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The first thing you notice when walking into Sphere for its latest extravaganza is the endless parade of white outfits. Is this Le Dîner en Blanc? Nope. It's the Backstreet Boys' debut residency at the high-tech Sphere Las Vegas venue, and fans are eagerly dressed in the fashion trends associated with Millenium—the 1999 album promised to be the centerpiece of the setlist.
So it's no surprise that Nick Carter, Howie Dorough, AJ McLean, Brian Littrell and Kevin Richardson hit the stage with "Larger Than Life" — the signature dance hit from Millenium. The mystery lies more in how the Sphere's special effects unfold throughout the evening. Using every ounce of the venue's 170 million pixels and 366-foot-tall screen, the show sets new standards for high-definition entertainment, beginning inside an elaborate space station, opening to a star-filled sky and blasting off into the heavens for a journey throughout the galaxy.
Nearly two years after opening, the Sphere welcomes the Backstreet Boys as not only its first pop music residency, but first full-blown science-fiction production. (The cinematic "Postcard from Earth" mostly celebrates our planet as we know it today.) There's even an early moment when the underbelly of a spaceship slowly appears overhead, engulfing the screen in a moment clearly inspired by the opening scene in the original "Star Wars."
Boosted by wind, subtle temperature changes and vibrations, the voyage through space continues to a frozen planet for "Siberia" and the distant lights of the cosmos for "I Need You Tonight" — both deep cuts from Millenium. For the record, every song from the album is performed throughout the evening, mixed in with hits from the band's discography. A new song, "Hey," appears on Millennium 2.0, a deluxe reissue with bonus content released the morning of the residency's first date.
"Who still has that original Millennium CD?" Dorough asked to a loud reaction from the opening-night audience. Then again, it's worth noting that one of the night's biggest cheers was for the image of a flip phone on the big screen during "Don't Want You Back," reflecting an era when arguments and breakups via text were a new phenomenon.
The band members, now between 45 and 53 years old, lean heavily into complex choreography—even more than contemporaries like New Kids on the Block, who have a Vegas residency of their own at Park MGM. Every beat is programmed to the millisecond as images of the band sing and dance on screen (in sync, if you will) with their real-life counterparts.
The show is a celebration of the Backstreet Boys — who they are, where they've been and the fans who continue to join them for a career-spanning ride. The production is smart enough to hold back on the effects during the most heartfelt numbers, including "As Long as You Love Me," when the galaxy tones down as backdrop, shifting focus to the sing-along connection between BSB and their fans.
In the middle of the concert, when the effects dip out of space for more abstract imagery, the band dedicates "The Perfect Fan" to their own mothers, with family photos surrounding the stage—and both Littrell and Richardson visibly emotional on opening night. "I've cried at least four times since we've been up here tonight," McLean would later admit.
The stage itself is somewhat minimalist but steals the show when it takes flight—quite literally, cables and all—during the band's biggest hit, "I Want It That Way," proving Sphere still holds surprises, even if you thought you’d experienced every effect in this groundbreaking theater. The hovering platform appears to move both vertically and horizontally, and is destined to be the most talked-about moment of the night.
When the stage returns to terra firma, the night reaches a grand finale with "We've Got It Goin' On," "The Call" (the catchiest pop hit ever about cheating) and "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" — a trifecta of non-Millenium songs that conclude with an army of dancing robots and the original space station we saw at the beginning returning to Earth. Yet by this point, the Backstreet Boys have already stuck the landing.
The Sphere hosts "Backstreet Boys: Into the Millenium" on select dates through early 2026. Start time is 8 p.m. but the show begins with a ten-minute countdown at 8:30 p.m. before "blastoff." Just remember to wear white.
