I rang in the final year of my 30s as I would have preferred this week, at a Backstreet Boys concert.
But so did a bunch of other people. I hoped for and expected MY people, of course—gangs of thirty- and forty-something women in Cricut-forged t-shirts who also know the precise hand motions to “Get Another Boyfriend”—but there were also other people.
Non-BSB people.
In particular, non-BSB men.
My friends and I have attended many a BSB concert over the course of our twenty-five-year fandom, but this was the first one at which we saw large numbers of men. A few of them were fans, for sure—I heard some lovely baritones rounding out Kevin’s lines on “Show Me the Meaning”—but many of them appeared the opposite.
These were men who wore not Millennium t-shirts but tank tops and backward hats representing non-local sports teams. These were men who spent the concert not singing along or even nodding appreciatively, but high-fiving one another as they mocked AJ’s down-camera sway.
Just bad seating, I thought at first. We were at a large, outdoor venue, after all, and we happened to land by a few unfortunate apples dragged there by their Brian-loving wives. They were enjoying their own sort of 90s nostalgia, reenacting the days when making fun of boy bands was a joke even a well-trained Labrador could land. And we had the bad luck to sit behind them.
So I thought, until Nick polled the audience to see who had never been to a BSB concert before. I almost laughed at the question. Other than the preteens in front of us, who we were delighted to usher into our geriatric fandom, who would attend their first Backstreet Boys concert now? In 2022?
Hundreds of hands went up around us.
And my friend and I clutched the sides of our faces in horror.
Look, I know this is a common fan sentiment. I know many a teen girl wearing a Nirvana t-shirt has been asked to name one song other than “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and I know the disdain she has received for her answer. I know music fandoms are always being infiltrated by casual fans, ironic fans, non-fans who just bought the whole summer series and showed up because the weather looked nice.
I just didn’t think it would happen to mine.
There was a time—a time that lasted until five minutes ago, I believe—when if you didn’t love the Backstreet Boys, you wouldn’t be caught dead at one of their concerts. Liking the Backstreet Boys has always been horrendously, hopelessly lame, and so you could rest assured that if you spent 80 bucks to go see them, for those few hours you’d be safe to sing and dance and shriek to your heart’s content.
Now I realize how precious this time was. Some of my warmest memories are of the overwhelming female energy of 2010s BSB concerts, when we’d all aged out of competing with one another but not out of knowing the songs off of the German import album.
These were spaces I’d never been in before. Arenas and theaters packed with women. In 2014, I left the opening act at Banker’s Life in search of a bathroom and found the sign for the men’s room taped over with WOMEN by the event staff. As a few thousand of us streamed from a Las Vegas theater in 2019, instead of jostling and tripping over beer cans, we sang “I Want it That Way,” unbidden and a cappella, all the way back to the lobby.
It might sound silly, but I can look back now and see how that Vegas show, in particular, began to shape my views about the collective power of women. There we all were, products of the 1990s, trained to slut-shame Britney and hate-watch Jessica, trained to compete and gossip and exclude, singing together like howler monkeys. Not making fun of each other. Not sizing each other up. Just uniting around the shared experience of still loving problematic pop songs from men we thought we’d marry someday.
I began to understand that we women contain multitudes. And that whatever we’ve been conditioned to be isn’t what we have the power to become.
You’re not so much feeling that with the drunk guys pelvic thrusting a few rows down.
LE SIGH. I know I don’t get to police who enjoys live music or what they’re choosing to do with their evenings. I know the gentlemen in front of me had every right to stumble straight out of their CrossFit gyms into the laser lights of “Anywhere for You” and to har har har at our unbridled joy as much as they liked.
I maybe just wish I hadn’t had to see them.
Couldn’t we have put them someplace up high, in the back? A special non-fan section? With easy access to cans of PBR? With ample space to mock the dance moves I rewound a single VHS tape over 150 times to perfect in my best friend’s basement?
Perhaps this was all in service of the greater fandom. Perhaps later, one of those men, settled in a recliner after a long day, will crush one last beer can on his forehead and stay his wife’s hand at the CD player. “No Blake Shelton tonight, babe,” he might say. “Play me that one about being…incomplete.”
Or, more likely, this is how a fandom ends. Not with a bang but a fist-bump. Brian has been plagued with vocal problems for years now, and Kevin, who skipped at least one reunion album, is five years shy of earning his AARP card. Maybe this is the last BSB concert I’ll ever see.
Maybe this concert audience was a mercy. A gentle reminder that life is change. I’m not 16 anymore, I didn’t marry Brian Littrell (probably for the best), and a Backstreet Boys concert is no longer a reliable haven for feminine energy. If this is the end of the BSB road, maybe this concert will give me less to miss.
Besides, *NSYNC still might get back together, right? Please?
