Backstreet Boys take over Duval Street to start MTV's summer programming
Source: keynoter.com and MTV
By Bruce Laplaunte and Michael Welber
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Two thousand teen-aged girls - and the occasional boy - skipped school to swoon, hang from building balconies and catch maybe a glimpse of the hottest boy band on the international music scene. Tuesday, the Backstreet Boys turned Key West's Duval Street into one of the most sought-after concert venues, as the band performed to open "MTV's Summer in the Keys," during which the music channel's broadcasting will originate from Key West. The show will air at noon Saturday. Under a gray and humid but uncomfortably hot sky, the five boys in the band tantalized the crowd with short interviews, handshakes from the stage and smiles that made the girls melt. And, of course, with the music.
At Greene and Duval streets, mom Christy McLellan said she took the advice offered in a story on the Backstreet Boys in Saturday's Keynoter and phoned for tickets. She was asked if her children are 16 and over.
"I phoned the number in the paper and the fellow said, 'Honestly now, Christy, honestly: Are your kids between 16 and 22?' I just had surgery last week, so I was in my honest mode and I told him the truth," she said.
She and two other moms brought their 16-year-olds - plus their second-graders. They weren't of age, but the younger ones got the early-morning ringside look, anyway, and by 1 p.m. found a spot, with their mom and the others, to watch all the goings-on on a small TV in a corner of Sloppy Joe's. "Look at this," said McLellan. "It's live outside and we're all in here watching on TV! Not the 16-year-olds, though - they've abandoned us big time!"
Judging by the body movements of the three moms - gyrating whenever the warm-up DJs struck up some music - they, too, like the music of the Backstreet Boys. "Sure," said Dana Jachelski. "My kids have basically every Backstreet Boys album - oh-oh, I guess that's CD - they have put out. They're good boys, fine, upstanding young Americans. They're good for our kids."
Just outside the door of Sloppy Joe's where the moms and kids swayed to and fro, Mark Bucher, a Key West resident who has taken a job with Take One Productions, the security firm hired by MTV for the summer stay in the city, watched with amusement as DJs fired up the crowd. His two daughters, one 18, the other 13, were somewhere in the audience. Bucher, an electrician out of work, got a tip that the security firm was looking for personnel and now he has a job until mid-July. What's his take on the music the youngsters are taken with?
"I'm more from the Aerosmith era, the Rolling Stones era," he said. "But I have to admit, I listen to the Backstreet Boys, too. They're OK." On hearing that MTV was trucking in an audience from Miami by the busload, some local questioned why outsiders got tickets for the event. But such talk was put aside for the electricity of the day. Three Key West High School students said tickets were no problem to obtain, unless someone wanted to be right at stage level. The students all had tickets that someone at Key West City Hall got for them.
Yet none of the three said they were there to see the Backstreet Boys; all said they don't like the group's music. The female just shrugged when asked why she was there. But her two male friends had an easy answer: "We're here for the girls." And the girls were there, all over the place. One group of young women said they left Miami at 3:30 a.m. to travel to Key West to see DJ Skribble, KK Holiday, Teck and Molly Sims, from "House of Style."
Then when the Boys were introduced, 2,000 deafening shrieks came from the pavement of Duval and surrounding areas. Crew members on stage motioned for applause, but that wasn't necessary, as the young girls exhibited their own version of Beatlemania.
It was a hot time - and not just due to the star power.
In addition to the temperatures in the 80s and the humidity, spotlights kept the air as warm as a July Keys afternoon. Relief came in the form of hoses squirted from the stage to the masses, and cases of bottled water were brought in.
The primary locations in Key West from which MTV will broadcast throughout the summer are the Oak Beach Inn (formerly Hooter's) and the Wyndham Reach Resort. Shows originating from the Keys throughout the summer include "Hot Zone," "Say What? Karaoke," "MTV's Sink or Swim" and "Carmen Electra's Hypermix." Anyone interested in being a contestant on any of the network's shows can call the casting hotline at (305) 535-7257.
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