NASHVILLE |DATE: JUNE 3, 1999
BACKSTREET BOYS
LAUNCH `MILLENNIUM' WORLD TOUR
TO THUNDEROUS, HYSTERICAL RESPONSE IN BELGIUM
As their MILLENNIUM album remains perched at #1 for the second consecutive week–selling 621,622 copies last week alone, bringing the total to 1,755,600 copies–the BACKSTREET BOYS launched their world tour last night in Ghent, Belgium to an absolutely thunderous response from thousands of enraptured fans.
With "Star Wars" music trumpeting their arrival, the BACKSTREET BOYS entered the Expo Arena flying from the back of the venue on surfboards before taking their place onstage (which is set up in-the-round) and kicking things off with "Larger Than Life" from Millennium (Jive).
Featuring one highlight and hit after another, the BACKSTREET BOYS–NICK CARTER, HOWIE DOROUGH, BRIAN LITTRELL, A.J. McLEAN and KEVIN RICHARDSON–performed a nearly two-hour set with 18 songs (including the current smash "I Want It That Way"), six musicians and 10 dancers. For their performance of Millennium's "The Perfect Fan," which BRIAN LITTRELL co-wrote (with Thomas L. Smith) about his mother, the guys picked out five moms and their daughters from the crowd and brought them on-stage for the song's duration.
Throughout the action-packed concert–which features elaborate, state of the art staging, lighting, pyrotechnics and costume changes–scores of girls fainted and some were carried out on stretchers. "It was absolute hysteria," remarked an observer on the scene.
No doubt about it, the BACKSTREET BOYS–presently recognized as the biggest pop group in the world–came and conquered. And Belgium was only the beginning. The 42 European dates encompass 13 countries and will wrap August 7 in Stockholm, Sweden. The next show is Friday, June 4 in Frankfurt, Germany. A U.S. tour is set to launch in mid-September (details TBA).
http://
BACKSTREET BOYS LAUNCH `MILLENNIUM' WORLD TOUR TO THUNDEROUS, HYSTERICAL RESPONSE IN BELGIUM
