BACKSTREET BOYS LAUNCH 'MILLENNIUM' WORLD TOUR TO THUNDEROUS, HYSTERICAL RESPONSE IN BELGIUM As their MILLENNIUM album remains perched at #1 for the second consecutive week--selling 621,622 copies last week alone, bringing the total to 1,755,600 copies--the BACKSTREET BOYS launched their world tour June 2 in Ghent, Belgium to an absolutely thunderous response from thousands of enraptured fans.
Featuring one highlight and hit after another, the BACKSTREET BOYS--NICK CARTER, HOWIE DOROUGH, BRIAN LITTRELL, A.J. McLEAN and KEVIN RICHARDSON--performed a nearly two-hour set with 18 songs (including the current smash "I Want It That Way"), six musicians and 10 dancers.
Throughout the action-packed concert--which featured elaborate, state of the art staging, lighting, pyrotechnics and costume changes--scores of girls fainted and some were carried out on stretchers. "It was absolute hysteria," remarked an observer on the scene.
No doubt about it, the BACKSTREET BOYS--presently recognized as the biggest pop group in the world--came and conquered. And Belgium was only the beginning. The 42 European dates encompass 13 countries and will wrap August 7 in Stockholm, Sweden. The next show is tonight (Friday, June 4) in Frankfurt, Germany. A U.S. tour is set to launch in mid-September (details TBA).