Blitzkrieg Pop or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Backstreet Boys

BERLIN – The clock on my phone reads 3 pm when the gentle fall rain stars drizzling, first softly then with a slightly more pronounced brute force that befits the history and brevity of my current locale. Behind me stands the East Side Gallery – several panels that remain from the Berlin Wall lovingly graffitied and displayed as an artful middle-finger to the cold-war era division of Das Capital – but I am not here to report on the such serious matters. No, I’ve flown half-way around the world to pass judgement on what lies in the building adjacent: the gigantic electric-blue arena with the new-age architecture which can house over 20,000 people and whose front features a scrolling gigantic billboard announcing to all who walk by it today’s performers. I am in Berlin to review The Backstreet Boys and by the night’s end I will love them.