The Backstreet Boys may have taken a break — quite a long one at that — from recording and touring, but their fans have not stopped loving their music or the solo acts that came from the group.
Currently touring on his own, Nick Carter drew in a sold-out crowd of 700 fans on Nov. 10 at Maxwell’s.
The first opening act was The New Electric, a pop group from Calgary, who are touring their way across Canada with Carter. A group I had never heard of before the show, their performance definitely had me listening to their music following the show.
The next act was Dan Talevski, a pop artists from Georgetown, Ontario. Talevski got his start on YouTube and has worked with Carter before on the 2009 Backstreet Boys world tour.
Talevski spoke about his career in the music industry so far. “I was signed to Interscope Records in 2007 and realized it wasn’t for me after I had someone always telling me what to wear, how to dance, how to sing. I decided to come back home and write my own music.”
His style reminded me of Michael Jackson and his music was great to dance to, and it will be on my party playlist moving into the holiday season.
Carter then took the stage and opened with “Blow Your Mind” from his first solo album, “Now or Never” which came out in 2002.
Carter kept the audience engaged with a mix of music from all three of his albums, including the one he is touring for right now, All American, and all the Backstreet Boys hits including “The Call” and “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back).”
Partway into his set Carter lost his voice and would leave the stage after each song, probably to get some relief for his throat. Instead of stopping the show, he continued to sing with some songs being almost unbearably screechy.
He stopped partway through a statement to address his throat and commented that he sounded like Kurt Cobain, launching into “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” It was a great cover, but instead of singing covers he should have taken a couple minutes to have a hot drink and come back feeling slightly better.
Between changing outfits, rocking his ‘90s boyband dance moves, and having fans sing every word to every song, he would add comments such as: “Gimme a second while I take my clothes off,” and “so it’s getting chilly outside; I figured a little Nick Carter could warm you up.”
He also commented on social media and Much Music (whatever happened to good old Much Music?), “You used to have to go to a show in person to see the shit artists would do.”
My dreams of seeing The Backstreet Boys live partially came true, and I loved singing out loud to their songs with 699 other fans, but I would have loved it even more if the loss of Carter’s voice hadn’t given me a migraine.
This is a horrible article. First of all, this statement is incorrect ” The Backstreet Boys may have taken a break — quite a long one at that — from recording and touring”. The Backstreet Boys have continuously been touring and producing albums, as a real fan you would have known that they are currently working on their next studio album and preparing for their Las Vegas Residency. Your article is not a precise account of the experience of the concert, as for being one artist on his own Nick Carter did an astounding job and definitely gave us a show worth our money. I went to this concert as well, and enjoyed every moment of it. Yes Nick did have a sore throat but he worked past that and still put on a stellar show. Overall, the pictures are amazing but I think you could have done a much better job the article.
Awww, I enjoyed the article, until I read his loss of voice gave you a migraine. That’s overly dramatic and probably not even true but was caused by other things. Took the fun out of reading though.