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One thing is for sure. The glory days of the boy bands have finally gone. Yes of course, theres are still exeptions like Tokio Hotel, who keep the flame still burning at some grown up teenie girls and many new one's. But over all the hype has calmed down over the past years. Bands like Take That, New Kids On The Block, I'nSync and the Backstreet Bloys took care for a big hysteria, compared to the Beatles in the sixties. The only difference was, those boybands didn't bring much innovation. But they were young, good looking and most important, - the marketing strategy was just alright. Now, as we say so - time doesn't stand still. We all get older and wiser (or not). And we all do change. And thanks to the downgoing hype, most of these boygroups went down again. Also the fact, that some boys got married made the whole subject even more uninteresting. I'm not quite sure, whether this new revival of those just mentioned bands is up to german group Tokio Hotel or it has got purely financial reasons. But it's a fact, that Take That have reformed (without Robbie Williams) followed
by the Backstreet Boys. And just since recently it's known, that the New Kids On The Block are back again. The question is: is this still the same like 10 or 15 years ago. I guess not. All members of these bands are grown up men now with some kind of character heads. Can they still make the eyes of all the girls sparkling? Alrighty, I'm here tonight to check that out. Or better let's put it that way, I got a nice little photo call there.

But what do my eyes see first tonight??? It's a rather poor audiance of aprox. 3.000 fans in a venue, where you can easily put 12.000 kids in. And I do remember times, where this hall was sold out. Yeah it does look strange.... -But at least one thing is still the same. You won't find almost any male kids in the first row. And the screaming is still unbelievably loud, when the light goes out. 
First the germany youngsters named 'Stanfour' are on the bill with a 40 minutes show. 

It's said, that they founded themselves in 1994. But their debutsingle 'Do It All' came out only last year, followed by another one named 'For All Lovers'- The full album 'Wild Life' was just recently released.Stanfour supported already John Fogerty in the past. Now they are here with the Backstreet Boys. 

This lot don't get that much enthusiasm form the crowd, like the stars of tonight, but it also shows, that they are already known. The whole show stands and falls with their frontman Konstantin Rethwisch, who jumps around the stage, falling on his knees inbetween and doing at least 75% of the whole stage movement up there. It get's down well. Brother Alexander Rethwisch is handling the keyboards. On guitar is Eike Lüchow, on the other six strin - Christian Lidsba. Apart from them there are session musicians Tommy Andersson on bass and drummer Kasper Lindgren. 
The music of Stanfour is hand made, you can hear that. But the melodies are not extraordinary sticking out. So I've got difficulties afterwards, to rememer the single tracks. 


So my opinion is: -  typical boyband music in the usual pattern with the focus on the visual aspect. But at least they are playing their instruments by themselves. And they can play - Respect.....

http://www.stanfour.com/ 

Then it's gonna get exiting, including a black curtain, and the endless seeming break inbetween. 
And yes, here we go, the curtain falls and the boxring gets pushed in to the front, in which Howie Dorough, Alexander James McLean, Brian Lettrell and Nick Carter start their imaginary fight to the opener song 'Larger Than Life'.



Kevin Richardson, as we all know, has left the band 2 years ago. - Officially the Backstreet boys have never split. They just had something we call a creative break. Exspecially Nick Carter concentrated on his solo carriere, which didn't reach the peak a 100%, like the carriere of Robbie Williams did for instance. 
'Unbreakable' the new BSB album was born last october, and meanwhile sold 1.3 Mill. units. Sounds a lot, but compared to the album 'Millenium' from 1999 with 30 Mill. units, it's only a drop on a hot stone, as we say so. But well, we are talking here a few categories higher than with other artists.


Back to the action here, and I have to give the production here that much - the choreography is almost perfect. Every step, every move is in place. By the way, the song 'Larger Than Life' has got something to it. I could imagine, if you put a rock riff underneath that track it would sound surely great. 
but it does anyway I have to say.  During the show every guy gets his solo stint, whereby Nick Carter shows best the popstar attitude. Apart from that, the picture on stage changes with every songs, whether it's while sitting at a poker table or on barstools in front of the stage. No, you can't say, it's boring. And I do believe, they have sung live, maybe including some samples or so. The Backstreet Boys are accompanied by a 7 guys Background band. 

There's not much more to say, exept, that 2.500 girls can scream as loud, as if there were 12.000. And though Nick, , Brian, Alexander and Howie seem much more grown up, the female fans, who are here tonight, still long like bees for the honey. As I said before, there ain't that many fans anymore, because of the signs of time. These fans here are too old for Tokio Hotel. But on the other hand many fans from the past have probably just grown outta it.

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http://www.backstreetboys.de/

I, for my part, leave after aprox. one  hour at 10 p.m.  and drive down from the Olympiahall to the other side of town to the Metropolis venue to catch up with the phantastic guitarist Eric Sardinas, who had started his show about the same time like the BSB. And I do also get about one hour.....
see 
Review 312.......