A screaming audience of about 3,500 kids and adults relived their past Wednesday, when New Edition came to the Delta Center.
But such trips down memory lane can be a bittersweet experience.The show was fun. The music jammed and the sometimes steamy choreography got people in the mood. But something was missing - Bobby Brown.
Michael Bivins, Ricky Bell, Ronnie DeVoe, Ralph Tresvant and Johnny Gill were there, but this was supposed to be the NE reunion tour that brought Brown back to the fold. And Mr. Whitney Houston was out sick. Furthermore, the audience wasn't notified until well into the show.
"I wanna do something very special for the people," Gill said as the group launched into "Mr. Telephone Man," a song written by Ray Parker Jr., from the 1984 self-titled debut album. "I wanna dedicate it to our man, Bobby."
That was the first the crowd had heard the man was sick.
NE had opened the show with the reunion cut "Oh, Yeah, It Feels So Good" and "Hit Me Off," from the new album, "Home Again." The singers also crooned out older cuts such as "If It Isn't Love," "Count Me Out" and "Cool It Now," from the albums "Heart Break," "All For Love" and the debut, respectively.
When the group ascended on foot elevators from a mansion-set balcony during "Oh, Yeah . . .," Brown, the first member to go solo, was noticeably absent. But most concertgoers thought that was part of the act.
The audience cheered when Bell, Bivins and DeVoe did their Bell-Biv-DeVoe set that included "Poison" and "Do Me." The screams continued when Tresvant donned a white fur coat and sang "Sensitivity." And when Gill hit the stage with his seductive crooning of "My My My," the audience applauded loudly, but, at the same time, wondered when Brown would appear.
He never did. And the group resorted to singing excerpts from older songs to pass Brown's solo time slot. Talk about anti-climactic.
In place of Brown's "My Perogative," New Edition sang a few lines from "Lost In Love." Instead of Brown's "Humpin' Around" and "Every Little Step," New Edition harmonized "Is this the End" and Bell-Biv-DeVoe's "When Will I See You Smile Again."
Still, the show went on. The older "Can You Stand the Rain" mixed well with the newer "I'm Still in Love With You" while the boys strutted their stuff in slick blue suits and black fedoras.
Blackstreet and 702 opened the evening with extremely short sets. In fact, if New Edition would have let the other groups play longer, the night would have moved a little more smoothly. The solo-to-group changes during the New Edition set took too long and lost some of the audience's energy.