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The No Strings Attached Tour was the third concert tour by American boy band, NSYNC. Primarily visiting North America, the tour supported the band's second studio album No Strings Attached . Beginning in May 2000, the tour sold out all dates within the first day of the ticket sale. Additional dates, also in North America, were added for the Fall of 2000. When the tour ended in December 2000, it became the second highest-grossing tour in North America, earning more than $70 million.

The concerts at Madison Square Garden were filmed for a HBO special.

• 1.1 Concert synopsois

Background [ ]

The tour was initially announced during an AOL chat with bandmember JC Chasez in 1999. The band were on tour and promoting their latest single, "Bye Bye Bye" when Chasez announced they were rehearing their upcoming tour. It was officially announced on March 21, 2000, the same day as their album was released. The outing was sponsored by MCY Music and Nabisco. It was also produced by SFX Touring. The tour became an instant success, with all 50 initial dates being sold out, selling one million tickets within the first day. This was followed with the album selling over two million copies within the first week. Several tickets for the concert at Madison Square Garden and the Staples Center were auctioned off through Yahoo! Auctions. Proceeds went to the "Justin Timberlake Foundation" and the "Challenge for the Children Foundation".

Rehearsals began in April 2000 at the Lakeland Center in Lakeland, Florida. Due to the closeness of their previous tour, the stage for this outing was very similar. However, the stage included new elements including pyrotechnics, stage lifts and aerial suspension. These elements were the reason why the band opted to perform in stadiums and arenas instead of outdoor amphitheaters. Describing the stage, Lance Bass stated, "It's amazing with the pyro and different things. I can't really reveal a lot of the gags that we are going to do, but it's going to be very entertaining and we are going to get very close to everybody in the audience". Due to the limited number of dates performed, the stadium dates were centralized regionally, in order to give each fan a chance to see them.

During an appearance on TRL, the band announced Destiny's Child would join them on tour, however the R&B group backed out and joined Christina Aguilera on her debut tour. Later in the tour, Sisqó dropped out of the tour to film his role in the film Get Over It . When the tour kicked off, Justin Timberlake received his high school diploma onstage at the Pyramid Arena. Another honor was received when the band were given the key to the city by Orlando mayor Glenda Hood. The band also opened a Ronald McDonald House, where a room was named in their honor.

The success of the tour prompted the band to add an additional leg of dates in the United States. In response to the additional dates, Joey Fatone stated,

The band also announced they would join Britney Spears on a co-headlining tour of Europe in October. However, the tour was dropped due to legal actions and Spears toured the region solo. As the second North American leg came to a close, the band announced they would star in their first feature concert film. The film was released exclusively through IMAX theaters for six months. Additionally, the band partnered with MSN to give fans exclusive access to newsletters, photos and video footage. Known as "NSYNC@MSN", the service provided web and email access along with MSN Messenger and Windows Media Player.

The show began NSYNC revealed as marionettes dropping 40 feet above the stage featuring a small sample of I Got No Strings . When they land, the group cuts the strings and unhooked themselves before heading into two dance-oriented performances of No Strings Attached and I Want You Back . This was followed by Lance Bass welcoming the crowd before slowing things down with a performance of (God Must Have Spent) A Little More Time on You which the group rose 30 feet above the stage on 5 small platforms.

After the group left the stage, there was a video interlude hosted by television persona Ananda Lewis called Total *NSYNC Live (parody of Total Request Live ) which fans were given 4 selections of possible songs that *NSYNC would sing next. The first 3-song choices ( Yankee Doodle Dandy , Three Blind Mice , and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star ) always ended up getting jeers and a laugh from the crowd. By the time Lewis says the 4th option Tearin' Up My Heart , the crowd goes wild, it gets selected as the chosen song, and the group returns to the stage dressed in freestyle clothing (almost like their previous wardrobe from their last tour) to perform the song.

The show then continues with Justin Timberlake returning the stage showcasing some his freestyle Beatbox skills before the group's drummer begins to upstage him and calling him out, Timberlake challenges the drummer to a battle which ends in victory for Timberlake. The rest of the group returns to the stage in urban attire to perform It's Gonna Be Me . This was followed by the group putting together a living room setting to slow things down again with 2 ballads I Drive Myself Crazy and I Thought She Knew .

After the group leaves the stage again, another interlude is shown featuring the group heading into their quick-change room featuring circus people, an arcade, and a movie theatre (which includes the group watching Lance Bass in the finals of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire where he fictionally wins $1 million). They then return to the stage dressed in club attire all designed with money on it for a performance of "Just Got Paid". During the song, pre-selected fans were chosen to go up on stage and dance with the group with confetti dropping everywhere. They also introduce their band members before all leaving the stage again.

Concert synopsois [ ]

The show continues with a futuristic interlude which included a laser light show and the face of the No Strings Attached clown mascot (with a robot voice) appearing out of a virtual head giving the audience riddles. NSYNC then rises out of the floor dressed in midwestern futuristic attire for a performance of Space Cowboy featuring an extended dance break. At the end of the song, the group goes back down into the ground with the band playing an extended instrumental interlude of the chorus. It ends abruptly with the sound of a car crashing, a woman screaming, a man yelling "Someone's hurt", and the sound of an ambulance siren. NSYNC returns to the stage in a little brief hospital skit dressed in doctor lab coats taking care of an injured Timberlake before heading into It Makes Me Ill . This was followed by the group bringing out stools to slow things down for another song. However, Chasez comes up with an idea to go more closer to the crowd. The group brings out the stools before the centerpiece of the stage breaks. The stage piece (on a track) brings the members out to the center of the arena getting closer to the crowd ending the main setlist with This I Promise You . The stage piece goes back to where it was, the group takes their bows and leaves the stage.

The show continues with a large video screen that says "*NSYNC" appeared on the set while the band dressed on a futuristic space with Digital Get Down while NSYNC disappeared on a video screen wall and then we concludes the encore set with Bye Bye Bye , As the guys walks over the platform stage, they say goodbye and walks over the main stage while JC walks over and introduced to the musicians. The group then disappears through a geyser as fireworks go off at the same time.

