Just when you thought it was time to take that Aaron Carter poster down off your wall, he pops right back up on the map and resurfaces in your heart. Aaron Carter put on a show at the Majestic last Thursday, although instead of an audience of screaming pre-teens, the crowd was nostalgic twenty-somethings letting their inner 12-year-old do the screaming for them. One of my friends was even wearing her Aaron Carter shirt from second grade. Talk about a #throwbackthursday.
The opening act was a local trio called Catch Kid. Their stellar good looks, smooth tunes in “Jump” and “By My Side” as well as their cover of “Bitter Sweet Symphony” got the audience a little hot and bothered before Carter hit the stage. Women in the crowd were so intrigued by the good looking guys of Catch Kid that they had their phones out looking them up in the middle of their set. In fact, there were so many women front man Nate Rusch even made the comment “This is a single guy’s paradise. I wonder why more guys aren’t capitalizing on this opportunity.” And he’s right. The whole night I saw maybe ten guys in the venue. Also, sorry to those ladies captivated by Rusch at the show. He’s taken.
The next act set to entertain before it was time for the Carter party was a New York-based band called Lineup Atlantic. This drummer and singer/guitar player duo covered many hits big with the women crowd like “Animals” by Maroon 5, “Breakeven” by the Script and “Dance, Dance” by Fall Out Boy as well as an original of theirs called “Keep on Keeping On.” These guys even had the early 2000’s sound like that of Jimmy Eat World, Fall Out Boy and Panic! At The Disco which primed the audience for Carter—who made an early appearance on the stage to pour water on his friends of Lineup Atlantic, giving the crowd a taste of what was ahead.
After almost 40 minutes of waiting the lights dimmed, the bass dropped and Aaron Carter opened his show wearing the signature cutoff hoodie and baggy jeans look of the 2000s. He sang a lot of his new stuff. My personal favorite was his song “Ooh Wee” featuring Pat Solo. He also performed his song “Recovery” which brought me, as well as almost the entire audience, including Carter’s mom, to tears. He wrote it about his sister, Leslie, who died in early 2012.
Aaron even sang himself to tears. It was really emotional and afterward he thanked his fans for “giving him his career and his life back” and then dedicated the classic jam “Aaron’s Party (Come Get It)” to them. He closed his show with his most famous song “I Want Candy.” He invited a couple audience members on stage—which then got out of hand as more girls climbed their way onto the stage—and he ended up calling for security before the song was over.
Overall the show was pretty much what I expected with the exception of the dedication to his sister which was genuinely beautiful. It was basically a big party with screaming girls, random points to the crowd and lots of kisses being blown. He even stood on the speakers and demanded that the sound engineer turn it all the way up to “get it going in here.”
However, instead of the headset microphone people are used to seeing at his shows, he had a single handheld one. That mic did not stop him from dancing—and yes he still can dance like he used to, if not better. The only thing different about Carter now is that he has a bunch of tattoos, better hair and is much sexier, in my personal opinion. I didn’t even know that was possible.
Carter’s tour is almost over with just a couple dates left on the West Coast, and Madison was the last stop for opener Lineup Atlantic. Catch Kid currently has two dates on their schedule in case you missed them. They have a show at High Noon Saloon on March 18 and will be at Memorial Union on June 26. Also, Carter will be dropping a new album soon.
