Justin Timberlake got the old band back together when he reunited with *NSYNC on Wednesday night (March 13) during his pre-album-release show at The Wiltern in Los Angeles.
JT and *NSYNC made hearts race, and set charts alight, during their golden run in the 1990s and early 2000s, before going on hiatus in 2002. The boy band — or, now, man band — was back to their old ways in L.A., a full-body workout ahead of Timberlake’s Forget Tomorrow World Tour.
Tonight’s “One Night Show” will be a hard act to follow. Timberlake, JC Chasez, Joey Fatone, Chris Kirkpatrick and Lance Bass performed their smash ’90s hits “Bye Bye Bye” and “It’s Gonna Be Me” and debuted the new collaborative track “Paradise.”
The surprise reunion was their first onstage since an appearance at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards last September. Prior to that, the “It’s Gonna Be Me” singers last strutted their stuff as the full, five-piece unit back in 2013, for JT’s Video Vanguard Award medley.
Later, in 2019, Chasez, Kirkpatrick, Fatone and Bass joined Ariana Grande onstage during her headlining Coachella set for a performance of “Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored” and “Tearin’ Up My Heart.” On that occasion, Timberlake wasn’t in the place.
Timberlake did return to his roots — and the studio — with *NSYNC in 2023 for “Better Place,” which accompanied the JT-starring animated family film Trolls Band Together. The track bowed at No. 25, for *NSYNC’s lucky 13th appearance on the Billboard Hot 100.
All told, *NSYNC has earned six top 10 hits on the Hot 100, including “Bye Bye Bye” (No. 4), “This I Promise You” (No. 5) and “It’s Gonna Be Me” (No. 1, two weeks). On the Billboard 200, the lads have notched four top 10 titles, including the No. 1 albums No Strings Attached (eight weeks) and Celebrity (one week).
JT’s concert acts as a curtain raiser for the release Friday (March 15) of his sixth solo album Everything I Thought It Was and the kick-off of his Forget Tomorrow World Tour on April 29 at Rogers Arena, in Vancouver, Canada.
The forthcoming album, led by the single “Selfish,” marks JT’s first solo release in more than five years. EITIW is the follow-up to his 2018 solo LP Man of the Woods, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
Earlier this week, Timberlake had a debut performance of the EITIW song “No Angels” on Jimmy Kimmel Live!
This story originally appeared on Billboard
