Inside Opening Night of the New Kids on the Block Residency: “Vegas Was Ready for Us”

The Blockheads were out in full force for the opening night of New Kids on the Block‘s residency in Las Vegas, which kicked off with a high-energy show featuring classic hits and newer tunes.

The hyped-up crowd — mostly middle-aged females, though it ran the gamut from elementary-school age to the gray-haired set — packed inside the Dolby Live theater at Park MGM on Friday to watch the group’s two-hour performance, which didn’t disappoint.

The set list featured favorites including “Cover Girl,” “Please Don’t Go Girl,” “I’ll Be Loving You Forever,” “Valentine Girl,” “Hangin’ Tough,” “The Right Stuff,” “Step by Step,” “Tonight,” “Summertime,” “The Whisper,” “Dirty Dancing,” “Remix (I Like The)” and a slew of others. 

Ahead of the opening show, the five group members — in addition to Knight, the group includes his brother Jonathan, Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg and Danny Wood — sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to talk about why the time was right to embark on this residency and what fans can expect.

“There’s definitely some things we’re doing here that we could never do on a tour,” Wood shared. “Being in this theater, it comes with a lot of benefits  — there’s already built-in [features] in the rafters, the lights and sound are already built into the place, so you have things in this show that you would never out on a tour.”

Indeed, the show features many fun elements, including a moving stage floor and five suspended platforms that elevate each of the guys high above the crowd. The show also makes use of archival footage featuring the New Kids, while set pieces brought to life iconic images from their videos, including a subway train and a white convertible that drove the guys onto the stage for the encore. In a nod to the music video for Jordan Knight’s solo hit “Give It to You,” the singer strapped himself into a Ferris wheel-style contraption that traveled back and forth above the stage as he performed the tune.

“The time was right because I think Vegas was ready for us, and they came knocking on our door,” Wahlberg added. “Five years ago, 10 years ago, we probably would have said, ‘No, we just came off a grueling outdoor summer tour on five tour buses that bounced around the road every single night.’ … [After we decided to do the residency], we then set out to create a very exclusive show that is made for Vegas. It’s designed, of course, for our fans first and foremost. But if you’re playing in Vegas, you’re playing for the world, so it’s to show not just our fans, but also the rest of the world, who we are and what we do — and also surprise our fans.”

“Yeah, you know, Tony, Big Lou, Vinny, Jimbo, you know, those guys, you gotta keep them in mind, you know, we normally don’t have to worry about them,” quipped McIntyre in response to Wahlberg’s remark.

Indeed, the five guys have a great rapport with each other, making jokes on the back of each other’s comments and sometimes finishing each other’s sentences. It’s pretty impressive for a group that formed in 1984. (They did take a 14-year break starting in 1994 before reuniting in 2008 to release new material. They’ve also been touring regularly inside arenas and other venues and hanging out with fans on the NKOTB-themed cruises.)

It’s evident how much they appreciate their fans. Their Vegas concerts features them going into the crowd to shake hands with audience-goers — Wahlberg even gave a woman in a wedding gown a warm embrace and is hosting “The Right Stuff Afterparty Experience” at speakeasy/club On the Record inside Park MGM on select Saturday nights. The choreography was well-designed to keep all the guys moving around the stage — as a result, no matter where you were sitting, you had a good view of at least one New Kid at any given time.

And if you’re headed to Vegas, you also might want to check out Blockhead HQ at Park MGM, featuring exclusive merch, NKOTB photo ops, exhibits filled with iconic memorabilia, live entertainment, NKOTB-themed food and drink, the Formless Beauty by Jenny McCarthy Pop-Up Experience: Fan Makeovers Live! (McCarthy is married to Wahlberg) and more surprises. One attendee who exited the establishment on Saturday enthused that he’d just met Wahlberg inside (but you better make reservations, because walk-ups were being turned away on both Friday and Saturday due to overwhelming demand).

Asked about the secret to the group’s longevity, the guys get silent as they reflect.

“It’s a humbling question,” Wahlberg said. “First of all, the fans are the reason we’re still here. First and foremost, they keep showing up, we keep showing up. It doesn’t matter who shows up first, one of us keeps showing up and the other one’s like, screw that, we gotta be there. And that’s a fact.”

He shared a story about hearing that some fans were getting together to do a flash-mob dance at one of his restaurants (he co-owns Wahlburgers with brothers Mark and Paul). 

