NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK LIVE! | PNC ARENA RALEIGH

NKOTB brought “The MixTape Tour 2022” to PNC Arena in Raleigh, NC on July 22, 2022. This year’s special guests included En Vogue, Rick Astley, and Salt ‘N Pepa. The awesome part about this tour is as headliners, NKOTB both opens and closes the show. Fans officially don’t want to miss a single second of the show. Not only does each artist perform multiple sets, they also have multiple stages. NKOTB started the night out on the larger main stage. They came out in matching leather jackets and performed a 6 song set, which included a well choreographed routine, an incredible light show, enough confetti to fill an entire arena, plus FIRE! They even hopped down to stage B located at the back of the arena for a medley of covers before ending their first set. 

Something I also find incredible is there’s only a very small break between artists on this tour. The lights only go down for maybe a minute before the next artist is already entering the stage. En Vogue came out next for their first of 3 sets for the night. They managed to cover all of their greatest hits including “Hold On,” “Free Your Mind,” and “My Lovin.”

Rick Astley started out his 1st set on stage B at the back of the arena. It’s a small stage and the fans completely surround it. There’s no barricade around the stage, so it actually makes it a very intimate performance. He started out his first set with “Together Forever” and I noticed every fan excitedly singing along with him word for word. 

Only a short video played on the screen behind the main stage before Salt ‘N Pepa came out. They were escorted down the stairs by their dancers who joined in with them for most of their set. Salt ‘N Pepa went straight into “None Of Your Business” and “Let’s Talk About Sex” and the crowd absolutely erupted at this point. This was a huge sold-out crowd in probably Raleigh’s biggest arena and I saw people from the very front of the venue all the way to the back all dancing during absolutely every song while they were on stage. En Vogue would actually join in on “Whatta Man” and that was possibly one of my favorite parts of the entire experience.

NKOTB continued playing sets through the entire night. 5 times in total. I was 12 in 1989 when “Hangin’ Tough” became successful and I admittedly had posters and t-shirts and probably everything else of these guys all over my bedroom at some point. This was my first time seeing them live in person and honestly, I was impressed. Their showmanship is incredible. I attend a lot of shows and I’ve definitely never seen performers engage a crowd in a giant arena quite like this. These guys circled the entire venue greeting their fans, singing to their fans, hugging their fans, stopping on stage and outside of the stage to take a picture with a fan. They really made sure the full experience was on the crowd and every artist of the night worked to put in an extremely well organized full show that was non-stop for just under 3 hours. 

Contributing Photographer/Editor Daphne McKinney