One Direction hits Jones Beach: What you need to know before the show
From left, Liam Payne, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik and Harry Styles of One Direction pose with their Brits Global Success Award in the press room at the Brit Awards 2013 in London. (Feb. 20, 2013) Credit: Getty Images
We've reached yet another high point in the Cycle of Boy Bands, five years after the Jonas Brothers, 15 after the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, 25 after New Kids On the Block and Boyz II Men, and 35 after the Osmonds and Jackson 5. What's different about One Direction: The floppy haired British quintet has a sense of humor, sending up '50s and '60s teen-idol movies (and fondling each other) throughout this year's fizzy "Kiss You" video; its members can't really dance, Backstreet-style, but they occasionally rock, biting a Clash riff at the beginning of "Live While We're Young"; and they're self-aware, accurately calling themselves "kind of Pink in a boy-band form." Here's our guide.
Crew-cut
Direction's sound "a bit more guitar- driven than normal pop music."
Here's what the band played Feb. 23 at London's O2 Arena:
"Up All Night"
"I Would"
"Heart Attack"
"More Than This"
"Love You First"
"One Thing"
"C'mon, C'mon"
"Change My Mind"
"One Way or Another"
(Blondie cover)
"Last First Kiss"
"Moments"
"Back for You"
"Summer Love"
"Over Again"
"Little Things"
"Teenage Dirtbag"
(Wheatus cover)
"Rock Me"
"She's Not Afraid"
"Kiss You"
"Live While We're Young"
"What Makes You
"Beautiful"
"It's all fun, fun, fun -- the Monkees pushing the Beach Boys into a swimming pool -- and romantic yearning. You could spin the 1D shtick in two directions. Either it's a cultural calamity, in which yet another generation of young women is served a nutritionally poor diet of McMusic laced with lies about intergender relations. Or, alternatively, One Direction provide a welcome breathing space from the rampant pornification of everything, confirming the existence of romantic love and peddling a kind of comforting, worry-free Britishness in the face of a rapidly changing reality." -- Kitty Empire,
The Observer, London
"Unlike the boy bands of yore, the lads don't harmonize much. They eschew dance, opting instead to strut as if the show was a clothing ad. I get it; they're not supposed to be robotic. Too often, though, it felt boring." -- Kevin Joy,
The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch
"They can't sing in any meaningful sense: if all five of them have a go, they average out at somewhere in the vicinity of the note. They can't dance either, just slouch around in skinny jeans with the occasional handstand contest or outbreak of homoerotic play-fighting."
-- Simon Price,
The Independent, London
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