Personnel [ ]

• JC Chasez – Lead Vocals
• Justin Timberlake – Lead Vocals
• Chris Kirkpatrick – Backing Vocals
• Lance Bass – Backing Vocals
• Joey Fatone – Backing Vocals

Throughout their concerts, the five were accompanied by the following instrumentalists on this tour:

• Kevin Antunes – Music Director, Keyboards
• Troy Antunes – Bass
• Billy Ashbaugh – Drums, Percussion
• Ruben Ruiz – Guitar, Keyboards
• David Cook – Keyboards
• Paul Howards – Saxophone, Percussion, Keyboards

Setlist [ ]

• "Intro" (contains excerpts from "I've Got No Strings" along with elements of "Digital Get Down" and "I'll Never Stop") (dance introduction)
• "No Strings Attached" (contains elements of "Prologue" from West Side Story )
• "I Want You Back"
• "(God Must Have Spent) A Little More Time on You"
• "TNL: Total NSYNC Live" (featuring Ananda Lewis) (video interlude)
• "Tearin' Up My Heart"
• "Justin's Beat Box" (contains elements of "It Ain't My Fault") (performance interlude)
• "It's Gonna Be Me"
• "Thinking of You (I Drive Myself Crazy)"
• "I Thought She Knew"
• "NTV: 'NSYNC TV" (contains elements of "Frolic" and "It's Gonna Be Me") (video interlude)
• "Just Got Paid"
• "Space Circus Clown" (video interlude)
• "Space Cowboy (Yippie-Yi-Yay)"
• "It Makes Me Ill" (contains elements of "Sir Nose D'Voidoffunk)
• "This I Promise You"
• "Video Interlude"
• "Digital Get Down"
• "Bye Bye Bye"
• "Outro" (contains elements of "Tom Sawyer")
• "No Strings Attached"
• A medley of "I Want You Back" and "Tearin' Up My Heart"
• 1 Jumpstyle
• 3 Alyssa Patrone

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'N Sync: Live from Madison Square Garden

In the summer of 2000, 'N Sync hit the road with their "No Strings Attached" tour - a concert to remember. In the summer of 2000, 'N Sync hit the road with their "No Strings Attached" tour - a concert to remember. In the summer of 2000, 'N Sync hit the road with their "No Strings Attached" tour - a concert to remember.

• Marty Callner
• 3 User reviews
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• (as James Lance Bass)

• (as J.C. Chasez)

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• Oct 12, 2000
• July 27, 2000 (United States)
• United States
• Felt Forum, Madison Square Garden - 4 Pennsylvania Plaza, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA
• Cream Cheese Films
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• Runtime 1 hour 30 minutes

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‘N Sync Embark on Grand Pop Odyssey at Giants Stadium

By David Fricke

David Fricke

A t Philadelphia’s spectrum last July, ‘N Sync’s No Strings Attached tour felt like the end of teen-pop utopia: cameras confiscated, hand-painted signs seized at the door (“The boys will see them backstage”) and no pretense that music mattered in a show that was all skits and costume changes. But two subsequent televised stadium cameos – the group’s soul-perfect World Series “Star-Spangled Banner” and sure-footed Super Bowl “Walk This Way” – aroused one’s hopes. And at Giants Stadium in New Jersey, a crucial problem with the earlier indoor show in Philly was clear even before the boys had danced down the 200-foot runway from the midfield staging area to the stage proper: Nowhere with a roof can hold what ‘N Sync have become.

The PopOdyssey Tour’s many nonmusical accoutrements improve drastically on last year’s hurray for the toy show, the art-directed plays on the word pop, the black-and-white flick with a not-yet-discernibly-cynical Justin doing a respectable Chaplin and, especially, the regular returns to the staging area, giving fans in the stands something closer to the access they craved. But access is a chimera in all megavenues, and said fans – among whom, parents and kiddies aside, teenage girls outnumbered teenage boys by at least fifty-to-one – already had something no one gets in an arena: sky’s-the-limit grandeur and the relaxed, if illusory, freedom of the open air.

Of course, there was music, too, and even the unfamiliar songs from the upcoming Celebrity album sounded fine, although one wishes “Celebrity” itself wasn’t a dig at gold-digging. Fact is, combining a half-black band that knows its funk with guys who can negotiate our national anthem, the entire ‘Sync oeuvre is beginning to sound as classic as Coca-Cola – even “No Strings Attached,” even, Lord, “God Must Have Spent a Little More Time on You.” Bland, sure – let’s not get silly. But also inevitable, historic, somehow wonderful.

This story is from the July 19th, 2001 issue of Rolling Stone.

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NPR Music's 20|20

The future according to nsync: 20 years of 'no strings attached'.

Maria Sherman

NSYNC in early 2001. Left to right: Lance Bass, Chris Kirkpatrick, Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez and Joey Fatone. Tim Roney/Getty Images hide caption

NSYNC in early 2001. Left to right: Lance Bass, Chris Kirkpatrick, Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez and Joey Fatone.

When the 20th century came to a close, the music industry was booming, lucrative in ways previously unimaginable. Sales were the best the business had ever seen, with new releases averaging $18.52 at the peak of the CD era. Young people's purchasing power was matched with a measure of political power in MTV's Total Request Live , an outlet to vote for their favorite artists and have their picks ritualistically blasted into their living rooms every afternoon after school. And on any given day, you could safely assume that one of a half-dozen teen pop artists was dominating the conversation.

In 1999, the Backstreet Boys' Millennium set an all-time record for first-week sales, with 1.13 million records moved. Britney Spears beat that figure the following spring, with 1.3 million copies of Oops!...I Did It Again in its first week. Those are impressive numbers, but they're nothing compared to NSYNC . When the boy band's sophomore LP, No Strings Attached , dropped on March 21, 2000, it sold 1.2 million units its first day . By the end of the week, that number had doubled to 2.4 million, a bar that no artist in any genre would clear for 15 years . And then, barely two years later, it was all over.

Twenty years removed, the popular narrative around No Strings Attached goes something like this: NSYNC burned bright and fast, one of the last artists to benefit so greatly from the industry bubble before its spectacular burst. As post-9/11 audiences embraced edgier sounds and internet accessibility collapsed the power of the industry establishment, not only were the teen idols of the moment nudged aside, but pop began to unravel as a category — its sounds becoming hybridized and democratized beyond recognition. NSYNC's de facto frontman, Justin Timberlake , seemed to sense the change in the air early; his 2002 solo debut, Justified , landed in a pop landscape that its super-producers The Neptunes had already begun to shape in their own image. As for boy bands, they would be off the radar until the boys of One Direction , almost the spiritual opposite of NSYNC, stumbled onto The X Factor a decade later.

No Strings Attached is so often invoked as a point on a fraught economic timeline that it's easy to forget you can listen to it, too. But when seen for its substance — its forward-thinking production, its genre-expanding collaborations, the videos and choreography that made it as much a visual presentation as an audio one — it tells a much more rewarding story than what the numbers show. In a time when most pop albums were stuffed with filler to pad out killer radio singles, No Strings Attached was overflowing with ambitious ideas and hinted at where pop music, and pop culture, were headed.

