Lisa Picazo bought more than a ticket to a concert. The 43-year-old San Jose resident purchased transport on a de facto time machine, one that took her straight back to her high school years and memories of doing cheerleading routines to New Kids on the Block songs.
"We're cheerleaders again!" exclaimed Picazo, who was attending the show with her 39-year-old friend Tami Paez of San Jose.
Similar reactions could be seen throughout the building, as the 12,000-strong, mostly female crowd relived its past in glorious fashion during this boy-band doubleheader, featuring both the New Kids and the Backstreet Boys.
That this local stop on the NKOTBSB trek -- a clever tour name that incorporates both the New Kids on the Block (NKOTB) and the Backstreet Boys (BSB) -- turned out to be a first-rate production, one of the most brilliantly designed major pop spectacles seen in years, was almost a bonus.
This was a show that, while outstanding in the moment, succeeded first and foremost due to memories from the cherished past.
There were very few "new" fans to be seen. Instead, the house was filled with folks like Bianca Avila, a 31-year-old Walnut Creek resident who remembered all the New Kid posters on the walls of her childhood room, and Lisa Styers-Aiello, a 37-year-old Brentwood resident who recalled having her parents drive her to New Kids concerts.
Styers-Aiello reckons that she and her friend -- 31-year-old friend Carrie Chavez from Turlock, who was also in attendance in San Jose -- have seen the New Kids some 40 times over the last 25 years. They've traveled all over the Western States to watch the New Kids -- and they say it's been well worth it.
"We'd rather have this experience, and relive our teen years, than have shoes in our closets," Styers-Aiello says. "Some people have shoes and handbags -- we have the New Kids."
Better than that -- they had both the New Kids and the Backstreet Boys, sometimes sharing the stage at the same time. The concert opened in high style as all nine musicians-dancers -- five Kids and four Boys -- appeared on an elevated platform, slowly lowered to the main stage, and performed a medley of New Kid's fairly recent "Single," the Backstreet oldie "The One" and Coldplay's triumphant "Viva la Vida."
What followed was pretty much nonstop action -- razzle that truly dazzled -- as the groups took turns performing onstage. The trade-off was so blindingly quick and efficient, with one production number ending and another beginning mere seconds later, it was sometimes hard to distinguish the Boys from the Kids.
Each side of this boy-band equation would, however, do equally well onstage. The performers -- some of whom are now in their 40s -- looked and sounded great as they moved through all the old fan favorites, such as "Step by Step" (NKOTB) and "Shape of My Heart" (BSB). Their dance moves, a mix of pelvic thrusts, hip-hop steps and Broadway showmanship, were also quite solid, as the two bands worked mostly on a long catwalk that extended from the main stage to a smaller platform at the back of the arena floor.
It was a performance worth remembering, which these fans undoubtedly will do for some time to come.
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