Back in 2019, grown-up boy band the Jonas Brothers pulled off a rare feat. They announced they were reuniting after an acrimonious split six years earlier, and not only pulled off a terrific comeback tour, they scored the biggest hit of their career with “Sucker,” a chart-topper here in the States and in such far off locales as Australia, Singapore and the Czech Republic.
The brothers’ underwhelming concert Friday night at St. Paul’s Grand Casino Arena suggested another extended break might be in the works.
When large-scale touring started to come back in 2021, the JoBros were among the first to return to the road and played the Mystic Lake Casino Amphitheater that September. In 2023, they embarked on an ambitious, if flawed, outing where they played all five of their albums in full. The tour hit the metro twice in three months, with a truncated show at the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand coming across as rushed and the full set at what was then Xcel Energy Center feeling overstuffed and too long.
Also, the hits stopped midway through 2021, with nothing from 2023’s “The Album” and this year’s “Greetings from Your Hometown” making much of an impact beyond the group’s most fervent following.
The current tour is billed as a celebration of the band’s 20th anniversary with a set list of songs from throughout their career. Friday night, it became quite clear that the audience was there for the hits, not the new stuff. It wasn’t until five songs in when the crowd of more than 13,500 noticeably perked up for 2007’s “S.O.S.,” the JoBros’ breakthrough hit. They followed that up with “Sucker,” which earned a similarly lustful response.
But whenever they played any contemporary stuff — save for their summer single “No Time to Talk,” which lifts lyrics and melody from the Bee Gees classic “Stayin’ Alive” — the energy in the room plummeted.
Speaking of energy, Friday’s show was the first time I’ve seen the JoBros play with so little enthusiasm. They barely interacted with each other and spent most the night looking bored or, at times, even angry. The muddled sound, uncharacteristic for this venue, didn’t help matters. The drums, bass and vocals dominated, with every other instrument buried in the mix. Why bother bringing a stage full of guitarists, horn players and backup singers if no one could hear them?
Joe and Nick did chat up some fans and took a few requests, including “Mandy” (an original, not the Barry Manilow song), the first single from their mostly forgotten debut album “It’s About Time.” It was also fun when Nick invited out the Administration, his solo band from 2010, for a mini set. The group includes three former Prince sidemen, Michael Bland, Tommy Barbarella and Sonny Thompson, although Bland wasn’t on hand Friday night.
Given the general mood on stage Friday, the next Jonas we see in town may well be a solo one.
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