Before No Strings Attached , Timberlake, Chris Kirkpatrick, Lance Bass, Joey Fatone and JC Chasez were plenty famous, if not yet fully realized as the group they would become. (That's immediately apparent on the cover of their 1997 eponymous debut, in which Chasez gets the center slot rather than Timberlake.) Early singles " I Want You Back " and " Tearin' Up My Heart " were midtempo soft-pop with Ace of Base-style production — a signature of Swedish songwriter Max Martin — and only slightly funkier than the lovelorn inoffensiveness the Backstreet Boys were already churning out. The two groups sat alongside each other on Top 40 radio playlists, with little to distinguish them.

Some amount of confusion was inevitable. Both groups were made up of five boys, both were based in Orlando, both worked with the same writing team at Cheiron Studios in Stockholm, and both broke in Germany before making a dent in the United States. Behind the scenes, both groups were also spearheaded by the same puppet master, manager Lou Pearlman , to compete with one another. NSYNC's stateside breakthrough came courtesy of its would-be rivals: In 1998, the Backstreet Boys bailed out of a live concert filmed for the Disney Channel in order for member Brian Littrell to undergo heart surgery, so the new group filled in, exploding in popularity virtually overnight. But as NSYNC's profile grew, so did the members' awareness that Pearlman was scamming them out of their profit. In 1999, they began separating themselves from the man who had brought them together. He sued, the group settled, and the strings were cut — a not-so-subtle inspiration for the album that would follow.

On the phone from his home in Nashville, Chris Kirkpatrick recalls the months leading up to No Strings Attached . "The legacy to me is how afraid we were. We had great success with the first album. We are on the brink of what is pretty much every band's biggest record — their second record, their make-it-or-break-it moment," he says. "We'd just changed labels, we're going through the battle with Lou. .... There was a lot of pressure on that record to do at least as good as the first record. That was our hope. And when it came out, a giant weight was lifted off our shoulders. We couldn't believe the response."

Free from Pearlman, the group grew more confident in the studio, eager to collaborate with its producers on a new sound: an amalgamation of new jack swing revivalism , uptempo R&B and hip-hop worship . No Strings allowed the group to sonically divorce itself from the competition, through a prescient dedication to genres that would soon take the place of pop and rock atop the charts.

The sound of a new millennium, No Strings Attached begins with an ironic fake-out — a climbing string crescendo that bleeds into Justin Timberlake's nasal falsetto, his quickly ad-libbed "Hey, hey" bursting into the five-part harmony of " Bye Bye Bye ." Instantly distinct from the first album's lovesick formula, the lead single's kiss-off message hit hard, trading pop pining for sexy self-assurance while maintaining a marketable level of boy band innocence. Put another way, it was still pop, but dirty pop.

"It wasn't a conscious decision to be edgier — it was a conscious decision to want to be uptempo," Kirkpatrick says. "I don't think we ever considered ourselves that ballad-heavy, even on the first record. We loved uptempo [songs], we loved dancing, we loved high-energy shows. It's hard to keep a high-energy show if you break it down and every other song is a ballad. For the most part, we kept it pretty pop, pretty dancey."

The production of "Bye Bye Bye" teeters on abrasive, its buzzy electronics adding texture to NSYNC's silky-smooth vocals, further distinguishing them from BSB's satiny doo-wop. The song is arranged around hard drums, the snare and kick placed loud in the mix as if ripe for a trap remix. Here and elsewhere, No Strings adopted tricks from funk, hip-hop, and dance music that NSYNC's peers hadn't explored. The album is littered with sharp, staccato "stabs" — a declarative note or chord that punctuates a musical phrase and builds anticipation for the next one — and syncopated rhythms of the kind favored by today's boy bands, particularly the Korean pop acts who hang their aesthetics on street style. (See: BTS, " Black Swan .")

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"It was really straight melodies before that. We all loved American R&B and hip-hop; it's all we listened to. We wanted our stuff to sound like that," says songwriter Jake Schulze, speaking over the phone from Sweden. "Of course, it wasn't close. But in our world, it was really close."

An alumnus of Stockholm's Cheiron Studios, where many of the teen-pop hits of the Y2K era were recorded, Schulze was one of the co-writers and co-producers of "Bye Bye Bye." "We used different keyboards and mixed up different sounds. A friend of mine said, when he heard the mix for the first time, 'Oh, I could count to 75 stab sounds.' That was the start of the stabs." Schulze originally wrote the song with collaborators Kristian Lundin and Andreas Carlsson for the English boy band Five, who opted not to record it. NSYNC, too, was hesitant at first: Prior to landing on the lyrics "Don't wanna be a fool for you / Just another player in your game for two," the Cheiron team wrote raps to fill the song's chorus — which the band refused, perhaps aware that a different rapping white boy was filling plenty of space on TRL already.

But even if it lacked bars, NSYNC did have the pipes to realize pop songs with hip-hop's rhythms and sensibilities. Songwriters Kandi Burruss and She'kspere, part of the team behind TLC's " No Scrubs ," contributed the No Strings track " It Makes Me Ill ." (Years later, that song would form the basis of " break up with your girlfriend, i'm bored " by Ariana Grande, who brought out a Timberlake-less NSYNC to help sing it at her 2019 Coachella performance .) "Space Cowboy (Yippie-Yi-Yay) " features TLC's Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes herself. Long before features were a necessity for pop acts in a competitive music market, NSYNC had begun to mirror hip-hop by seeking out cross-genre collaborations — even linking with the original Latin crossover artist, Gloria Estefan, for " Music of My Heart " in late 1999.

"Nelly ... we did a song with Phil Collins ... we did a song with Stevie Wonder. We did a whole special with Tim McGraw," Kirkpatrick says. "We were always thinking, 'What's the next thing we can do?' — trying to make the whole gamut of music."

Even more than its sound, one thing set the group miles apart from the competition: its dancing. "The challenge for us was to not be a band that gets out there and does a couple step-touches, spins the mic stand and does the five-part harmonies," Kirkpatrick says. "[It was more like,] 'Let's do the five part harmonies and go balls-to-the-wall dancing.' " For that, they turned to star choreographer Darrin Dewitt Henson.

"I remember teaching Justin how to pop — which the world called 'popping and locking,' but it was popping — and how to do the glide, like Michael Jackson did," Henson recalls over the phone. By 2000, Henson had made his name as the moment's "it" choreographer, having worked with Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Jagged Edge during the current pop wave, as well as New Kids on the Block and Color Me Badd during the previous one. "I was very familiar with boy bands, but I gave NSYNC moves that no one else had. I knew early on, studying The Jackson 5, that you could sing, but unless you dance, you weren't going to be in control of the crowd."

