A high-energy homecoming for New Kids on the Block
The homegrown quintet wanted to host a giant party for their post-lockdown homecoming, and for 2 1/2 hours, they did.
If you wanted to sum up New Kids on the Block’s show at Fenway Park on Friday in one observation, you could point out that the show started with fireworks going off. The homegrown quintet wanted to host a giant party for their post-lockdown homecoming, and for 2 1/2 hours, they did; chart-ruling smashes and deep cuts from the run of their catalog, special guests, heartfelt speeches, and yes, more fireworks.
Appearing onstage in white, bedazzled Red Sox warmup jackets, the five members — Jonathan Knight, Jordan Knight, Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg, and Danny Wood — were operating at full throttle from the get-go, opening with the nostalgic yet defiant “We Were Here.” The track, a bonus track from their 2017 EP “Thankful,” featured the late New York MC DMX, which gave the group an early opportunity to salute other hip-hop stars who passed away recently, including Shock G of the Bay Area collective Digital Underground.
That was the first of many moments when NKOTB paid tribute to the Black music that inspired the band, a lineage that became even more apparent during fast-paced medleys of tracks like the Jackson 5-echoing “Popsicle” and the electro-powered “What’cha Gonna Do (About It).” The New Jack Swing trio Bell Biv DeVoe, a splinter group from the Roxbury boy-band pioneers New Edition, performed a few times throughout the show, and Wahlberg went to great pains to tell the audience that New Edition were “our idols and inspirations . . . they paved the way for us.”
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