Boyz Ii Men Concert: It Starts Young But Matures Quickly

-------------- CONCERT REVIEW --------------

Boyz II Men with Brandy and Subway, last night at the Tacoma Dome.

It truly was a boys-to-men evening, with a little Brandy in the middle.

The Boyz II Men concert was opened by, well, very young men, a quartet of choreographed rappers and singers no older than 15, called Subway.

They had a lot of street swagger to their act, lots of young thrust and bravado and there were plenty of appreciative screams from the capacity house. The boys' set lasted an appropriate 15 minutes.

Up next, and quickly, was Brandy, a 16-year-old singer with a good voice and confidence to spare. She was more relaxed and natural on stage than singers twice her age. Unlike Subway, Brandy had a live band, complete with two male dancers and backup vocalists. It allowed her to economize her moves and concentrate on singing.

So Subway had swagger and Brandy had sass, but Boyz II Men had everything.

They had all the moves: the dancing moves, the smoke, fire and special-effects moves, the costume moves and the singing moves. What they didn't have, for the first 15 minutes of their set, was the sound moves. Between the constant roar of the audience and the Tacoma Dome's less-than-pristine acoustics, the Men's signature vocals, that deft interplay and four-part harmony, were lost in the muddle. You could feel it and you could see it, but at times it was hard to identify.

That some of Boyz II Men's material can sound similar didn't help. But by the time the sound finally came together, the 90-minute show concluded with an hour's worth of hits. The Boyz II Men show came into a full 60-minute man bloom.

"U Know" was the first song to involve the audience in any sort of sing-along, even if it was only two words. The group followed with the seductive "50 Candles," during which a couple hundred candles rose in rows at various stage levels. "On Bended Knee" was followed by the a cappella "It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday," also the first major costume change from the Boyz' usual slick prep look. They sang in black choir robes that had a decidedly judicial bent.

For the mega hit "I'll Make Love To You," the singers literally rose like slow-motion missiles from the floor of the stage, wearing bathrobes and what appeared to be white pajamas, cut double breasted. They held bouquets of roses which they tossed to the audience.

Putting a playful spin on the song made it work much better. Taken at face value, "I'll Make Love To You" is a trifle overstated. Here it was the stuff of smiles.

It was cooled a bit by the next selection, "Water Runs Dry," which came with a sweet cascading rain effect. How apropos.

But it was the stage working and performance of the group's first hit, "Motownphilly," that really capped the evening. During another costume change, the enormous overhead lighting scaffolding above the audience lowered and became a catwalk for the four singers who ran like gerbils in a tube.

One of the band's best numbers, "Motownphilly" has punch, drive, glib rap and deft juke/jazz scat done in pristine harmony. True to what the sounds of Motown and the Philadelphia have always meant to music and show business, it was an exhilarating blend of style and substance, of soulful sounds all dressed up. Only here it was Boyz II Men, the next generation with a new bag of tricks.