Bobby Brown doesn't move the same — not a critique; Beantown’s favorite Black son made peace with his mobility long ago.
It’s not easy to replicate the jumps and gyrations of “Every Little Step” or “My Prerogative” at 57. He doesn’t struggle vocally on these tracks, though; in fact, Brown sounds more in pocket on The New Edition Way tour at Newark's Prudential Center than he did on the group’s Las Vegas residency.
The bleeding heart of this tour lives in Brown’s solo moments. Here we see how truly egoless Ronnie, Ricky, Mike, Ralph and Johnny are, serving as backing vocalists and dancers while Bobby runs through his late 80s chart nukes. They don’t hit the steps as hard as the women dancing on stage; instead they move like they’re back at Orchard Park Recreation Center in Roxbury reliving the good ‘ol days. There’s an innocence to the performance — it’s loose, unscripted, calm.
This is not indicative of NE's time on stage without Brown. When he rests the choreography turns to ten for staples like "If it Isn't Love" and "You're Not My Kind of Girl." It's the era of teenage love and Print Shop love letters on Commodore computers. New Edition is a beacon for the latchkey generation. Though they lived through the splintering of one of the most powerful groups ever assembled, they’ve always preferred the whole to the sum of its parts. The show, at its core, is for those NE loyalists. It delivers on the group’s essentials (The collection of early NE hits like “Cool it Now” and “Mr. Telephone Man” will never be bubblegum.) but the production is also tasked with integrating Philadelphia’s quartet-turned-trio Boyz II Men and the sultry Toni Braxton.
Brooke Payne deserves much praise for stitching this complex show together. Though it runs three hours, it can’t be all encompassing — the catalogs are too vast. That limitation is the concert’s superpower. It commits to giving the audience what they came for ( the big, bombastic hits are performed with incredible showmanship) while still serving up deep cuts that are equally beloved by each act’s fanbase.
Boyz II Men’s three-part harmony over Dallas Austin’s piano and percussions on “Please Don’t Go” is a nostalgia bomb that explodes off their mics. While the group took R&B to the top of Billboard with II, the deep soul of CooleyHighHarmony, shaped by Michael Bivins, is their hood classic. “N.E. Heartbreak,” the fifth single off Heartbreak is a sleeper song that has much rap dip on the record’s proverbial chip. The pleasant surprise works in this setting. And although Toni Braxton’s “How Many Ways” was a charting single on her debut, it plays like a low-key gem among her power catalog.
But back to Bobby Barisford Brown. After a brief intermission, Brown returns to the stage solo to perform “Roni,” the slow jam classic off Don’t Be Cruel. The title became an oft-used term for stunning women. Dressed in a mauve pantsuit and jacket broken up with a white t-shirt, he requests a “yeah” from the crowd. The response is deafening. His movement is, again, minimal, but his scratchy baritone gets maximum applause.
It’s a tender moment from a tour that perfectly encapsulates the late 80s/early 90s rhythm and blues era.