Like "Thriller" or "Single Ladies," Henson's choreography for "Bye Bye Bye" included a few specific, easily imitated moves that became indelible parts of the song's identity: a swaggy three-part hand clap that he calls the "puppet hand," and a complementary set of fist pumps. The New York native says he drew on his Bronx b-boy roots for inspiration. "When you're tired of hearing somebody talk, we used to say, 'Stop talking s***,' and it was like the puppet hand. And the fist really is the Black Power fist — a source of power."

NSYNC's experiments with black art forms mostly tiptoed around any explicit discussion of race, though perhaps no more so than much of pop culture at the time. ("They had a harder sound," Schulze explains in language emblematic of the colorblind '90s. "They were more 'basketball' than 'girl-meets-boy and falls in love,' so it was a bit more edgy. They were the cool guys.") But Henson says he felt he could trust the group to treat the work respectfully. "They had an honest appetite for the people who came before them. If it was someone who I felt was going to bastardize it, I would have never done it," he says.

"We didn't look at it as black and white," he adds. "We were just boys."

Beyond a desire to contemporize its sound, NSYNC knew the value of diversifying its audience, and not only along the lines of genre. The single "This I Promise You," penned by '80s icon Richard Marx, ensured the album found its way to older audiences, too. "It would have never crossed my mind to write young," Marx says of the song two decades later. "It turns out that in no time that song became such a wedding song and such an anthem for couples. "This I Promise You" hit No. 1 on Billboard 's Adult Contemporary chart, where it spent 13 weeks. The goal of reaching as many listeners as possible explains how throwbacks like Marx's ballad and a cover of Johnny Kemp's new jack swing classic "Just Got Paid" wound up side by side with "Digital Get Down," a frankly hilarious ode to cybersex that pushed past the coded carnality by which the era's other boy bands abided. As a New York Times review that year put it: "It's the key to long-running pop sales; young fans rush out to buy the album immediately while older ones wait for it to sink in."

If No Strings Attached represented an industry peak, the crash that followed would be no less dramatic. As customers moved from $20 CDs to the free, not-quite-legal wares on peer-to-peer networks like Napster and LimeWire, there was a feeling that teen pop had also reached its apex. "We were ahead of the trend when we came out," Kirkpatrick says. "And then the trends caught up, because that's what trends do."

NSYNC went on to release a third album, 2001's Celebrity — which leaned even harder into R&B, firmly established Timberlake as the bandleader and pushed Chasez's powerful pop vocals to the periphery. A year after that, the group announced an indefinite hiatus, which tilted towards definite as Timberlake's solo career took off. In the years since, other boy bands of the era have reunited as man bands, working the nostalgia circuit or adjusting their new material to an audience who has aged with them. (The Backstreet Boys have released six albums since Millennium , slowly easing into soft pop rock.) But NSYNC, apart from a handful of one-off appearances, has remained a thing of the past.

And yet, the lane the group carved with No Strings Attached couldn't be more relevant to the pop market of today: a union of Swedish pop songcraft with R&B and hip-hop's flow and bounce; an eagerness to explore mature themes and styles; an understanding that dance and visual presentation can turn stars into icons. There is a reason "This I Promise You" has become a wedding staple, "Bye Bye Bye" has become a modern karaoke classic and " It's Gonna Be Me " has become a meme that appears, like clockwork, every April 30 . The group etched its place in time with harmonies and production and moves that would stand the test of it.

"It's a thing that won't go away," Schulze says, reflecting on No Strings' legacy. "When you go, the day you leave the earth, you know that something happened. And then," he laughs, "it's bye bye bye."

Maria Sherman is a senior staff writer at Jezebel and the author of the book Larger Than Life: A History of Boy Bands from NKOTB to BTS.

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• July 25, 2000 Setlist

*NSYNC Setlist at Madison Square Garden, New York, NY, USA

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• Song played from tape Dance Introduction ( Intro ) Play Video
• No Strings Attached Play Video
• I Want You Back Play Video
• (God Must Have Spent) A Little More Time on You Play Video
• Song played from tape TNL: Total 'N Sync Live ( Video Interlude ) Play Video
• Tearin' Up My Heart Play Video
• It's Gonna Be Me Play Video
• Thinking of You (I Drive Myself Crazy) Play Video
• I Thought She Knew Play Video
• Song played from tape NTV: 'N Sync TV ( Video Interlude ) Play Video
• Just Got Paid Play Video
• Song played from tape Space Circus Clown ( Video Interlude ) Play Video
• Space Cowboy (Yippie-Yi-Yay) Play Video
• It Makes Me Ill Play Video
• This I Promise You Play Video
• Song played from tape Untitled III ( Video Interlude ) Play Video
• Digital Get Down Play Video
• Bye Bye Bye Play Video

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*NSYNC: Making the Tour

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When Chris Kirkpatrick didn’t make the cut for the Backstreet Boys line-up, notorious music mogul Lou Pearlman had a stroke of genius and created his own unique boyband. Recruiting JC Chasez, Justin Timberlake, Lance Bass and Joey Fatone, N’Sync were born probably one of the biggest American boy bands of the late nineties. This bubblegum pop band were teenage heartthrobs and that didn’t go unnoticed by the hordes of swooning fans across the world.

Their self-titled album released in 1997 featuring the breakthrough single “Tearin’ Up My Heart” debuted at number two in the Billboard charts. Stylised as the all-American pop boyband was a no-brainer especially at a time when pop ruled the charts. The radio stations loved them, so did MTV and obviously so did their fans. Their second album “No Strings Attached” (2000) saw them really come into their own, stepping out and bringing a more upbeat album that sounded like N’Sync and not having to be compared to any other pop boy band. Selling almost 10 million copies of the album saw them clinch the title of best-selling album of the decade and also top-selling album of 2000. Delving into a dancier side of pop, the band released “Bye, Bye, Bye” which remained in the top 5 of Hot 100 Airplay charts for 5 weeks. The album also scored them their first number one in the singles chart with “It’s Gonna Be Me”. “Celebrity” (2001) their third album saw the band evolve even more as they became more involved in its creative process with Chasez and Timberlake writing and producing some tracks and also saw them collaborate with rapper Nelly on “Girlfriend”. What is a boyband without a good live show? As well as being super-talented, the N’Sync lads are natural born entertainers. They certainly don’t do things by halves, and their show are nothing short of spectacular. Playing arena tours all over the world is the perfect platform for the band to really put their heart and soul into each and every performance. It’s no surprise that they have thousands upon thousands of adoring fans turn up to their shows dressed in band merchandise and holding home-made signs expressing their love for the band. Everything in an N’Sync show is expertly executed, singing and choreographed dancing simultaneously is no easy feat but they make it look like a walk in the park. Props are a focal point of their live shows, whether it’s them entering the stage with “No Strings Attached” and literally having strings attached them as if they were being controlled by a marionette or even “It’s Gonna Be Me” and recreating the music video of them playing in a toy shop. Each song on the set list is another themed setting. Between quick wardrobe changes the crowd are still being entertained with comic relief footage being shown on the video screens or by having a band member entertaining the crowd like Timberlake beatboxing. The crowd are an integral part of any N’Sync show, showing the band an incredible amount of love whether it’s through dancing, singing, cheering or being moved to tears. What is certain is that N’Sync have a very passionate and loyal following.

