The Backstreet Boys feel like they’re going back to the future this year. This summer, the boy band will make history as the first pop act to host a residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas, and they’ll use the occasion to celebrate 25 years of their seminal album Millennium.
“It all came together in the perfect timing,” Kevin Richardson tells Rolling Stone. “The record label wanted to re-release a Millennium anniversary edition with remastered versions of those original songs anyway. Now, we get to do it at a great venue, because when we did Millennium, it was 1999 into 2000, and our concept for that was futuristic.”
The group will host a 12-show residency — titled “Into the Millennium” like the 130-show tour they hosted in 1999 — this July, built around the songs and “modern futuristic” visuals of the album that featured hits “I Want It That Way,” “Larger Than Life,” and “Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely.”
“We got the dream team together. And we’ve seen quite a few concept art ideas that kind of blew our minds,” says AJ McLean. “This is going to be a truly one-of-a-kind experience. It’s for fans from all over the world to come as well as for people who are just in Vegas for the weekend to go have a good time.”
“We’re going to go to Vegas here in a few weeks and do some technology tests in the venue to see how some ideas we have may or may not work,” adds Richardson. “So that’s exciting as well.”
“Pray for us,” chimes in Brian Littrell.
Along with the show, they’ll revisit the album on Millennium 2.0 with never-before-heard demos of the album’s hits, live renditions of some songs, B-sides that only made it on international versions of the project, and “Hey,” a new track they recorded around the time of their last record, DNA.
“We’ve been waiting for the right vehicle to release it to the world,” says Richardson of “Hey.”
“I think sonically it’s a beautiful, beautiful record,” adds McLean. “I think it would’ve fit pretty well on the Millennium album back in the day.”
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Like many of the group’s tours in past years, the Boys will play into the nostalgia of the late Nineties and early aughts with their Sphere show, while also incorporating the retrofuturistic aesthetics of the group’s music videos and photoshoots of the time. Personally, they’re also reminiscing about a special time for the group.
“Our craft was getting better, our shows were getting better,” says Nick Carter. “Our producers were getting better at what they were doing, and then these amazing songs were being written.”
“I’m not going to get too sentimental about this. But when you think back to the Millennium time, ’99 and 2000, those were some of the best times in our lives,” adds Littrell. “These things are easy to relive. So we’re just channeling those good vibes and taking it to another level.”
For Richardson, the Millennium era also signified “liberation” for the group as they freed themselves from the grasp of ex-manager Lou Pearlman, who infamously cheated the group out of millions of dollars. The group would strike a new record deal by the end of 1999.
“We were in the middle of liberating ourselves. Legal battles were going on behind the scenes,” says Richardson. “And Millennium happened just as all that stuff drifted away. Well, it didn’t drift away, we made it go away. But it was a liberation for us creatively, and business-wise.”
With the group’s strength in mind, the Backstreet Boys see the residency is a reminder of their legacy and their 32-year brotherhood. “At the end of the day, it’s like who’s on stage?” says Littrell. “When we look across the stage at our bandmates, we are the ones who are going through this journey together.”
“We’re running a marathon here,” he adds. “Who knows when the end is, if the end is ever to come. You stay positive, you stay thankful for your band members. At the end of the day, it starts and stops with us.”
