On St. Paddy's Day last Thursday night March, 17 2016, baby Backstreet Nick Carter, hit up Toronto's Phoenix Concert Theater for his All American Tour. Honestly, did not think I would make it out to this event! It was 20:30ish when I arrived, shooting the supporting act Riley Biederer went out the window. I missed the media call for her set. It was a Live Nation event didn't even know I was covering it, no usual heads up email was received. Not a complete loss, I did make it for the headliner and did hear the last few minutes of Riley's set. From what I heard she didn't sound too bad, guess I will have to catch her if she returns to Toronto for a future gig.
It was packed to the back with females and a more guys floating about than I expected, obviously the majority was femmes. There were a few familiar faces lingering about and I met some new faces but also missed some wayback old school faces. Normally my homies worked with Carter, but sadly they've left us for the other side and much too soon I must say, especially Q! It has been what? Like four years since I covered this Backstreet Boys' solo set. I believe the last one was CNE 2012, ah yes (read it here), wow what a complete difference in energy from the crowd compared to that gig. I think it was last year or the year before that he did an album and tour with New Kid Jordan Knight. Of course Toronto was on the list but I missed the shows. Too busy chilling on the beach in Cuba or St Maartin, I honestly don't remember but I wasn't in the country. Carter sang the track he did with Knight "One More Time" in his set last night, not bad at all.
Carter has been busy, dancing his heart away on Dancing With The Stars, recording albums and making a tv movie with other boybanders. The film is titled "Dead 7" set to air on SyFy April 1st, watch the trailer here. Managed to finally see Carter's first short film, "The Pendant" good idea but the acting was beyond horrible. I know some horrorish flicks are campy with super shitty acting but this one was too ass. Hopefully the other films he wrote and starred in like "Dead 7" have better acting! However, it is a Western zombie flick filled with popstars... Soo probably not! Personally, I don't like Westerns my father was obsessed wtih Clint Eastwood films, it felt like they were all the same boring movie.
The set began with an instrumental medley intro, the first track being "Blow Your Mind" from his debut album. Carter came out looking like a super hipster with hipster glasses, ripped jeans, plaid shirt, a tie and to top it off, a leather jacket! The outfit wasn't that bad, but the glasses needed to go and he did take them off later. Anything is better than those ugly red hammer-space pants. The lighting was good even with the use of red, it was done properly so it wasn't drowning anyone out. Most of the new tunes had an 80's/90's feel to them but the content was still a little young lyrically. One of the tunes kinda reminded me of a Green Day track, I think it was the title track for his new record "All American" where he switched it up to "All Canadian" for the Canadian gigs. I was so thankful there was a media pit! Once we entered, the fans at the front of the barricade were already giving us the evil eye. We were only shooting three songs so they really needed to "Keep calm, the show will go on!" I copyright that saying so if anyone puts that on anything I get a 50% cut muahah. Next tune was "I'm Taking Off", the title track from his second album, no spacesuits this time! He was being backed by a four piece band and at some point during the set there were three acoustic guitars being played. Vocals were on par for most of the tracks, he did a twenty-three track set filled with a mixture of tunes from his solo records and Backstreet hits. The single "I Will Wait", was a ballad with more of a mature adult contemporary feel than his other tunes. There were some serious high falsetto notes in there and he hit them flawlessly. Fantastique job Nick, vocals have grown a lot, but you are not quite at your peak with your sound. There is still a bit more work needed to truly find your niche. If you can, try hitting up Jason Reeves he is an incredible performer/musician/writer but is very busy, tell him I sent you. Who knows you may write a hit together!
The show was sold out and the fans were loving every minute of Carter time. The decibles were still up there but it wasn't as deafening. I noticed he didn't bring anyone up on stage this time around. Or maybe he did and I missed it but I was there almost to the end of the super long set. I promised to meet up with a few friends for a drink or two, before heading home to edit these shots, it was St. Paddy's afterall! The band did a great job backing Carter up, they were so into the music, almost like it was their own material being played.