As well as being a highly energised show, N’Sync sure know how to rein it in and slow it down with carefully selected ballads like “God Must Have Spent a Little More Time On You”, “Gone” and “That’s When I’ll Stop Loving You”. The moment when the band stop to sing “I Thought She Knew” acapella, is spine-chilling, a sentiment shared by those watching in awe. The 5 part harmonies are tight and as corny as it may sound, as perfectly in sync demonstrating what incredible vocalists they are not only individually but as a unit.

Having “Digital Get Down” and “Bye Bye Bye” for the encore is met with rapturous applause, as they close with pyro, smoke, confetti and flashing lights- the full works. You’re never short of entertainment at an N’Sync show, great fun, amazing harmonies, catchy pop tunes and a full production. What more could you want?

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N'sync captured my little heart at five years old and have held onto it ever since. I saw this heartthrob of a boy band when I was in first grade and it has stuck in my memory as one of the happiest days of my childhood. I spent weeks making the perfect poster to hold up at the concert, and begged my mom to buy me a t-shirt that had their faces on it.

The boy band's catchy pop lyrics and mesmerizing dance moves had me standing up and singing every single word to every single song. I think I even teared up when Justin sang one of the slower songs. I was so in love with him... (and I still am!)

If I could relive that night, I totally would! They definitely put on a great show and it was one I will never forget. It's a shame that they're no longer together and I'm forever hoping for a reunion concert!

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Digital Get Downs, Memes and Y2K’s Joyride: *NSYNC’s JC Chasez Reflects on 20 Years of ‘No Strings Attached’

For the 20th anniversary of *NSYNC's  No Strings Attached , JC Chasez speaks to Billboard about the album's legacy, the songs he worked on and what he really thinks about the boy band’s eyebrow-raising…

By Bianca Gracie

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Following our Billboard staff-picked list of the 100 greatest songs of 2000 , we’re writing this week about some of the stories and trends that defined the year for us. Here, *NSYNC co-lead vocalist JC Chasez looks back on 20 years of  No Strings Attached — the boy band’s sophomore album, which featured Chasez expanding his contributions into songwriting and production, and set a new precedent for cosmic pop dominance. 

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Y2K’s apocalyptic frenzy signaled a shift where pop singers became more defiant in taking risks with digitized sounds — from Aaliyah going full futuristic acid-rap fusion on “Try Again” to Britney Spears turbo driving her dance-pop into outer space with “Oops!… I Did It Again.”

*NSYNC was one of the sonic spaceship’s main navigators, thanks to the group’s sophomore album, No Strings Attached . The album (which turned 20 on March 21) saw the quintet transitioning from the thumping, Swedish synth-heavy jock jams of 1998’s self-titled album to exploring their urban influences. The end result? Millennial interpretations of New Jack Swing, and staccato rap-adjacent flows that were previously made mainstream by Destiny’s Child and TLC.

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Helping to lead the charge was JC Chasez who, along with fellow *NSYNC lead vocalist Justin Timberlake, earned his first official album credits on No Strings Attached . He stretched his talents to co-write and co-produce four songs, with assistance from songwriter Veit Renn and production duo Riprock ‘n’ Alex G: “Space Cowboy (Yippie-Yi-Yay)” featuring Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes,” “Digital Get Down,” “Bringin’ da Noise,” and the title track.

'It's *NSYNC's World, We Just Live in It': An Oral History of 'No Strings Attached' Selling a…

“From a business standpoint, this is exactly when we became far more involved and took control,” Chasez tells Billboard , as *NSYNC had to delay the album’s original fall 1999 release due to a messy legal battle with former manager Lou Pearlman. “We always had our opinions about our music and tried to be open-minded. We recorded songs that we don’t love and ones that we do, and that’s just a part of the experimental process.”

That experimentation led to immediate success. It made history as the first album to sell over 2 million copies within its first week of release (a record later broken by Adele with 2015’s 25 ), and birthed three top five singles (“Bye Bye Bye,” “It’s Gonna Be Me” — which topped the Hot 100 for two weeks — and “This I Promise You”). In 2001, it also earned a Grammy nomination for best pop vocal album.

Below, JC Chasez speaks to Billboard about the stories behind the songs he helped curate, the legacy that No Strings Attached leaves behind, and what he really thinks about the boy band’s eyebrow-raising tour outfits. The conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

The 100 Greatest Songs of 2000: Staff Picks

No Strings Attached is a lot more R&B-inspired compared to *NSYNC. Was that intentional?

We were raised in the States, and at the time, music had more urban influences — even before our first record came out. I think what happened — and this could be just me taking a shot in the dark — we moved to Europe to record our first album. And you’re a product of your environment. You get excited about things that people around you are excited about, so we were actually opening our minds up to something new at that point. We were in the middle of it, so we took on those [Swedish] influences. For the No Strings Attached record, we came back home and essentially called upon those influences inside of ourselves that were always there. We were just in the environment to allow those things to flourish. It happens naturally.

Did you guys draw from any specific inspirations?

I think the main thing when we were working on songs was we wanted it to translate live — we always saw the song live in our mind. We knew that it had to be theatrical in a way, because that’s the most fun to see. And we were very passionate about our shows. So as we were recording songs, we’d think “It would be cool if we did this and the crowd reacted this way” or “Everyone can sing this part.” We were conscious of our audience.

Can you recall any particular fun stories while you all were recording?

When you’re in it, you don’t think it’s crazy at the time. But then people look back at you and say, “Y’all were nuts!” [Laughs.] I didn’t even think of it that way. But because “It’s Gonna Be Me” has become a meme for the month of May, it was interesting when we cut that record. It was actually a very conscious choice to say it that way, because we wanted it to really punch.

