By Aidan Cuffe

It’s 2012 for those keeping track. It’s more Old Kids On The Block and Backstreet Men than the names they came up with 25 and 19 years ago respectively. Despite their additional years, their ability to drive women wild has not particularly diminished. What happens when you take two chart topping heartthrob boy bands, put them in one massively co-ordinated stage showpiece mixing a dash of pyrotechnics, a dollop of choreography and occasionally remove their shirts and rattle off hit after hit for two hours. Well you would be witnessing one of the best pop shows to roll in the town in recent memory.

I was in the minority as I wade through the sea of ladies to find my seat. Looking around, hoping to find others of the male species to validate my presence at this show was a fruitless endeavour. The atmosphere was out of this world, you could feel the electricity in the air as an X-factor style introduction sequence gets the crowd screaming wildly, as visuals of each member illicit vociferous shrieks.

Opening with a medley of Single* / I’ll Be The One to a backing track of Coldplay’s Viva La Vida, it was clear from the start this would be an assault on all your senses. Out come the rising platforms, fog machines, pyrotechnics and dance moves. It’s a ’90s pop merry-go-round which becomes a chart hit tag team battle royale, in a fight for boy band supremacy. This format proves to be one of the key elements in making this such an entertaining show. Hits from the New Kids On The Block catalogue like Dirty Dancing, The Right Stuff, Cover Girl and Tonight all get an airing while the Backstreet Boys strung together hits like The Call, Larger Than Life, Incomplete and Everybody among some of the large list of chart hits on their set list.

Read full review on GoldenPlec.com.