It’s a good year to be a Jonas brother. Nick, Kevin and Joe dropped by Hollywood in January to receive their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, where Nick announced that their next album, The Album, would be released in May. They played a five-date engagement on Broadway in March, with each performance dedicated to one of their catalog LPs. Then in May, a week after the May 12 release of The Album, they announced a tour titled, appropriately enough, The Tour.
In an extension of their Broadway concept, the JoBros planned to incorporate every track from every album they’ve released since 2007. This manifested as a Nick-curated 67-song setlist by the time the tour kicked off with two concerts at Yankee Stadium last month. Some of the cuts were condensed into medleys, or “mosaics,” as the brothers refer to them, with newer songs such as “Waffle House,” “Do It Like That” and “Wings” interspersed throughout.
It was an audacious undertaking, but they pulled it off. Jimmy Fallon appeared at the first show to lead the crowd in a karaoke version of The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside” before the Brothers kicked off their set with “Celebrate!” from The Album and 2020 single “What a Man Gotta Do” before bringing it all back home to their Jonas Brothers album with “S.O.S.”
That song peaked at No. 17 on Billboard’s singles chart, while Jonas Brothers reached No. 5. They’d top the Billboard 200 the following year with A Little Bit Longer and reached No. 1 again with 2009’s Lines, Vines and Trying Times and 2019 reunion album Happiness Begins, which would yield their lone No. 1 single, “Sucker.”
As with the current concert concepts of Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, The Tour is thematically retrospective. It’s a momentous look back before the next phase, or a final split. Jonas Brothers took a six-year break before releasing Happiness Begins, which was accompanied by an Amazon documentary and a marathon series of concerts. This time, after a second round of dates was announced, Jonas Brothers would play nearly 100 dates in total, including their first performances in Australia.
Finally, the Jonas Brothers will play their 2007 song “Australia” for Australians in Australia. They also have an extended band that can handle songs from The Album, which explores ’70s and ’80s pop territory. There are hints of Hall & Oates, Michael McDonald and Stevie Wonder blended with contemporary vocal stylings and positive energy that Jonas Brothers music tends to be imbued with.
The Yankee Stadium shows established that the Jonas Brothers could indeed recall every note of every song they’ve released in the past 16 years, and that their popularity endures. Whether The Tour and The Album will inform the final chapter in the Jonas Brothers’ story remains to be seen, but it’s very possible that they are heading for the end of the road.
MGM Grand, 7:30 p.m. Sept. 8, starting at $39 plus tax and fee. ticketmaster.com
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