“I heard it and I was like, I gotta get there, and I like literally drove an hour to get over there just to see it,” he said. “You know, we have a special bond with our fans. They’re the reason we’re still here. How we ever got here in the first place is, that’s all controlled by a force much greater than any of us because it’s just — we didn’t deserve it.”

McIntyre gave credit to music producer Maurice Starr, who was responsible for the band’s career, as well as their “working-class Boston parents.”

“And you’ve also got to have lightning in a bottle, you know what I mean?” he added, noting that Starr “was a bigger character than anybody and still is the biggest character you’re ever going to want to meet. He was a believer, and we were a believer … and it all just fell into place. And we were all not dumb enough to know how lucky we were, and we haven’t messed it up.”

McIntyre added that during their 14-year break, NKOTB had many opportunities to reunite, even just for one night, but none of them seemed quite right.

“It just takes a lot of patience to go, ‘No, this ain’t it.’ If we were going to do it, we’re going to do it the right way, together and on our time frame,” he continued. “We did practice some patience over the years and, and I think maybe karmically that patience pays off in timing. … And that’s why it feels right to be in Vegas right now in our 50s and feeling like this is the perfect time, not a minute too soon, and it still feels incredibly fresh.”

The guys — who range in ages from 52 to 56 — have gone on to get married, while most of them have kids — and Wood is even a grandfather. They don’t take it lightly that they’ve been able to share their experiences with their families over the years.

“I got  picture drawn for me today saying ‘good luck, Pop-Pop’ from my oldest granddaughter, who is is 5,” Wood said. “It’s in my dressing room. Now they’re understanding what I do and who these guys are; I’ve been sharing it with my kids, and now I get to share it with my grandkids.”

Wahlberg got emotional when he was talking about having all the guys’ families members in town for dress rehearsals and the performances.

“It’s been a long, long process, and last night we did our dress rehearsal,” he said. “We don’t know how it looks. I mean, we’ve been working on it, we’ve seen the content, we know what it looks like, but when you’re on the stage performing, all that goes away. It’s like, OK, you’re the New Kid now, and everything’s around us, and we don’t know how we look in the world. But last night, my wife was here, Jordan’s wife was here, and Joey’s sons were here, and every time something new happened, I looked at Joey’s kids. Sorry, I’m crying,” he said, getting emotional. “I was like, shit, I think we did it. I think we nailed that, and that’s our reference.”

He said he asked McIntyre’s sons what they thought: “I think that was the first moment I could relax a little bit seeing the wonder on those two young boys’ faces who like have grown up right in front of us. They pulled out their phones and they’re videoing and I was like, that’s the dream of this moment, like all the energy and arguments and patience we had to find for each other and all the people that work for us and all the stress that goes into something like this. It’s to see that reaction. All the little mistakes and things that might happen, it doesn’t matter if we can just get to this moment.”

Meanwhile, the guys also have been keeping busy in other ways, including acting in film, TV and the stage. Jonathan Knight has been appearing on several HGTV shows, including some with brother Jordan Asked if he gets recognized more for being in NKOTB or HGTV, Jordan shares a story about something that happened when he recently was at The Home Depot.

“Dudes are stopping me, saying, ‘Man, I love your brother’s show. How did he put that frame in the doorway?’” Jordan said.

For his part, Jonathan quipped that his fans have gone from young women to now being “75- to 80-year-old women driving by my house.”

Asked about their craziest fan experiences, McIntyre notes he once walked into his bathroom naked only to find two young girls hiding in wait for him. He also shared that another time, a fan found her way on top of their tour bus. She started banging on the roof: “We opened the sunroof, and there she was hanging on.”

On a more serious note, Wahlberg shared that he once got a sign handed to him by a fan at a show. Once he got back to the tour bus, he read it and realized that it was from a fan saying she needed a kidney transplant. He shared that message on social media, and another fan stepped up to donate that kidney. 

So, after all these years performing, do they still get nervous?

Jonathan responded by holding out his hands and shaking them slightly as if he were trembling.

“I’m nervous, but that’s normal for me,” he said. “You know, I’ll probably miss the first 10 steps and maybe fall down the stairs, but I’ll get back up and look over at these guys and — you know, it’s gonna be amazing. We’ve been rehearsing without an audience, and I just get in my head. But then when you look out and you see smiling faces, it’s just such a calming effect. So, you know, I’m glad rehearsals are over. I’m glad we can just get on stage and and and do our thing.”

For the record, Jonathan didn’t fall, and the fans went wild for the performance.

NKOTB will perform a total of 24 shows during their residency. For tickets & more information, visit NKOTB.COM.