NKOTBSB Article from North Jersey

Here is an article from NorthJersey.com:

In 2008, the sight of the reunited New Kids on the Block instantly snapped a generation of grown women back into shrieking teenagers.

The old T-shirts and buttons came out of storage. There was a new album, NKOTB baby clothes, sold-out concerts. (This reporter sang along at one. OK, two.) This year, 3,000 fans even sailed to the Bahamas on the band's third annual cruise.

And the comeback keeps going, now coupled with another big-name 1990s boy band: the Backstreet Boys. NKOTBSB, as they are now known, hits the Izod Center this weekend.

How long will this nostalgia last?

"I think it's more than nostalgia at this point," says NKOTB's Danny Wood. "I think the fans are aware of what kind of night they're going to get, whether it be on the cruise or at a concert. It's a girls' night out. … Especially on this tour, when you're getting a double dose of boy bands and you're getting all these hit records."

Still, Wood admits to being surprised at his group's staying power. "We're not the norm in the music business. We're the exceptions, especially to be able to do it a second and third time around, after being apart for 15 years."

Backstreet Boys' Howie Dorough said he wasn't so sure their music would hold up in this century. But then he saw the crowds' reactions. "They were screaming like the first day they ever heard those songs," he says.

NKOTBSB features the groups singing separately and together, in what Dorough calls "a Billy Joel-Elton John dueling pianos kind of thing." NKOTB's "Right Stuff" and Backstreet Boys' "Larger than Life" was one natural pairing.

Wood scoffed when asked about the process of meshing his band's songs with Backstreet's. "I mean, it's all pop music," he said. "It's not that hard."

And while they've experimented with remixes of their songs, they quickly found "the original way the songs were performed is what the fans want to hear," Dorough says. "They just want to be taken back to that time. And I get it. I think if I was to go to a Prince concert or an Eagles concert, I would want to hear the original … that's what I remember."

While the old hits are still the big moneymakers, several NKOTBSB-ers are working on their own solo projects, including Dorough, his bandmate Nick Carter and NKOTB's Jordan Knight.

NKOTB's Donnie Wahlberg has carved out a serious acting career (most recently on CBS' "Blue Bloods"). Wood describes himself as a stay-at-home dad with four children ages 12 to 19 – all of whom will be at the Izod Center concert.

Dorough, who spends many summers with his wife's Monmouth Beach-based family, says he's looking forward to the Jersey pizza and subs.

And maybe later, continuing the boy band tradition.

"My son, I can see he's got the musical skills in him," Dorough said in a phone interview while his 2-year-old cried in the background. "Brian [Littrell]'s son is 8 years old and really developing a lot of his crafts ... and so me and Brian joke around about getting [former bandmate] Kevin [Richardson's] son in the group and creating the next generation of the Backstreet Boys."