For certain words, we bent the pronunciation. We were hitting the L’s hard on “lose.” Instead of saying, “You don’t wanna lose” — which would be kind of boring — we’d be like “You don’t wanna NLUUSE .” But when you’re listening to someone in the studio singing it that way, at first you’re like, “What is wrong with you?” But you have to dig and hit these different shapes of consonants and vowels to give them energy. Instead of saying, “It’s gonna be ME ” we said “ET’S GONNA BAY MAY!” for it to hit harder.

Those conscious choices sound funny from the outside, but when it all comes together it sounds amazing. There weren’t memes back then, but we knew it needed to be more .

What was the decision behind getting more involved in writing and producing with Riprock ‘n’ Alex G?

I always wanted to be involved, and even in the beginning I had written some of the demos we shopped our [record] deal with. When we got signed, we moved to Europe to record and it was a bit of a fish-out-of-water [experience]. I was recording on kind of an amateur level with my production and writing skills at the time. When you’re put out into the world, you need to develop those skills and need to be around other high-level musicians.

So the first album was a great learning experience for me, to be around all these writers and producers. I acted like a sponge and learned as much as I could in the process while still being myself and giving my point of view on my vocals. By the time the second record came around, I felt I had learned a bit and wanted to use that knowledge.

Riprock ‘n’ Alex G were producers in their own right who came together as remixers. They remixed a couple of our tracks. One day, we were working in different rooms in a studio and we started talking and exchanging ideas. We became friendly, and before you know it, we were working together. It was a very easy working relationship and friendship.

I want to get into the songs that you personally worked on, starting with “Space Cowboy.” Were you all in the studio when Left Eye recorded her verse?

Yeah, she was a really kind person. I went down to Atlanta to cut that record at Dallas Austin’s studio and she had people that she liked to work with. So I met that whole team — it wasn’t like a huge entourage. TLC was the girl group, and they were people that I listened to. So I was excited just to have the chance to work with her.

The song really encapsulates that signature Y2K sound. Did you guys feel that paranoia during that time?

Look, the song was written for that purpose. Some songs you want to be timeless, and others you speak about the time. And this was absolutely one of those songs where I had the opportunity to do so. I wanted it to be entertaining and fun, and also a bit interesting to capture that moment. Luckily it came out the way I wanted, which was exciting.

In Defense of JC Chasez, *NSYNC's Underappreciated Boy Band Frontman

I always thought you had one of the more powerful vocals within the pop sphere at the time, and your voice really shines on the title track.

That’s very nice of you to say. I guess I got the chance to sing loud and aggressively. [Laughs.] That was the whole point of it. I was thinking in terms of how it would inject energy into the record and into a room full of people.

“Digital Get Down” always stood out to me with the way you guys thematically pushed your sexual limits. Were you wary of that?

It was just an instinct. It was kind of like, “Look man, this is gonna happen. We can either shy away from it or go right at it.” [Laughs.] As an artist, I don’t think you should be running from yourself. You can’t be afraid of everything . The sound of the song gave it a tapestry that maybe was less offensive. It was more of us making it dance-y, and it won’t be as intrusive as if we did it slow and sexy, and really put it in somebody’s face. We made it fun, but still got our point across.

Oh the point was definitely made! Can you confirm if the song is really about cybersex?

I don’t know if “cybersex” is the exact term that I would use. I would say it’s using a digital construct to flirt. It can be as explicit as you want it to be, but it’s essentially putting away your inhibitions and sharing something through the digital stream.

“Bringin’ da Noise” is definitely more of what we expected from *NSYNC with its synth-y, Europop sound.

Originally, I think something came up about a movie soundtrack. So I started there with [the song]. The soundtrack went away, so the thinking was to just go all the way with it — because to me, it’s kind of like the little brother to “Here We Go” on the first album. Putting it on the album made for a bit of continuity, because we were pushing for some of the songs to be different from the last record. But you don’t want to leave your entire fanbase by just making something so different that they can’t connect with any of it. So we thought, “Hey if you liked the first record, here’s something that’s still living in that vein.”

Were there songs that came easier than others? Or was the process a bit challenging since this was the first time your pen could really shine?

I wasn’t worried about my pen shining, I was just hoping that my songs were good enough. With every artist, you believe in these songs yourself, but you never know how people are going to accept them or not. But the song that was the most difficult yet the easiest at the same time was “No Strings Attached.” The chorus was what I wrote first, but I didn’t have the line “no strings attached” at the end of it — it was something totally terrible.

So I never laid down the track because it wasn’t really going anywhere. Then all of a sudden, when we came up with the album title, I now had the “No Strings Attached” concept in my mind every day. I revisited the old song and thought, “Wait, if I just chop this off and find a way to connect these [ideas] this could be really interesting.” So what was originally a rough go at a song — because I liked pieces of it and I was struggling with it — became very easy once [the album title] joined the record. Then the song wrote itself.

How involved were you all with choosing the collaborators for this record? You did end up reuniting with a few of the Swedish producers that worked on *NSYNC .

They were crazy and fun to work with, so when it came time to do a second record we were excited to work with the Swedish producers again. Once you sell records, everyone is going to want to start working with you. Then it’s up to you to understand who is pitching what and remain calm and remain yourself. As soon as Max [Martin], Kristin [Lundin], Rami [Yacoub] and all those guys had some songs that they said were 2.0, we were ready to hear it. We went off to the races to cut them.

“It Makes Me Ill” was such a standout record on the album.

We just wanted a concept record. We were excited to work with producers and writers Kandi [Burruss] and She’kspere [Briggs]. They had a great run at the time. And again, keeping in line with the Atlanta vibe that was going on, it was killer down there. So we ended up being lucky enough to work with those people some more. When we were working on the tune, we thought, “How do we make this pop? How will this translate on stage?”

What was your initial reaction to the way Ariana Grande used the song for last year’s “Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m Bored”?

I thought it was great! You never know what songs will translate or become timeless. So to hear a piece of our song be put in a modern setting, and essentially be interpreted in her own way because it’s not the exact same way. She took a piece of something that she liked when she was young and gave it a new identity. I thought it was rad. I’m always excited to see people take the next step.

*NSYNC Co-Writer Kandi Burruss Talks Ariana Grande Borrowing 'It Makes Me Ill' Hook For 'Break Up…

I was personally excited to hear it because I think “It Makes Me Ill” is in *NSYNC’s top five best deep cuts.

It’s one of the better ones, 100 percent! And we feel that way as well, by the way. [Laughs.] To me, that song is a BOP.

What were some of your favorite songs on No Strings Attached ?

