Backstreet’s back — in Las Vegas, that is.
The superstar boy band has a warm relationship with Sin City, having staged one of the templates for the modern residency (and just how it can catapult a band into a new era of their career) with its Larger Than Life residency at Planet Hollywood from 2017 to 2019. It became the fastest-selling Vegas residency in history, and in the time since, the Boys have released another album, DNA, and went on a supporting world tour. But conversations circled around them making a big Vegas residency return, with Planet Hollywood, the Park MGM and Caesars all in discussion as options.
Then their manager Ron Laffitte mentioned an unforeseen opportunity: becoming the first pop act to perform at Sphere. “We were like, ‘Oh, s–t. Here we go!’” recalls AJ McLean recalls. Thus was born Into the Millennium, which kicks off at Sphere July 11 just as the group releases Millennium 2.0, a deluxe reissue of their seminal Millennium album.
The quintet didn’t take its responsibility as the first pop act in the groundbreaking venue — which has thus far only hosted mostly-non-dancing rock stars and DJs — lightly. They brought on a collaborative all-star creative team, led by choreographers/stage directors Rich and Tone Talauega (better known simply as Rich + Tone) and director and producer Baz Halpin, a Vegas veteran whose production company, Silent House is the BSB show’s design studio. Rich+Tone started out as dancers with BSB at the 1998 Billboard Music Awards and have since become one of the most acclaimed commercial choreography teams in pop music, known for their work with Michael Jackson as well as years of tours now with BSB. Halpin, meanwhile, is a Sphere expert (he worked on the Eagles residency, among others) who happens to have also executive produced Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour film.
Already, the Sphere residency looks like it could bear repeat Vegas results for BSB: what started as nine planned shows ratcheted up to 21. Before opening night, McLean, Rich + Tone and Halpin spoke to Billboard — and while they’re keeping the granular details of the show under wraps, they offered plenty of hints as to what fans and BSB newcomers alike can expect at their Sphere spectacular.
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The process really brought out the individual Boys’ temperaments
Image Credit: Justin Segura Halpin describes the BSB as “like that Pixar movie with all the emotions [Inside Out] — they together form this cohesive unit that brings all the elements together.” Preparing for a challenge as immense as Sphere’s first pop show, he explains, elucidated each member’s unique personality and skill set.
Kevin Richardson “asks really detailed, observant questions; he needs to understand the mechanics of how things work because he wants to know how that relates to what they have to do”; McLean “is all about the energy,” keen to get the crowd hyped; Brian Littrell is more “practical,” interested in how each element of the show affects the others and what unforeseen issues might need more thought. Nick Carter, who now lives in Vegas, is “easy-going” but also “like a machine — he gets up and he nails it the first time, every time.” And Howie Dorough is the deep thinker, “making sure you dot your I’s and cross your T’s” when considering different options of how to execute.
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The Boys will be on the move — and present
Image Credit: Justin Segura “Probably the most unique situation is that we’re still doing a show like the Backstreet Boys — we’re still doing choreography and staging,” says McLean. “All the other groups that have been here are band-bands, so they’re standing there, they’re doing what they do and they’re freaking awesome, but it’s almost like the soundtrack to what you’re watching on the screen.” He says the audience can expect to see all five Boys onstage for about 95% of the show (though perhaps not always all at once).
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Iconic choreography will take center stage (and screen)
Image Credit: Justin Segura “We’re not to the point yet where either Rich + Tone or we say, ‘You know what? I think we’re just gonna sit on stools for this one,’” McLean says (though he allows that may happen for a couple of appropriate songs). “We’re going to keep doing what we do until we physically can’t anymore. We are showmen, we’re hams. We love to be onstage and we love to perform.” The show has no additional live dancers — just the guys onstage, with cameras trained on them individually or as a group. Onscreen, however, live-captured or motion-captured dancers will appear; Halpin calls out one piece in particular in which the entire screen is a lyrical duet between two mo-cap figures, “which is stunningly beautiful.”
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Expect visuals both futuristic and nostalgic
Image Credit: Justin Segura When asked about particular influences on the show’s visuals, Rich and Halpin both point to the Millennium era, with Rich in particular referencing the “futuristic vibe” of the “Larger Than Life” music video. But more generally, Tone says, fans can expect the show’s visual perspective to offer “a historical sort of layout of the Boys’ entire career,” blending “something new” with “something nostalgic and familiar.”
Halpin says those familiar with BSB’s music videos will recognize “little homages” but assures the overall show feels “very, very fresh, very modern.” Adds Rich: “Working with these guys, we’re reminded they’re icons. Tone and I always love to bring that iconic energy to them and remind them that they are who they are.”
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If you want to see (or feel) Nick Carter’s sweat, you can
Image Credit: Justin Segura Die-hard fans who truly want an old-school BSB concert experience (read: feeling close enough to the guys to make aspirational eye contact) will be able to get it on the GA floor. But the team had the intimacy intrinsic to BSB shows top of mind more generally: the “No. 1” thing the group reiterated while planning stage design, says McLean, was that “we do love to engage with our fans.” A specially angled stage with lifts and thrusts allows for staggered entrances of different band members at different angles and brings them further into the audience. “There’s no real blind spots… in my opinion, there’s not a bad seat in the house,” McLean says.
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You may already want to book a return ticket
Image Credit: Justin Segura “There are two shows going on, just to be real about it,” says Rich, alluding to the ways in which the live action from the Boys and the pre-shot visuals are interwoven. Halpin calls the show “probably the most ambitious” that’s been done at Sphere yet, noting that it’s an entirely different experience from the floor all the way up to the 400 level seats: “If I was a ticket-buying fan, I would want to buy three tickets to see it from three different places.” From the start, he says, Rich + Tone described the show as “50% a movie experience, 50% a concert experience, and the blend of those two elements is key.”
McLean’s assessment is frank: “There’s no way you can watch us and everything that’s happening [onscreen] at the same time. Like, there are two shows going on at once, and the content that we have for this is insane.”
