A roller-coaster car is easing back into the station at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure in Orlando. It’s full of screaming girls. “It was that scary?” Chris Kirkpatrick calls out to the shriekers. As a matter of fact, it is: The Dueling Dragons coaster dispenses with the usual slow buildup, immediately thrusting the rider into a terrifying, but never mind. The passengers are screaming at *NSYNC, of course, whom they’ve spied sneaking onto the ride. Even from a queasy distance, camouflaged by some new coifs (no more bandannas—Justin has a buzz cut!) and facial hair mutations (that’s no caterpillar on JC’s chin!), they’re still ‘n-mistakable to their fans.
Now it’s *NSYNC’s turn. Having the base camp for their 2001 PopOdyssey tour rehearsals set up on a nearby Universal sound-stage has its privileges; one is having a tour guide who’ll not only cut you in line but point out which seats offer the most stomach-churning sensation. Lest anyone suspect that 30 million in worldwide album sales later, the five some have become jaded, we’re pleased to report that like any young loop-the-loop thrill seekers, they still throw their arms in the air and wave ‘em like they just don’t care. “My balls are in my stomach!” yells Kirkpatrick from his back-row spot during one particularly emasculating descent, anatomically incorrect and elated about it.
This would be the time to segue into the inevitable cliché' about *NSYNC’s roller-coaster career, except that that would imply some valleys as well as peaks. So much for the introductory anecdote as metaphor, then, because despite fears—or, in some cases, hopes—that the teen-pop boom might be entering a recessionary phase, there are few, if any, signs of a downturn for *NSYNC. If they don’t set a record for first-week album sales with the upcoming Celebrity, it’ll be only because they come up short of their own all-time high-water mark: last year’s 2.4 million opening frame for No Strings Attached. And they’re the only act venturing an all-stadiums tour this year, doing 43 dates in 35 cities, beginning May 23 in Jacksonville, Fla. Only a handful have been instant sellouts, but they’re still topping last year’s business, when they played mostly arenas with a few ballparks thrown in.
Maybe floating, not roller-coastering, is the more apt symbol. They’ll be doing that, too, not as part of any theme-park recess, but on stage. It’s an *NSYNC tour tradition, with the ante always being upped. “I think the whole show’s gonna be fun—except that part,” says Kirkpatrick, back at headquarters. “I’m really freaking out. I’ve had nightmares about it.” Touring a couple of years ago, the quintet was suspended 30 feet in the air. Last summer, they emerged at 40 feet. This time, they’ll start out 80 feet high at stage rear, before sliding down to a front-and-center spot. No telling where Kirkpatrick’s privates will be then.
All this “flying” has resulted in a This Is Spinal Tap moment or two in years past. Once, in Michigan, remembers Justin Timberlake, “I was stuck in the air for literally five minutes. The head rigger had to come up on top of the rig and pull back my cord by hand. That changed the show a little bit.”
I said, ‘Detroit, I’m not gonna leave!’ And… they were happy about it, I guess.” How about, conversely, any Hard Day's Night-style moments? Surely somewhere they’ve made a wrong turn and been chased through the streets by hordes of young ladies simultaneously experiencing important hormonal changes? “No, we don’t run from fans,” scoffs Timberlake, as if he were a woodsman who’d just been asked if he runs from mountain lions.
“Yeah,” adds Kirkpatrick, “we had to talk to the Beatles and explain to ‘em, ‘You shouldn’t run! It just creates more of a frenzy!’ And don’t let ‘em fool you—Ringo is not as fast as he looks in the movie.
*NSYNC are plenty speedy, hotly pursued or no, when it comes to record making. If it seems like only yesterday that No Strings came out (it was March 2000), well, you’re dating yourself. To younger fans, it feels like an eternity. “The group is at that phase where I believe they could release an album every six months and sell a ton every six months,” says Jive Records president Barry Weiss, pining for the ‘50s and ‘60s, when two albums a year was more common than today’s typical three-year intervals. “I think it’s the record business that has got it wrong. There’s no reason why it should be different from what Elvis and the Beatles did. What prevents that from happening is radio, where they have 16-to-24-week cycles for each single. But right now there’s an insatiable audience for anything *NSYNC, and we and the group are here to fill that demand.”
Yet Celebrity doesn’t hit until July 24—which, defying conventional wisdom and duly frustrating fans, is more than two months into a three-month tour. Isn’t that backward? Weiss admits, “it’s an interesting question. This is a novel approach on [manager] Johnny Wright’s part, but he’s looking at the tour as being part and parcel of an amazing launch campaign for the album.”
It may be an anthem to baby boomer to carry on any Beatles analogy one moment longer. But for a while, there was the implication in the air that if in the midst of all this mayhem, the Backstreet Boys were the Beatles of this generation, then *NSYNC were Herman’s Hermits. But along came No Strings Attached, an album that has SoundScanned 10.5 million, versus a “mere” 5 million for the Boys’ latest. And at the last minute, fearing a bear market, the Backstreeters halted their plan to play stadiums this summer and settled for arenas. So maybe in this slight reversal of fortune, it’s the Boys singing “I’m Into Something Good” and *NSYNC starring in Help! …all figuratively speaking.
When I finish this long-winded analogy, Kirkpatrick walks round the table and plants a kiss on my forehead. The other four crack up. But they resist attempts to bait them into schadenfreude about their labelmates and sometime rivals. “I don’t think they’re doing that bad,” says JC Chasez. “Believe me, selling out arenas is a very good gig.” Adds Timberlake: “Things have been said in the past, and things will probably be said in the future. But I got nothing but love for everybody.”
He’s got special love for another Jive labelmate. Timberlake and Britney Spears came clean a few months ago on the worst-kept secret in entertaindom. “The decision to make something public was hers, and I gave her that option,” says the spoken-for ‘throb. “It’s not that she cared that people knew we were together, it’s that she didn’t want to seem like that girl who goes out with that guy. And I didn’t want to seem like that guy who goes out with that girl.”
“That’s the only reason her records are selling,” chimes in Kirkpatrick. “Because she’s that girl who goes out with that guy.”
Justin: “Shut up, Chris.” (This is good-natured enough. Later, Timberlake, at 20 the youngest member, will whisper about class clown Kirkpatrick, at 29 the eldest, “You know the strangest part? He’s not on drugs.” Against all odds, *NSYNC seem to still enjoy being in the same room and on the same coaster.)
Boys will be… well, not too much like the more ballad-oriented Backstreet Boys, anyway. “We like the high-energy stuff, as opposed to a boy-band thing, or the slow pop bubblegum songs that every guy band does,” says Joey Fatone, explaining why Celebrity focuses on state-of-the-art dance music. “Meanwhile, I don’t know if you want to consider us boys anymore. With the exception of Justin, everybody’s over 21. So we’re kind of dabbling in getting into dating and stuff like that.”
Agrees Lance Bass: “I don’t think you can label us anymore as ‘Oh, they’re just for tweens.’ But some older people who like the records are scared to come to the shows. It’s the noise factor; younger kids get crazy and scream. We actually thought about one day having our regular tour and then we’d have an extra show just for adults—21 and. over.” An *NSYNC show minus mass hysteria? That’d be like Dueling Dragons without the turbo. Face your fear, drinking-age America. It’s not that scary.
