Concert Review: Jonas Brothers / Lawrence @ MVP Arena, 12/02/2023

The Jonas Brothers brought their highly ambitious “Five Albums, One Night, The World Tour” to Albany’s MVP Arena on Saturday night. As the tour’s name implies, the trio performed tracks from five of their six full-length albums. For some reason, their 2006 debut album “It’s About Time” was left out. The show is very similar in concept to Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour.” Over the course of the evening, they played nearly forty songs, giving the customers a lot of bang for their buck.

They started the show with “Celebrate” from their most recent release, 2023’s simply titled “The Album.” They followed it up with “What A Man Gotta Do” from their recent greatest hits compilation “The Family Business.” From that point on they tended to keep the songs from each album grouped together.

“S.O.S.” kicked off 2007’s “Jonas Brothers” record. They played bits of every song from the record, using several medleys with truncated versions of some of the songs. They closed this portion of their set with their cover of “Year 3000” which was originally released by British rock band Busted.

They dipped back into “The Album” with a four-song block including “Summer Baby,” “Vacation Eyes,” “Sail Away,” and “Little Bird.” The 2008 record “A Little Bit Longer” came next. The title track segued into a ten-song medley of other songs off the album. “Love Bug” and “Burning Up” closed out the first portion of the concert. Giant balls of fire erupted from pyro fixtures during “Burning Up.” There was a brief intermission, and they came back out swinging.

They opened the second set with a lively rendition of their recent single “Waffle House.” “Montana Sky” and “Miracle” closed out “The Album” portion of the set.

2009’s “Lines, Vines and Trying Times” got an especially abbreviated treatment with “Fly With Me” being the only song from that record to be played in full. They fit the remaining eight tracks from that record into another medley.

Each of the brothers have had solo careers and side projects. The next block of songs came from these releases. Nick’s solo hit “Jealous” sounded great as did Joe’s “Cake By The Ocean” which he released with the band DNCE.  They even threw in a Christmas song for good measure with a snow machine dropping precipitation from the rafters. A young girl named Sophia was there celebrating her third birthday. The band took the time to lead the thousands of fans in an impromptu rendition of “Happy Birthday” for her.

The band took a hiatus from 2013 until 2019 when they released “Happiness Begins.” The last set of songs came from this record. They closed the main set with their monster radio hit “Sucker” before performing their collaboration with Marshmello, “Leave Before You Love Me.”

The tour production was on point. There were stages set up at either end of the arena with a long runway between them. The brothers spent time performing on both stages, giving every fan a chance to get an up close and personal look at them.

This “boy band” is a legit band. Nick and Kevin both spent a majority of the evening with guitars strapped to their chests. They led a huge backing band that included a full horn section. It was impressive.  The band and their fans have gotten a little older together, but it didn’t seem like either has missed a step.

Photo Gallery by Claude Sawyer