When the lights finally went down for the last time in the evening, it felt more like the Knicks starting lineup was about to be introduced rather than the beginning of the sold-out New Edition reunion concert. As a giant video screen descended on the stage proscenium, New Edition laid testament to the fact that this year's answer to the Kiss reunion tour is big. And when the video for "Candy Girl" kicked off a visual time capsule of New Edition's prolific career, you realized just how big. The NBA-like theatrics whipped the MSG crowd into a nostomanic furor and never let up.
Why New Edition has survived the years and, say, Boston white-bread counterparts New Kids on the Block have fallen peril to the depths of a Maurice Starr-inflicted no man's land, is a question for the soul Gods. But love 'em or hate 'em, you gotta respect 'em. And from pre-teen pop stars to platinum solo artists to post-adolescent, smoothed-out R&B crooners -- Ronnie Devoe, Bobby Brown, Ricky Bell, Michael Bivens, Ralph Tresvant and Johnny Gill -- have survived the years with resounding triumph and returned with a vengeance.
Against a backdrop of a Southern plantation-like mansion, NE dropped the bomb on the frenzied audience with "Oh, Yeah, It Feels So Good" and "Hit Me Off" from last year's long-anticipated super record "Home Again." With those numbers out of the way, the nostalgia kicked in as Brown, who originally left NE for a solo career in 1987, left the stage and Devoe, Bell, Bivens, Gill (Brown's replacement) and Tresvant launched into "If It Isn't Love" from "Heart Break," NE's last record before solo careers got the best of all six members.
When Brown, however, returned to the stage, things got really interesting as he turned the reunion into the Bobby Brown showcase. As pop diva and Brown's better half Whitney Houston cheered from stage right, NE's bad boy took solo hits "My Prerogative" and "Got To Get Away" to a new level. At one point during the latter, lil' Bobbi Kristina, Brown and Houston's 3-year-old daughter, was summoned on stage. As the crowd and Brown chanted in unison "Go for yours!" the little girl danced in front of the masses like it was second nature.
A minute later, Brown announced his new record, "Bobby Brown Forever," comes out in February, and, those of us who don't like it could, while he mooned the crowd, kiss Bobby Brown's ass (his daughter had since left the stage). Next up was Bell Biv Devoe, who treated the audience to "Poison" and "Do Me"; followed by Tresvant's "Sensitivity" and Gill's "My, My, My."
With solo jaunts taken care of, NE returned, sans Gill, for a trip way back to Boston, where it all began. Amazingly, in a melody which featured NE staples like "Lost In Love," "Is This The End" and "Jealous Girl," NE's now mature voices had no problems adjusting to the pre-pubescent harmonies of year's past.
Gill then returned and announced he wanted to hear his "favorite New Edition song of all time." "Mr. Telephone Man" followed and Brown almost convinced the audience that his bad boy image of late could easily transgress into the innocent, pleading Brown who just can't get his "baby on the line."
Disappointedly absent from the set were NE's biggest hits, "Candy Girl," "Cool it Now" and "Count Me Out," but then again, it was pushing 1 a.m. when they closed out with "Home Again."
Earlier, Blackstreet brought the house down with a crowd-rousing rendition of their current smash "No Diggity." Somehow, the song segued into a '90s version of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" and was delivered with a Jodeci-like int