“It’s Gonna Be Me” is always going to be one of my favorites. “Bye Bye Bye” is fun because everyone likes to do the dance. “This I Promise You” is such a good memory for me, just working with Richard Marx. That was a full-circle moment because the first thing I ever sang in public was a Richard Marx song. [Editor’s note: JC Chasez sang Marx’s “Right Here Waiting” for his The All-New Mickey Mouse Club audition in 1989]

Full disclosure: “This I Promise You” is going to be my future wedding song!

Good! It’s a beautiful song. He writes treasures, that guy. When he gets the guitar in his hand and has an idea, he’s incredible. Because we sold so much on the first record, everybody was ready to work on this record. And we were fortunate enough to have people like Marx and Diane Warren come to us and say, “We want to have you record this.” It was an absolute honor.

I actually wanted to bring up the fashion during this time. You all wore some pretty out-there outfits, especially for the No Strings Attached Tour .

Look, I’d wear that stuff again! I think if you’re going to be on stage in front of 20,000 people, don’t be boring and don’t dumb it down. If you’re on a stage that big, your costume needs to be big. You need to give people theater. It’s more interesting to me to watch.

I’ve always enjoyed when people push themselves. We took the mindset that we need to heighten reality. If we just came onstage in the same thing that everybody else was wearing at the time, we would just blend in. And the point of being on stage is to take the opportunity to go bigger. [Performing] “Digital Get Down” was a perfect example: We can kind of look like robots, but there wasn’t enough going on. So we were like, “Let’s cut some mesh and stitch some silver in it and run a light through it! MORE! ” [Laughs.]

Did you keep any of your stage outfits?

I have a ton of that stuff. We ended up getting a star on the Walk of Fame  [two years ago] , and we wanted to do a pop-up shop for any of the fans that wanted to check it out. So we pulled out different stuff for each of our storage units and threw it in there. We wanted everyone to see the real thing in person.

Every so often, your name pops up on Twitter where fans think you didn’t get your due credit. Did you ever feel that way?

Uh, no. [Laughs.] Look, I’m fully aware of my contributions and I feel confident in that. I mean, if you listen to the songs you’ll hear me sing on them. I’m good with it!

Looking back on No Strings Attached 20 years later, how do you think it fits within Y2K’s pop legacy?

I don’t really concern myself too much with the thought of “legacy.” My hope is that people had fun, you know. The entire reason we were able to go out there and sing those songs is because people seemed like they were having fun. We wanted to make sure we did that for those [fans] who invested in us. When I look back on it, I think I tried my best to show you a good time. Everything was so elevated at that time, but again we didn’t lose perspective. Understand that it’s elevated and crazy, and have a laugh about it.

I know you guys had your head in the ground while recording. But aside from the album’s major accolades, is there anything else that stands out from this era?

It just felt BIG. At the time, you just feel like everything is heightened and at a [level] 12. That’s the best way to explain it. There was never a moment or a day that you were awake and you didn’t feel like there was something at stake. It was a pressure cooker for sure, but we made tasty food. [Laughs.]

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Celebrate The 20th Anniversary of ‘No Strings Attached’ By Rewatching ‘*NSYNC: Making The Tour’

What better way to celebrate the 20th anniversary of *NSYNC’s No Strings Attached album than by opening up the visual time capsule that is *NSYNC: Making The Tour ? The special originally ran on MTV, was extended and sold on DVD (not to brag, but I still have my copy), and now can only be found as a low-res YouTube video, but hey, it’s still great.

No Strings Attached not only sold over a million copies on its release day, March 21, 2000, and over 2.42 by the end of the week, but over 9.9 million albums had been sold by the end of that year. And for good reason: not only was the best boy band of all time (don’t @ me) celebrating the fact that they were free from both a total dirtbag and horrendous record contract, but the album also proved to be so completely of AND ahead of its time. “Digital Get Down”, anyone?!

So while the five guys were fresh off of selling a boatload of albums, they hit manager Johnny Wright’s Florida compound (which includes a bowling lane and pool table and video games, as we see in a mini Cribs -like tour) to learn the choreography to several new songs, pick out fancy toys for their stage show, and approve vests filled with money to wear while performing. Making The Tour was an hour-long peek behind the scenes at all the work and decisions and silly jokes that went on in the lead-up to the arena tour. And you know what? It was completely entertaining. Of course, much of that had to do with the five guys whose personalities we adored as much as their songs, as putting together an entire national tour was otherwise a concept my teenage brain could hardly comprehend (and honestly, kinda same 20 years later).

It’s a fun rewatch now (and not just because we currently have little else to do) as you’ll notice things you maybe didn’t back then. Joey being interrupted by his manager and tour production manager to be questioned about the use of moving walkways because they are $74,000 is a real highlight for many reasons. One, because he’s holding a bottle of champagne, clearly on his way to a celebration and not the rehearsal studio. Two, because his first instinct is that he’s going to have to pay for them himself, which, lol.

We’re introduced to all the random dudes that help this show come together, and it’s kind of great how serious and dramatic this special made it all seem, considering the audience was mostly 14-year-old girls, but hey, we cared about anything associated with *NSYNC at the time (still do) and that includes the ponytailed men that put the stage together. Of course, it’s not long before you realize that at the time, Wade Robson was essentially the sixth member of the group, teaching choreography and barking out orders during rehearsals. But many things from this era now seem weird. Justin? As part of a group? Who can even remember the time?

And that’s certainly not the only dated part. There are Austin Powers references and a fascination with the moving walkways and pyrotechnic displays and a full rainbow’s worth of jogging pants on display. Oh, and then there’s the fan at the opening night of the tour in Tacoma, WA who brought a slug to the parking lot and was prepared to eat it in exchange for tickets inside. 2000! What a time!

Ultimately, Making The Tour is just as enjoyable today as it was then. It’s proof of just how hard these guys worked to put on an exceptional show and all the talent and fun that came along with it. It was a time that was pre pandemics and politics, and a reminder of the innocence, joy, and great jams of the era.

Where to stream *NSYNC: Making The Tour

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No Strings Attached Tour

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The No Strings Attached Tour was the third concert tour by American boy band, NSYNC . Primarily visiting North America, the tour supported the band's second studio album No Strings Attached . Beginning in May 2000, the tour sold out all dates within the first day of the ticket sale. Additional dates, also in North America, were added for the Fall of 2000. When the tour ended in December 2000, it became the second highest-grossing tour in North America, earning more than $70 million.

The concerts at Madison Square Garden were filmed for a HBO special.

