Black & Blue world tour hits Toronto in February
Source: Toronto Sun
By JANE STEVENSON -- Toronto Sun
NEW YORK -- Toronto will be Black & Blue come early February.
That's when the Backstreet Boys arrive to play either the Air Canada Centre or SkyDome, as part of their just-announced Black & Blue world tour.
After travelling to six cities on six continents in just four days in a rented Boeing 737, the Florida fivesome arrived in The Big Apple yesterday to attend a chaotic, fan-filled press conference in the landmark Hudson Theater near Times Square.
In celebrating the release yesterday of their latest CD, Black & Blue, the Backstreet Boys broke into an a capella rendition of the first single, Shape Of My Heart.
Kicks off in January
They also briefly discussed their 23-date North American winter tour, which will kick off Jan. 22 in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
It was announced that Toronto will be the eighth stop, presumably in early February. The actual T.O. date, venue and ticket information will be released Monday at 5 p.m.
Vancouver will be the only other Canadian date.
"We're in the process of putting (the tour) together right now," Backstreeter Howie Dorough said, over screams coming from the theatre's two upper balconies filled with hundreds of female fans waving banners, signs and flags.
We actually just finalized our stage -- it's going to be at the end (of the arena). We did the last (tour) in-the-round. This time we decided to put it (the stage) at the end."
Dorough said the tour will extend into March and play mostly in arenas.
That's just the start of a frenetic year on the road, because the group then tours Mexico and South America in April; Europe in May and June; North America again for stadium shows from July to September; and finally Japan, Australia and New Zealand in October and November.
Dorough and his bandmates -- Kevin Richardson, A.J. McLean, Brian Littrell and Nick Carter -- were all dressed appropriately in black-and-blue duds. But before they took the stage, all hell had broken loose.
Reporters, photographers and cameramen were outnumbered by hysterical fans, and the video for Shape Of My Heart was repeatedly blasting from a large TV screen, much to the delight of the BSB army who sang along and danced.
At one point, they even chanted: "NSYNC sucks! NSYNC sucks!"
McLean had told Teen People that Black & Blue would easily beat the first-week North American sales record of 2.5 million set in March by NSYNC's No Strings Attached, but he downplayed that boast yesterday.
"Well, obviously it's going to be based on our fans," he said. "I was trying to think optimistically. Because, honestly, like we've said in many interviews before, the blatant truth is the fact that it's not about how many records we sell. It's not about quantity. It's about quality of the actual music. But materialistically, it would be nice to set new records."
Named for a 'silly reason'
The Backstreet Boys' previous album, the Grammy-nominated Millennium, sold 1.13 million copies last year in its first week.
As for the title of the new album, Richardson disputed the current explanation in Rolling Stone.
"It said we named it Black & Blue because we were bruised about the way we were treated (in the press)," Richardson said. "We named the album Black & Blue kind of for a silly reason. We couldn't think of anything else to name it, and we were doing a photo shoot and we were all dressed in black, standing in front of a blue background. Brian said, 'Let's call the album Black & Blue,' and it stuck."
And, no, the new album's more mature sound doesn't mean they'll be changing their group name to Backstreet Men.
"We'll always be the name Backstreet Boys, 'cause boys, to us, is slang for just friends," Dorough said. "There's the Beach Boys. There's the Pet Shop Boys. They never changed their name to the Beach Men or the Pet Men. So we decided to keep it Boys."
In keeping with that theme, when asked what was the best part about travelling around the world in a luxurious plane for 55 hours, Carter said: "I got to run around in my boxers a lot. It was pretty scary."
Not for their fans, who roared their approval.
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