News

Many fans may already know that one of Chris's dogs passed away last week. If you atteneded the concert in Chicago lat Thursday (*rolls eyes*), you may have noticed Chris's "unusual" deamanor. A tour "insider" informed me, "Didn't you hear? One of his dogs was killed... I don't mean strangled by a human, but another bigger dog attacked him... it was pretty bad and he died." It's very sad, we all know how much Chris loves his dogs. He was completely 'off' the entire night during *NSYNC's performance on Thursday. During Friday's show, he was in much higher spirits... some people have just taken the sympathy a little too far though, some girls sitting next to me made a sign that said "R.I.P BUSTA" on it and shoved it in Chris's face during the medley. Chris saw it, rolled his eyes and turned around avoided looking anywhere near our section after that. Yikes.

"*NSYNC gave its Detroit-area fans an unexpected encore on Monday night (April 1)--and it was no April's Fool joke. Following its performance at the Palace Of Auburn Hills, the quintet followed the recommendation of opening act Tony Lucca, a Detroit-area native, and took its tour bus to catch a set by local funk band the Brothers Groove, at Fifth Avenue Billiards in the suburb of Royal Oak.

After hanging out and watching the group play for awhile, *NSYNC's J.C. Chasez delighted the packed club by finally accepting an invitation to hop onstage and did some impromptu verses on the Brothers Groove original "One, Two, Three."

"He just riffed, and that's all we wanted him to do," the group's frontman Chris Codish tells LAUNCH. "I'm sure he has to do everything rehearsed all the time. This was a chance to go back to music the way it used to be and just make up stuff and be in the moment. I knew he could sing his ass off. I actually told him, 'Look, man, we're just gonna play these two chords, all you gotta do is sing over these.'"

There was some booing from the Brothers Groove faithful, but Codish quieted the hecklers by telling them, "You're just booing 'cause you can't sing like that."

Chasez chatted with Codish and his bandmates for a while after the jam, before *NSYNC boarded its tour bus to head to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where it performed last night (April 2).

JC Chasez of *NSYNC was interviewed by Jay Towers of 93.1 WDRQ in Detroit on April 1. When asked if JC ever wants to go shopping, what does he do, he replied, "If I wanna go to the grocery store, I'll go either to, ya know, the Walmart at 2 o'clock in the morning, and I'll be fine, because that's usually when I'm up anyway, [sighing] and that's... usually you don't get hungry until about 2 am. So, I mean, and that actually suits me fine... I mean it's kind of like I've grown accustom to my schedule so I really don't even stress about it."

"On the same day that the space shuttle Atlantis launched from Cape Canaveral, headed for the International Space Station, 'NSYNC's Lance Bass was continuing his own preparations to launch into space toward the same orbiting outpost.

Monday for the premiere of "The Sweetest Thing" in New York, Bass said he's trying to maximize his downtime during 'NSYNC's current tour to fit in additional medical tests in the U.S. before he heads to Russia yet again to see if he can qualify for a fall mission aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket.

"I'm still testing to see if I can make the mission," Bass said, "and I have another week and a half of that. ... If I pass these tests, then I'll go to Russia to pass the next six tests, which are a lot easier."

Bass had previously undergone a rigorous battery of examinations in March to qualify for a seat on the Russian mission that's set to launch on October 22 and return to earth on November 1 (see " 'NSYNC's Lance Bass In Moscow For Space Tests"). At the time, the pop star went through centrifugal-force and zero-gravity tests, as well as a full physical.

"You had a different doctor for every part of your body," Bass said of the tests at the Institute for Bio-Medical Problems in Moscow, "and to make sure it all works from your eyes, nose, ears, whatever, every internal organ so I know I'm very healthy. They passed me all from those tests so now I'm doing a set of tests here in America. Once I pass that, and I hope I do, then I'm off to Russia, ... and hopefully I'll be cleared by the Russians to ... live there for six months and train to be a cosmonaut, which I'm very excited about."

Destiny Productions President David Krieff, who accompanied Bass to Moscow to film the experience for a possible television special, said that Bass' tests in the U.S. are being conducted "with guidance from Russia." "There's only a couple of other things he has to do — mental agility, teamwork, physical abilities," Krieff said. "And 80 percent of the tests will be done by the time he goes to Russia. The thinking is that he'll go right into training in Moscow. We're getting ready to rock here."

Though Bass' visa to Russia has already been arranged, he'll still need the approval of the Russian space agency before he can get on the short list to be the one civilian among a team of three other cosmonauts to visit the International Space Station on the mission. If Bass makes the cut, he will be the third civilian in space. South African Mark Shuttleworth, who is currently training at Star City near Moscow, will be the second civilian to go into space, with his trek to the ISS booked for April 20.

