Backstreet was back Saturday night at the Minnesota State Fair, and, what do you know, they were all right.
It's getting close to a decade since the aging teen-pop act still known as the Backstreet Boys hit the peak of their fame, but they've somehow figured out how to keep a spark of the old days going, even though these Boys are mostly in their 30s these days.
It probably helps matters that they're now down one Boy — Kevin Richardson left the group in 2006 — because Saturday's show felt leaner, looser and much more fun than the last time the Twin Cities saw them, at the Target Center in summer 2005. Back then, the Backstreet Boys were in the midst of a mostly unsuccessful campaign to act all grown-up and transition into the light-rock radio realm.
On Saturday, though, the Boys re-embraced the campy, goofy aspects of the boy-band genre, which meant more costume changes, more synchronized dancing and more smiling. And this sort of music is much, much easier to digest when the performers aren't taking themselves too seriously. Not only did the boys deliver a breezy, freewheeling show, it actually felt like they, too, were having a good time. The equally relaxed vibe of the Fair only helped matters and probably had much to do with the attendance of 8,687, up more than 3,000 from that Target Center gig.
Perhaps Richardson was the problem all along. His absence wasn't really that noticeable, and, if anything, it just further focused the attention on the remaining four: Brian Littrell (the cute one), Nick Carter (at 28, the "young" one), A.J. McLean (the bad boy) and Howie Dorough (the, uh, Howie one).
They boogied in unison, waved to the crowd, cracked jokes amongst themselves and even hopped down to kiss a few ladies in the front row, all the while bouncing between their turn-of-the-millennium hits ("Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely," "As Long as You Love Me") and more recent, less-familiar material ("Incomplete," "Inconsolable"). Along the way, some of the oldies received trendy makeovers, like the snippet of Kanye West's "Stronger" that was skillfully incorporated into set-opener "Larger than Life."
Of course, the fresher stuff didn't glean the same lustful reaction as the standards, and the breaks for each of the four Boys to perform a solo song felt a little indulgent. But like a lot of the Fair's food, the show was sticky and sweet, if utterly devoid of any nutritional value.
Pop Music Critic Ross Raihala can be reached at rraihala@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5553. Read more about the local music scene on his blog, "The Ross Who Knew Too Much," at blogs.twincities.com/ross.
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