved. It was nice to see, along with the genuine excitement of the audience, the hundreds of glow-in-the-dark wands and encouraging fan signs in place of the usual tobacco haze and spilled beer maze that typically come with Rave events geared toward younger audiences.

Other surprises came later in the set: a nifty revamping of a Cars classic, "Just What I Needed," and a raved-up take of the Isley Brothers' "Shout," which slowly evolved into a faithful rendition of the Tears for Fears song of the same name.

The concert began with brief sets from two other acts geared toward younger music fans: VI3, who offer an even mix of pop, rap and R&B confections; and Sev, who add a punky, hard-rock edge to their vanilla-R&B stylings.

Source: http://www.jsonline.com/onwisconsin/music/mar03/122486.asp