Backstreet Boys Deliver Teen Dream

Howie! Kevin! A.J.! Brian! Niiiiiiick!!!

The audience of mostly teenage girls had practically screamed itself hoarse before the Backstreet Boys even hit the Universal Amphitheatre stage Saturday, but that didn’t keep the world’s latest swoony pop group from working hard to impress. In fact, you half expected the five singers to be jumping through hoops by show’s end. Make that flaming hoops.

Exploding onto the stage in a festive shower of sparks, the Orlando, Fla., vocal quintet made a spectacle of itself for almost two hours during its official L.A. concert debut, part of its first U.S. tour. Twisting pop’s eternal teen-idol formula into a fusion of Boyz II Men-style R&B-pop; harmonizing and New Kids on the Block-style high energy, the group has sold millions of albums worldwide since 1995. Since the release of its 1997 domestic debut album, “The Backstreet Boys,” it has invaded the U.S. Top 10 with such hits as “Quit Playing Games (With My Heart).”

Drawing largely from that album, Saturday’s relentlessly slick and energetic show seemed less an actual concert than a prolonged theme-park production, more about personality displays than group harmonizing. Costume changes, hackneyed dance routines, hokey sentiments, confetti showers and the obligatory 25-minute encore made the venue feel like Disney World, where some of the members have worked as performers.

But with a combination of natural charm and personal-touch schtick, the Boys made convincing sweethearts, which was all that mattered to the audience. Howie Dorough, 24, Brian Littrell, 23, A.J. McLean, 20, Nick Carter, 18, and Kevin Richardson, 26, each got an individual spotlight moment carefully tailored to his capabilities.

The quintet easily induced as much hysteria as Hanson’s recent Hollywood Bowl concert, but unlike the Tulsa heartthrobs, the Backstreet Boys generated real (if PG-rated) sexual tension, telegraphed through a lot of chest-baring and a little tasteful hip-thrusting. The music itself was surprisingly unsexy, so automated and monolithic it sounded more like a bunch of machines backing the Boys rather than a six-piece band.

Although the group staged its own mock rebellion against the band, taking over the instruments to perform “Quit Playing Games,” the singers barely stretched their own chops. The one pure display was an a cappella rendition of the Shai ballad “If I Ever Fall in Love.” If you plugged your ears, you could block the screaming long enough to hear that the harmonizing was on key, if somewhat leaden. But, as usual with these teen-dream acts, most of the subtleties were lost in the screams.