'N SYNC in Concert

The fervor started on the T with the gaggle of pre-teen girls singing "I'm Too Sexy." It continued in the Fleet Center concourse, where entire families mingled with 13-year-olds dressed in an amusingly risque fashion. On the floor it was even worse, where a sold out arena reverberated with the ear-piercing screams of little girls bursting to be in the presence of their embodiment of The Perfect Men.

It wasn't the Celtics causing this commotion. No, this was the stuff that prepubescent dreams are made of, an 'N SYNC concert. Their concert on Tuesday night, with Tatyana Ali '02 and B*Witched opening, showed off how talent, energy and a whole lot of cuteness go a long way at any age.

Opening the show with four songs from their eponymous debut, Ireland's B*Witched had the excited crowd in the palm of their hands with their twee brand of Girl Power. This foursome inevitably encourages comparisons to the Spice Girls and All Saints. However, their youthful exuberance (the oldest member of the group is 19, the youngest 17) and enchanting Irish jigging showed that this group has a definite niche in the girl group genre.

Out came the next performer amid adoring screams. While most of us at Harvard are mired in midterms hell, Tatyana Ali '02 ended her night by being carried offstage by two very buff male dancers. (If the Harvard libraries had such a service, the amount of studying that would surely skyrocket.) But the 20-year-old Ali has taken the semester off to tour with 'N SYNC, and her time was well spent.

Wearing a sparkly purple midriff top and baggy leather pants, Ali started her set with her hit single "Daydreamin." This groove-oriented, high-energy track played well in the arena, as did her finale, "Boy You Knock Me Out." An entertaining crowd-pleaser was a tightly choreographed dance to a medley of Will Smith songs, a nod to her past role as Ashley on "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air."

However, other mellower ballads like her personal favorite "Kiss The Sky" weren't as successful. Her obviously strong singing was drowned out by the screams of her fans and also the cavernous arena. In a smaller venue, her varied style would have been heard and appreciated more thoroughly.

Then the lights went up, and the buzz of anticipation grew. The braces-adorned crowd, their faces scrawled with declarations of adoration, madly waved banners proclaiming their undying love for 'N SYNC. The cheers were deafening. It was like nothing I have ever experienced.

When the lights finally did go down, the surrealness of the entire situation was realized in a bizarre way. Outstage appeared a giant muscled monster controlled as a puppet. I half-expected the band to appear from the creature like something out of the Power Rangers. When the band did emerge, though, they were wearing body suits adorned with day-glo paint. Each grabbed a lighted stick and did a trippy tribal dance. It was absolutely Disney World on acid.

After a few interminable minutes, the strangeness subsided, and the boys danced out in full trackpants-ed glory to "Here We Go." Their dancing was pinpoint perfection, the harmonies glorious, their faces shining beacons of perfection. They fed off the crowd's excitement and became impossible to resist.

Indeed, any and all moves the band made were greeted with screams of appreciation. Justin and J.C. are the obvious hotties of the group, as evidenced by their multiple close-ups on the video screen and the marked increase in cheers every time they approached the sides of the stage. But the largely female audience had no qualms cheering madly whenever any members of the group did one of their countless amazingly deft pelvic thrusts.

'N SYNC isn't just about sex and pretty faces, though. These for the most part young'uns (their ages are 18, 19, 20, 22 and 27) have actual talent. Their roots in acapella were revealed by the dreadlocked Chris as the group launched into a harmonically gorgeous "I Drive Myself Crazy." Other ballads like "God Must Have Spent A Little More Time on You," which the band dedicated to a lucky few girls who were given seats onstage, also showcased the band's vocal skills.

The scariest moment of deja vu came during their version of Kool and the Gang's "Celebration." The opening dance moves seemed to be directly lifted from the repertoire of 'N SYNC's predecessors, Boston's own New Kids On The Block. I started having flashbacks to "The Right Stuff" and for a brief second wondered if they would parody their whole boy band phenomenon-frenzy by covering that song. Sadly, it was not to be, but it would have been a nice touch of irony from a band sometimes compared to that late 80s merchandising empire/band.

The boys from 'N SYNC have enough hits to stand on their own, however. The powerful encore of "I Want You Back," their version of Christopher Cross' "Sailing" (during which the angelic-looking boys, now wearing white, were flown by hydraulics over the teeming masses) and the barnburner "Tearin' Up My Heart" brought the already-hyped crowd into frenzied convulsions of dancing and screaming.

So all of these performers on Tuesday may be young, but they knew how to put on a dynamic concert and mesmerize the crowd. It wasn't incredibly difficult given that the average age of the attendees was probably 12, but something has to be said for stage presence and vocal talent. And as 'N SYNC stated themselves Tuesday night, "You got it!"