98 Degrees, the Wanted + NKOTBSB Team Up at MixTape Festival
Everyone’s taking quite the trip down memory lane lately. First we had the Spice Girls performing at the 2012 Olympic Closing Ceremony, then it was 98 Degrees reuniting on ‘The Today Show,’ and now it’s 98 Degrees again, performing with the Wanted and New Kids on the Block at the first-ever MixTape Festival in Hershey, Penn. We’re not really complaining…
“We run about the stage, we jump around a lot,” the Wanted’s Nathan Sykes said to MTV News before the show. “We’ve got our American band with us who are super, [but] we play as well; I think [the fans] will be surprised a bit by that. We pick instruments up ourselves and play them. We just get everyone rocking, really, which is pretty cool.”
Sure, the guys from the Wanted may be one of the two hottest boy bands of 2012, but we’re in our 20′s, so it’s the MixTape performances from 98 Degrees and New Kids on the Block that’ll be most fun.
“We haven’t done this in 11 years, and you don’t know how the fans are going to respond. Are people still going to be there?” Nick Lachey told MTV News. “When the curtain dropped and you saw the crowd and you can hear the screams and you knew they were there with you, it was special.”
Lachey and the guys of 98 Degrees may have shaken things up in the world of boy bands by announcing their plans to reunite, but leave it to NKOTB’s Donnie Wahlberg to put everyone in their place; albeit nicely.
“Let’s just say all is well in the boy-band universe. But make no mistake that the state of this union started with NKOTBSB,” said Wahlberg, referring to both New Kids on the Block and the Backstreet Boys, who also appeared at the festival.
The two bands closed the show, marking their first and final joint performances of the year. And then the boy band universe exploded.
Watch the 98 Degrees ‘I Do (Cherish You)’ Video