Congrats on the almost popping of your first child, he'll probably be a cutie! I hope you double up on security because you never know, which crazy bitch is lurking in the shadows and plotting the teefing of your baby. LOL! Everyone has a stalkerella and you have the original, more on her later. Nick's list of adult life is now almost complete, almost like a check list, Married...Check! Baby? In the oven, check! Relaxing on the hand gestures? Check! Ha ha had to throw that one in there. I do feel for your wifee though I'm sure she's endured a lot of nonsense from some of your super passionate fans. Near the end of his set he played a tune off his new record that he did with fellow Canadian Avril Lavigne titled "Get Over Me". The song is alright, not as catchy as "Horoscope". He also did a pretty decent cover of Oasis' "Wonderwall" and he finished off the set with Backstreet Boys hit tune "Backstreet's Back".
Carter has been getting much better with his music and guitar skills working hard but somehow also managed to get his ass arrested again. It seems like he and Florida's drinking establishments are not meant to be friends. Back in the mid/early 2000's I went to Florida on "vacation" expecting beaches and Disney but ended up getting stuck with two crazy bitches in Tampa! It was maybe about two weeks after Carter was booked the first time. Long story short, the two shady ladies had planned everything out, I didn't even know there was going to be three of us until the day before we left for the trip. My so called then "friend" The Krazy Korean told me her Swedish pal was joining us in Orlando for her friends’ birthday party...Little did I know she hadn't talked to him in years and was not actually invited to the celebrations, bitch didn't even have his number but I did. Stalkerella the Swede was getting pretty pissed off that she couldn't get a hold of Carter or find him. (She's the original Stalkerella, I gave her that name within minutes of meeting the woman haha and she so lives up to the name). Stalkerella went in and out of every single club and bar on the Ybor strip while we chilled at the Green Iguana. She even went into a gay club and the club he was arrested at two weeks earlier, it was farther out. Remember, we didn't have internet on our cell phones, I had a ghetto ass flip phone, smartphones were not yet invented.
The final stop for Stalkerella before she sprinted into the actual bar, was when she saw a Popo on the street and asked him if he knew where Nick Carter was, the places he hung out and if he saw him recently. This girl had no shame or boundaries whatsoever. The whole night she kept bugging me to call him, it was his birthday why harass him? There were other things we could have be doing, so many guys everywhere, we were on vacation! I told her when I called Nick the first time, he was with his flends getting sloshed at a bar called mangos. It ended up being a bar called Mangroves about half an hour away from where we were. I wonder if that bar is still open today. I was the only sober one other than Nick's hot friend who was the DD, he later drove all of us to the boons of Tampa in Nick's SUV to this hickorybush place called Ruskin. So Awkward, I felt like a psycho teenie by association, especially because I was the youngin'.
To conclude that random mentally unstable adventure, I would have never gone to Tampa if I knew she was that sick. But, Stalkerella promised to pay for our ride back to Orlando if we went with her to Tampa. Meanwhile, it was a trap! Stalkerella was totally planning to ditch us in the middle of nowhere. Even though we crashed his festivities, Nick’s drunk ass saved the day! Mostly thanks to his then BFF Tony for pointing it out. So thanks again Nick, for saving me from the dangerous streets of Tampa, I could have been kidnapped or worse! Least I could do as a grateful person, is cover his sets. As for the psycho twins, ghosted those bitches like I do with the "special" ex boyfriends, who needs enemies when you have "friends" like those! I could care less on thier continued stalking. Moral of the story, you can't trust a thirsty thirty year old desperado who is hunting down her prey! Whew, ten years later and I finally got the condensed version off my chest. He probably doesn't remember any of it, however, there is a VHS or Beta video of that night/day floating out there somewhere! One of his flends was always filming the shenanigans. If your ears want to hear some good ol' pop music or you want to see how Dancing with the Stars improved his skills or even if you're feeling a little nostalgic and need a pick me up. Perfect cure for all of the above is....Checking out a Nick Carter set if you can! Very curious, to see how he will develop once he finds the right sound. You can grab his newest record "All American" here.
