If only there were some way to harness the energy of an adolescent girl in the throes of boy band frenzy. We could put this energy crisis behind us with a few extension chords and a single Backstreet Boys concert.
The Boys - Brian Littrell, Kevin Richardson, Nick Carter, Howie Dorough and A.J. McLean - were back in town this week, and Thursday night, at the first of two Oakland Arena concerts, the fan response could be measured in both decibels and wattage.
Waving their little purple glow sticks, which were $6.50 last tour but are $8 now, and screaming at the top of their surprisingly powerful lungs, the girls (and some boys) of the Bay Area went more than a little crazy for this clean-cut quintet from Orlando, Fla.
Over the course of 20 songs and much choreographed line dancing, the Boys delivered a solid, if rigorously programmed, show.
For nearly two hours they dashed off the songs from their latest album, ``Black and Blue," and tossed in a few from ``Millennium," the second album, and their eponymous debut.
The opening of the show involved a giant video screen depicting the Earth being pelted by asteroids. Each time a giant rock hit the planet, balls of flame would shoot from the arena rafters and pyrotechnics would explode on stage.
All of this seemed to suggest that the creation of the Earth somehow involved the Backstreet Boys. The young people in attendance would probably have little problem explaining that god-like connection.
Opening with two arena-size songs, ``Everyone" from the new album and ``Larger Than Life" from the last one, the Boys erupted from the stage on columns of smoke and fire.
Dressed in trench coats and leather pants and with microphones strapped to their heads, they were joined by 10 dancers and a seven-piece band on a journey through impeccably crafted if lyrically bland pop music.
Make no mistake - these young men can sing. Brian and Howie (the boy band rules require that we always use first names) are the romantic crooners. Kevin is the sturdy voice in the middle. Nick has a tendency to wail wildly through everything. And then there's A.J., the man who elicits the most screams. His voice is the most distinctive, with its rough edges and smoky - dare we say sexy? - timbre.
The songs the group chooses to sing are, with a few exceptions, standard-issue love songs. ``All I Have to Give," ``I'll Never Break Your Heart," ``Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely" and ``The Shape of My Heart" are pleasant but practically interchangeable.
To distinguish the mushy love song medley, the Boys popped up through the floor of a satellite stage located toward the back of the arena. Then, while they sang ``Time," a song they all wrote together, they walked back to the main stage across a bridge that had been lowered from the ceiling.
The audience was so thrilled with the gimmickry and the sudden proximity of a real, live Backstreet Boy that there was no need to pay attention to the music.
One of the great things about attending a Backstreet Boys concert is watching the families interact. There are parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and kids of all ages, many wearing $30 T-shirts and staring wild-eyed at the stage. The funny thing is that the parents didn't seem to mind the constant screaming, the music or even the Boys themselves.
Someday scientists will figure out just why pre-teens go so absolutely nutty over boy bands. Is it hormones? Is it the outfits (Backstreet changes at least five times this show)? Or could it actually be the music?
When it comes right down to it, the Backstreet Boys aren't so different from the early Beatles. Is ``I Want It That Way," one of Backstreet's most expertly engineered tunes, so very different from ``I Wanna Hold Your Hand?" Sure purists would carp at the comparison, but one century's cute mop-top boy band is another century's quartet of musical geniuses.
In a wicked bit of irony, the Backstreet Boys' ``Black and Blue" album was bumped from the No. 1 spot shortly after its release by a new collection of Beatles hits. That had to smart.
Perhaps in 30 years we'll look back on the Backstreet Boys' early years and say, ``Gee, remember when they were so young and innocent? Yeah, that was before they got serious and made their scary `White Album,' before Nick went crazy and before Brian and Kevin's wives tried to break up the band."
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You can e-mail Chad Jones at cjones@angnewspapers.com or call (925) 416-4853.