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Fans' Screams Keep Up With Jonas' Power Pop

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By CURTIS ROSS | The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 4, 2008

TAMPA - The Beatles stopped touring in large part because they couldn't hear themselves playing over the screams of their fans.

Concert amplification has progressed by leaps and bounds in the years since. And the screamers, with no comparable technological advances, have kept up admirably.

The current object of teens' and tweens' shrill admiration, the Jonas Brothers, performed Thursday before a sold-out Ford Amphitheatre crowd of 20,000.

The three Wyckoff, N.J., siblings were opening for Hannah Montana only a year ago, which should give you an idea about the shelf life and turnaround time for teen idols.

Still, if their spotlight time proves brief, the Jonases — Kevin, 20, Joe, 19, and Nick, 16 — are making the most of it. Their G-rated pop-rock won't wow anyone whose musical knowledge goes back more than a decade, but it's catchy, performed with enthusiasm, and far healthier than the computer chip-dance dreck of early '00s teen screams Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys.

The boys ran, literally, through the upbeat numbers, sprinting around the stage as well as onto a catwalk that stretched into the orchestra section. At one point, Joe and Nick were doing cartwheels down the catwalk.

Not one but two string quartets flanked the stage. When their instruments weren't needed, the women busied themselves with dance moves and, on "BB Good," hoisting poster boards containing some of the song's lyrics.

Opening act Demi Lovato joined the brothers during their set to perform her tune, "This Is Me." Her own set consisted of tunes in a Disney-rock vein not dissimilar from the Jonas Brothers.

Exuberant enough to be a Jonas sister, Lovato sprang Tigger-like around stage and catwalk, save for a number behind the piano. Will she be headlining a year (or a month) from now? Stay tuned.

Curtis Ross can be reached at (813) 259-7568

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