Hanson’s Maturing, and the Girls Still Scream

Picture this: It’s 2010 and Hanson is headlining the revived H.O.R.D.E. tour alongside the Dave Matthews Band and Phish. Nearly every young woman who at 15 had screamed throughout the band’s Wiltern Theatre show in 2000 (meaning nearly everyone who was at that concert) is there.

Don’t laugh.

All Hanson has to do is persevere, and on Tuesday at the Wiltern, the three teenage brothers seemed to be doing so quite nicely. Sure, the stats don’t look good at the moment. Where the group’s major-label debut, 1997’s “Middle of Nowhere,” sold about 4 million copies in the U.S., the current “This Time Around” is at just 181,000 after four months in release.

But on Tuesday, Hansonmania was alive--just more compact. And many fans seemed to respond to the blond boys’ steady musical growth and down-to-earth attitude as much as to their heartthrob appeal.

Supplemented by three musicians, keyboardist and lead singer Taylor, guitarist Isaac and drummer Zac offered increasingly solid musicianship and, significantly, maturing songwriting. Such new songs as “Runaway Run” and “Dying to Be Alive” exhibited self-examination suitable to their advancing adolescence, without sacrificing the winning pop sensibilities.

Hanson even nodded toward its potential future with a buoyant version of the Janis Joplin-associated “Piece of My Heart,” and by being joined on harmonica by Blues Traveler’s John Popper, the founder of H.O.R.D.E. If only 10 years from now the fans can get their boyfriends to come along.