(Toronto Star, January 5, 1998)
Backstreet Boys blazed on the SkyDome stage in a burst of fiery sparklers and 90 minutes latery they deparated in the same bombastic fashion.
In between there were precious few pyrotechnics, either visual or musical. Not that it mattered to the sell-out crowd.
That's because Backstreet Boys, late-90's teen dreams in the mold of New Kids on the Block, The Osmonds, David Cassidy, etc. (take you pick), were performing Saturday to the deliriously exuberant converted. Which meant 25,000 feverish, largerly chaporoned, pre-teends waving 25,000 neon green Day-Glo sticks in the dark, their non-step decibel damaging screams drowning out the best and worst of the evening's music.
There was a bit of both in the 17-song selection, sandwiched betweena lot of forgettable fluff.
The proceedings were off to an energetic enough start with the generic dance tracks That's the Way I Like It and I Wanna Be With You, two slightly de-funked numbers best described as Janet Jackson Lite.
The vaguely exotic snaking rhythms of Hey Mr. D.J. could have been an interesting musical entry if the heightened shrieking hadn't made it at all inaudible. Pity the six-man backing band that was rendered invisible if not entirely redundant.
This was ever more so the case, when, on the song Quit Playin Games (With My Heart), the Boys staged a mock argument with the musicians over who could best play the instruments. This gave the fresh-scrubbed, Florida vocal quintet a chance to show they weren't just a collection of pretty faces and toned abs.
After a few minutes, the pretty faces returned the instruments to their rightful users and went back to what they do better, singing passable harmonies and executing smooth, albeit ordinary dance moves.
The most satisfying and effective performances were the three uptempo encore numbers, Get Down, We've Got it Goin' On, and Everybody (Backstreet's Back), the latter being the sole nod to a full-fledged stadium spectacle.
Too bad these suddenly spicy Boys, decked out in various Toronto sports team shirts and jerseys, didn't offer the same dynamic pacing throughout the main portion of the show. The entire middle section of the evening dragged under the glazy of syrupy ballads and equally undistinguished solo tunes.
Kevin Richardson's solo offered the lone spark, while Nick Carter was the only member to use a hand-held microphone for his number, exchewing the currently popular ear-to-mouth mikes of the type used by air traffic controllers and Garth Brooks.
For the crowd, however, there were no lapses or off-moments in the concert, judging by the sweetly affectionate screams that were as intense at the end of the show as at the beginning.
Toronto Star
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