Concert review: The Jonas Brothers overstayed their welcome at Xcel Energy Center
Kevin Jonas, Joe Jonas and Nick Jonas of Jonas Brothers perform during a stop of the group’s Five Albums. One Night. The World Tour. at MGM Grand Garden Arena on September 08, 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Bryan Steffy/Getty Images)
How much Jonas Brothers is too much Jonas Brothers? That was the question going into the grown-up boy band’s concert Sunday night at St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center.
The trio’s current outing — dramatically dubbed Five Albums. One Night. The World Tour. — sees them playing all five of their albums. (They’re ignoring their failed 2006 debut “It’s About Time”.) Initially planned as a one-off stadium event, it blossomed into a full tour with nearly 100 shows stretching into next summer.
With a running time of nearly three hours, with an intermission, it’s an ambitious show that was clearly influenced by Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. And when the JoBros announced they were playing the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand in September, it sounded like the deal of a lifetime for fans, as the State Fair doesn’t use Ticketmaster’s notorious dynamic pricing system, which can send the cost to snag seats skyrocketing.
But for reasons that were murky at best, the JoBros ended up trimming about 15 songs from the set, which ran 110 minutes. It felt rushed, with the three brothers barely interacting with each other, let alone the crowd.
As it turns out, the truncated running time wasn’t the only thing lacking from the Grandstand show. Sunday night’s show was bigger in every sense, from the massive stage to the small army of musicians on it, along with a pyro and other special effects. The Grandstand was a tour stop; Sunday was an event.
The brothers opened with a pair of recent songs, the standalone 2020 single “What a Man Gotta Do” and “Celebrate!” from their most recent full-length “The Album.” From there, they played the three records from their Disney era (which ended when they split in 2013) and 2019’s “Happiness Begins,” their successful comeback effort. They also managed to work in tracks from “The Album” as well a few solo songs (Nick’s “Jealous” and Joe’s “Cake by the Ocean”) between the sets.
In order to cram in all those songs, many arrived as part of medleys, with lesser-known album cuts slashed down to a verse and chorus. Still, the crowd went wild for the trio’s 2007 self-titled Disney debut and sang/screamed along in sheer delight. Much like at the Grandstand, the audience was largely filled with women who grew up with the group along with a surprising amount of actual kids.
Once again, 2009’s “Lines, Vines and Trying Times” got the short end of the stick and the guys actually skipped a few of its songs altogether. They did, however, invite their old producer and Minneapolis native John Fields on stage.
“The Album” pretty much flopped at retail, but the guys did manage to air it in its entirety, even if that meant slipping in prerecorded tracks at the start and end of the show as well as during the intermission. Beyond the single “Waffle House,” the other new songs earned a muted response from the audience.
To be sure, the Jonas Brothers turned in the sort of engaging and energetic performance that made them stars back in the ’00s. But they simply don’t have the material to sustain the running time. It turns out nearly three hours of the Jonas Brothers is indeed too much Jonas Brothers.
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