PITTSBURGH — Backstreet Boys were back in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, and suddenly 1997 seemed quaint.

Was life really so simple then, that a generation of girls would become smitten by five ballad-belting young men busting cleverly choreographed, PG-rated dance moves?

There are just four Backstreet Boys now — Nick Carter, Howie Dorough, A.J. McLean and Brian Littrell, whose young son, Baylee, was first on stage Wednesday, cutely greeting a few thousand predominantly female fans. Seriously, I haven’t seen the men’s room at a concert so sparsely occupied since 1997, at Lilith Fair.

The Backstreet Boys kicked off their one-hour-50-minute set with their chunkiest, funkiest, hardest-driving tune, 1997’s “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back).”

Joined on stage by a lone instrumentalist — a drummer/DJ — the multi-million-selling Boys-turned-men proved early on they’ve still got solid voices and slick dance moves.

McLean added a slice of hip-hop to the second selection, “We’ve Got It Going On.”

Alas, this was a night dedicated to sugary love ballads. To someone who wasn’t a fan back in the day, those songs sounded dated, but spectators ate it up, singing along on many tunes.

For humorous intent, and to pass time between costume changes, a video screen showed each individual Backstreet Boy inserted into real-life movie scenes. McLean hammed it up alongside Edward Norton in “Fight Club,” Dorough took the pedal to the metal in “The Fast and the Furious,” and Littrell interacted with Patrick Dempsey and Amy Adams in “Enchanted.”

Those movie spoof videos were a cool idea, but the jokes fell flat, with the exception of Carter’s insertion into “The Matrix,” where he assumed the Keanu Reeves role. Laurence Fishburne’s character says to him, “You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world … you don’t know what it is, but it’s there like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad… do you know what I’m talking about?”

The camera pans to Carter, who replies, “N’Sync?”

Well, maybe you had to be there.

On several numbers, the Backstreet Boys acted out lyrical scenarios with four pretty female dancers. The routines were tame by today’s standards.

Disappointingly, there wasn’t any pyrotechnics, or much of any stage tricks. In a concert year where Carrie Underwood flew high above her crowd in a pickup truck, the Flaming Lips’ singer rode atop fans’ hands in a big see-through ball, and 68-year-old Paul McCartney risked getting his eyebrows singed by flames and fireworks, the Backstreet Boys’ played it too safely.

When they performed in 2005 at Rock Club (the predecessor to Station Square’s Saddle Ridge), the Backstreet Boys experimented with crowd-surfing, and were more inclined to take musical risks.

On Wednesday, they were content to whisk fans down memory lane with — a few new songs and slightly thinning hair aside — a time-capsule concert. For nearly two hours, it was 1997 all over again, and the target audience loved it.

“Well, that was the best show ever,” said a fan, who I’d guess was 20, as she scuttled through the post-show parking lot, as a throng of young women crowded outside the Backstreet Boys’ tour bus, craving a look, a touch or a photo of the guys.

The concert’s opening act, Collier Township’s Tino Coury, also caught the ladies’ eyes with his six-song set that ended with his radio single, “Diary.” Halfway through the Backstreet Boys’ performance, Coury tried strolling through the crowd, only to be stopped by a batch of young women who insisted he pose for photos. Coury’s grin said it all.

He’s got a good voice and a likable stage presence, but if Coury wants to be viewed as a serious artist, he needs to hire a band, pronto. He looked silly alone on stage singing to backing tracks.

Backstreet Boys setlist

Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)
We’ve Got It Going On
PDA
Quit Playing Games
As Long As You Love Me
This Is Us
Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely
All I Have to Give
She’s a Dream
I’ll Never Break Your Heart
The Call
The One
Bigger
Shape of My Heart
More On That
Undone
Incomplete
Larger Than Life
All of Your Life
Bye Bye Love
Encore
If I Knew Then
I Want It That Way
Second encore
Straight Through My Heart

Source: Beaver County Times