NEW EDITION: HOME AGAIN IN THE USAIR ARENA

Multi-colored lights and smoke covered the stage as the set was revealed to the audience -- a tall, front side of a two-story house, equipped with six giant columns, appropriately created to resemble the theme of New Edition's latest album, "Home Again." The set was a major disappointment. It looked like a last minute idea, a complete waste of material. You'd think that with the entire group putting all of their ideas together, they'd come up with a more original and creative set than what they had.

The show started with the upbeat "Feels So Good," a track off of New Edition's new album. Bobby Brown, Ricky Bell, Michael Bivins, Ronnie Devoe, Johnny Gill, Ralph Tresvant, wearing white suits, along with a whole troupe of dancers, wearing close to nothing, got the entire crowd up out of their seats and into the music. As the music faded into NE's next song, "Hit Me Off," the throng of fans screamed even louder than when Bobby Brown dropped his pants (as expected).

After a few more songs, the six members of New Edition separated, starting to perform songs from their own, individual albums. Bobby Brown's show was first, which featured him rising from beneath the stage in a cloud of smoke. He got his fans moving to his hit song "My Perogative." While the female audience was into Brown's sexual antics, the male part of the audience was enticed by his provocative background dancers.

Bell Biv Devoe was the real group that stole the show, however. Just about everyone in the audience was singing the words to the group's songs, including "Poison" and "Do Me." Ronnie Devoe's hip hop edge, combined with Ricky Bell's and Michael Bivin's R&B voices, all created a highly entertaining stage show.

Ralph Tresvant soon took the stage after Bell Biv Devoe, showing off his voice on songs such as "Sensitivity." However, it could clearly be seen that Tresvant was simply trying to hard to make his voice sound good. The audience could hear that Tresvant's voice hasn't matured much from his younger days. His performance seemed to be the only downside to the entire show. It was nothing special and rather boring.

D.C. native Johnny Gill finally took the stage and really moved his fans, which included some friends and family, with his stunning vocals on "My My My," written and produced by Babyface. Gill seemed to be the most energetic and most excited to be in his hometown of D.C., as he was quoted prior to the February 22 performance in The Washington Post saying, "I can't wait to get there [D.C.]. I'll see a lot of familiar faces that I know and that's going to be exciting."

The concert wasn't nearly over after Gill exited the stage. The original five members of NE (Brown, Bell, Bivins, Devoe, and Tresvant) came out once again, this time to take the crowd "way back, down memory lane." Old school beats were soon heard over the speakers and the group once known as "an updated version of the Jackson Five" sang all of their old hits. "Candy Girl," "Mr. Telephone Man," and "Cool It Now" got the fans singing along and dancing to the music. New Edition was "Home Again" and everyone was glad of it.