With the testing at such an accelerated rate, Bass is anticipating having little time off between 'NSYNC's last tour date in Orlando, Florida, on April 28 and his flight to Russia. "I don't even think I'll be able to celebrate my birthday [on May 4]," he said. "I'll probably be on a plane, hopefully. But it'll be fun. It's a great gift if I get to go."

"Chris Kirkpatrick of 'N Sync has signed on for a recurring vocal guest spot for the Nickelodeon cartoon The Fairly OddParents. "I think it's a funny show," says Kirkpatrick, an avowed cartoon fanatic. "There's so many cartoons that are out now that kind of talk down to kids, and make kids feel like, 'This is a circle. This is my head. This is the body. This is me at school being a kid.' Fairly OddParents is one of the cartoons they watch and just laugh at, because they're not afraid to make those fart jokes and they're not afraid to talk to the kids on their level and say, 'This is funny. Of course you should laugh at this.'"

Kirkpatrick's character for the series is a pop singer named Chip Skylark. In the first episode he taped (titled "Boys in the Band," set to air April 6th), Skylark gets kidnapped by a crazed fan. The show takes jabs at the boy band phenomenon throughout, something that appealed to Kirkpatrick. "The character Chip is just so corny," he says. "It poked so much fun, I couldn't pass it up. It was the perfect opportunity to say we know what the stereotype is and we know what the joke is. The joke will be on everybody else, if five to ten years from now we're still making hit records."

In another episode titled "Shiny Teeth," Skylark's teeth are stolen by an evil dentist named Dr. Bender. "All my character talks about are his teeth, his shiny white teeth," Kirkpatrick says. "I'm sure my acting abilities were amazing in this one because I'm just mumbling."

Meanwhile, 'N Sync are in the midst of their Celebrity Tour, which features Smash Mouth and Ginuwine alternating as openers. "It's been going really, really well," Kirkpatrick says. "We've had all sorts of great reviews. I haven't seen a bad review yet. Everybody who comes to the show says this is our best tour because it's very interactive. We're all about making everybody feel welcome and like they're part of the show, and you can see up there that we're just clowning each other and having a good time."

With four months off after the tour ends April 28th in Orlando -- and band mate Lance Bass determined to get shot into space -- Kirkpatrick plans to use the time to write music for some outside projects. "I've written some stuff that's not exactly poppy," he says. "It would be more something that a rock band would do, and I might maybe dabble with that a little bit. Like I said, this group comes before anything for me. I love the group, I love the music. I love having a good time with the guys. That's the priority on my list. Everything else is second. I don't know if I'd do a solo record. I think it would be more like just another rock album or something."

"*NSYNC singer Joey Fatone has a small role in the upcoming Joel Zwick-directed romantic comedy, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, due in theaters April 19. The movie is about a young Greek girl named Toula (Nia Vardalos) who defies family tradition by falling for a non-Greek high school teacher named Ian (John Corbett), while at the same time trying to come to grips with her heritage and her own cultural identity. Fatone portrays Toula's handsome cousin in the film.

Fatone, who is in fact of Italian heritage, told LAUNCH that his fellow castmembers gave him a few Greek lessons while shooting the movie. "They were actually teaching me all dirty words, believe it or not--some that I probably will not be able to say right now. It was interesting, though, to be able to pick that up," he said. "It's a tough language, though. I mean, the line that I say in the movie is pretty easy, but there was some stuff that they were trying to teach me. . .even some normal stuff that was. . .It was weird. It was hard--very tough."

BIGGER THAN LIVE, an IMAX theatrical release of the group's electrifying "No Strings Attached" tour. Airing at 8 p.m. ET Thursday, April 25, the special will grant the audience an all-access, up-close-and-personal look at one of the hottest bands in the world.

The one-hour special catapults fans directly into the frenzy of the lavish live performances, which are an *NSYNC trademark. The film includes the group's most popular songs including "Tearing Up My Heart," "Bye Bye Bye," "It's Gonna Be Me" and "This I Promise You." The concert special will also feature the group's phenomenal dance moves captured by seven special cameras, and interviews that were conducted specifically for this film.

Filmed at four locations in the United States, the one-hour special *NSYNC: BIGGER THAN LIVE chronicles the tour from the group's platinum album "No Strings Attached," which sold nearly 4 million copies in its first three weeks of release.

"*NSYNC is one of the most popular groups today, particularly with our target audience of teens and young adults," said Jordan Levin, President, Entertainment of The WB. "We are fortunate to be able to acquire this exclusive television premiere IMAX film and believe it reinforces our ability to connect with our audience through music."

Fans of *NSYNC, with access to an IMAX Theater, flocked to the film, which was lavished with critical praise:

Teresa Grubbins of the Dallas Morning News wrote: "...the film is so visually stimulating, so contagiously energetic, it could win over any cynical non-believer in teen pop."