Jay Stone The Ottawa Citizen

Even though Jay Stone says he was trampled by a relentless bass, pummeled by merciless guitar wails, and bludgeoned by three hours of pre-, post- and non-pubescent screaming, he got his money's worth.

My kid went to the Backstreet Boys concert and all I got was this lousy hearing aid. (Suggestion for missed marketing opportunity.)

It was loud.

It was also spectacular, in the pyrotechnic sense of the word.

From the time that the spears with light tips went up on the round spaceship stage at the Corel Centre, the smoke wafted from the ceiling, the sparklers shot into the air and the group members descended on green lighted skyboards, all to the music of Star Wars, Friday's Backstreet Boys concert was a two-hour extravaganza of noise and light.

The noise level hit the ground shrieking for two warmup acts and hit a full, throaty, uninterrupted decibel level at the first hint of The Boys. "Scream obnoxiously for the rest of the show," A.J. McLean told the crowd in the personal introduction part of the evening. He might as well have reminded them to be excited. People in the first four rows grew tassels on their ears.

The Backstreet Boys -- five young men, each of whom seems to represent a different aspect of the female ideal, eight-year-old division -- were accompanied by 10 dancers, a six-piece band (including, surprisingly, a saxophonist), many costume changes and enough smoke machines, laser lights and fireworks to fill, well, the Corel Centre.

As for the music, it bears the same relationship to a Backstreet Boys concert as sports does to a World Wrestling Federation match. The two forms share an artful choreography, a dedication to the male physique, with its attendant and implicit message of sexuality, an exhausting layering of spectacle, a sure-footed elevation over the waves of hysteria it urges, and the need for noise. More and more noise.

The difference is a big one. There is an underlying wholesomeness to the Backstreet Boys, a sweet innocence that robs their performance of some of its edge, but at least ensures that fans won't spill out of the arena later to riot in the streets. The boys are swell dancers and singers, but to me they have two songs: the slow ones and the fast ones. Well, three: I Want It That Way, the relentlessly familiar tune with which they closed the show. I place it in a class by itself, mainly because I've heard it before.

Still, I was on my feet some of the time -- often urged on by the adults around me who seemed to enjoy the show as much as the children they accompanied -- and the tunes are catchy enough.

Mostly, though, the Backstreet Boys concert was a show for the eyes. The boys would disappear under the stage occasionally to reappear in various outfits: 21st century body armour, or full leather, or, least successfully, an ensemble of floppy pink pants and grey vests that made them look as if they were on their way to a gangsta rapper golf tournament. In their full leather, they were attached to wires and swung out over the stage, just like in Peter Pan, an apt image for a band with such a childlike appeal. This is a group that brings moms and daughters on stage for a song dedicated to Mother as "the perfect fan."

The flight over the audience was surprising because, as we learned in the program notes, Brian is afraid of heights. Other nuggets: the band took its name from a market in Orlando, Florida, and A.J. "wants to get a college degree," a noble goal.

The evening opened with a set from Mandy Moore, a shockingly self-possessed 15-year-old in tight silver pants and black top, and a second act, called EYC (Express Yourself Clearly), a sort of three-man mini-Backstreet Boys. They wound up the audience by paying tribute to "the beautiful ladies of Ottawa" -- many of the ladies being eight-year-olds waving glowsticks -- and asking them if they wanted to see the sexy side of EYC, which involved the band members removing their shirts.

By the end of the evening, trampled by a relentless bass, pummeled by merciless guitar wails, and finally bludgeoned by three hours of pre-, post- and non-pubescent screaming, I literally staggered into the hallway of the Corel Centre. My ears were ringing and the inevitable strains of I Want It That Way were reverberating in my skull. They reverberate there still. I suppose this means we all got our money's worth.