• 1.1 Concert synopsis

Background [ ]

The tour was initially announced during an AOL chat with bandmember JC Chasez in 1999. The band were on tour and promoting their latest single, "Bye Bye Bye" when Chasez announced they were rehearing their upcoming tour. It was officially announced on March 21, 2000, the same day as their album was released. The outing was sponsored by MCY Music and Nabisco. It was also produced by SFX Touring. The tour became an instant success, with all 50 initial dates being sold out, selling one million tickets within the first day. This was followed with the album selling over two million copies within the first week. Several tickets for the concert at Madison Square Garden and the Staples Center were auctioned off through Yahoo! Auctions. Proceeds went to the "Justin Timberlake Foundation" and the "Challenge for the Children Foundation".

Rehearsals began in April 2000 at the Lakeland Center in Lakeland, Florida. Due to the closeness of their previous tour, the stage for this outing was very similar. However, the stage included new elements including pyrotechnics, stage lifts and aerial suspension. These elements were the reason why the band opted to perform in stadiums and arenas instead of outdoor amphitheaters. Describing the stage, Lance Bass stated, "It's amazing with the pyro and different things. I can't really reveal a lot of the gags that we are going to do, but it's going to be very entertaining and we are going to get very close to everybody in the audience". Due to the limited number of dates performed, the stadium dates were centralized regionally, in order to give each fan a chance to see them.

During an appearance on TRL, the band announced Destiny's Child would join them on tour, however the R&B group backed out and joined Christina Aguilera on her debut tour. Later in the tour, Sisqó dropped out of the tour to film his role in the film Get Over It . When the tour kicked off, Justin Timberlake received his high school diploma onstage at the Pyramid Arena. Another honor was received when the band were given the key to the city by Orlando mayor Glenda Hood. The band also opened a Ronald McDonald House, where a room was named in their honor.

The success of the tour prompted the band to add an additional leg of dates in the United States. In response to the additional dates, Joey Fatone stated,

The band also announced they would join Britney Spears on a co-headlining tour of Europe in October. However, the tour was dropped due to legal actions and Spears toured the region solo. As the second North American leg came to a close, the band announced they would star in their first feature concert film. The film was released exclusively through IMAX theaters for six months. Additionally, the band partnered with MSN to give fans exclusive access to newsletters, photos and video footage. Known as "NSYNC@MSN", the service provided web and email access along with MSN Messenger and Windows Media Player.

The show began NSYNC revealed as marionettes dropping 40 feet above the stage featuring a small sample of I Got No Strings . When they land, the group cuts the strings and unhooked themselves before heading into two dance-oriented performances of No Strings Attached and I Want You Back . This was followed by Lance Bass welcoming the crowd before slowing things down with a performance of (God Must Have Spent) A Little More Time on You which the group rose 30 feet above the stage on 5 small platforms.

After the group left the stage, there was a video interlude hosted by television persona Ananda Lewis called Total *NSYNC Live (parody of Total Request Live ) which fans were given 4 selections of possible songs that *NSYNC would sing next. The first 3-song choices ( Yankee Doodle Dandy , Three Blind Mice , and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star ) always ended up getting jeers and a laugh from the crowd. By the time Lewis says the 4th option Tearin' Up My Heart , the crowd goes wild, it gets selected as the chosen song, and the group returns to the stage dressed in freestyle clothing (almost like their previous wardrobe from their last tour) to perform the song.

The show then continues with Justin Timberlake returning the stage showcasing some his freestyle Beatbox skills before the group's drummer begins to upstage him and calling him out, Timberlake challenges the drummer to a battle which ends in victory for Timberlake. The rest of the group returns to the stage in urban attire to perform It's Gonna Be Me . This was followed by the group putting together a living room setting to slow things down again with 2 ballads I Drive Myself Crazy and I Thought She Knew .

After the group leaves the stage again, another interlude is shown featuring the group heading into their quick-change room featuring circus people, an arcade, and a movie theatre (which includes the group watching Lance Bass in the finals of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire where he fictionally wins $1 million). They then return to the stage dressed in club attire all designed with money on it for a performance of "Just Got Paid". During the song, pre-selected fans were chosen to go up on stage and dance with the group with confetti dropping everywhere. They also introduce their band members before all leaving the stage again.

Concert synopsis [ ]

The show continues with a futuristic interlude which included a laser light show and the face of the No Strings Attached clown mascot (with a robot voice) appearing out of a virtual head giving the audience riddles. NSYNC then rises out of the floor dressed in midwestern futuristic attire for a performance of Space Cowboy featuring an extended dance break. At the end of the song, the group goes back down into the ground with the band playing an extended instrumental interlude of the chorus. It ends abruptly with the sound of a car crashing, a woman screaming, a man yelling "Someone's hurt", and the sound of an ambulance siren. NSYNC returns to the stage in a little brief hospital skit dressed in doctor lab coats taking care of an injured Timberlake before heading into It Makes Me Ill . This was followed by the group bringing out stools to slow things down for another song. However, Chasez comes up with an idea to go more closer to the crowd. The group brings out the stools before the centerpiece of the stage breaks. The stage piece (on a track) brings the members out to the center of the arena getting closer to the crowd ending the main setlist with This I Promise You . The stage piece goes back to where it was, the group takes their bows and leaves the stage.

The show continues with a large video screen that says "*NSYNC" appeared on the set while the band dressed on a futuristic space with Digital Get Down while NSYNC disappeared on a video screen wall and then we concludes the encore set with Bye Bye Bye , As the guys walks over the platform stage, they say goodbye and walks over the main stage while JC walks over and introduced to the musicians. The group then disappears through a geyser as fireworks go off at the same time.

Personnel [ ]

'N Sync performing It Makes Me Ill

• JC Chasez – Lead Vocals
• Justin Timberlake – Lead Vocals
• Chris Kirkpatrick – Backing Vocals
• Lance Bass – Backing Vocals
• Joey Fatone – Backing Vocals

Setlist [ ]

• "Intro" (contains excerpts from "I've Got No Strings" along with elements of "Digital Get Down" and "I'll Never Stop") (dance introduction)
• "No Strings Attached" (contains elements of "Prologue" from West Side Story )
• " I Want You Back "
• " (God Must Have Spent) A Little More Time on You "
• "TNL: Total NSYNC Live" (featuring Ananda Lewis) (video interlude)
• " Tearin' Up My Heart "
• "Justin's Beat Box" (contains elements of "It Ain't My Fault") (performance interlude)
• " It's Gonna Be Me "
• "Thinking of You (I Drive Myself Crazy)"
• "I Thought She Knew"
• "NTV: 'NSYNC TV" (contains elements of "Frolic" and "It's Gonna Be Me") (video interlude)
• "Just Got Paid"
• "Space Circus Clown" (video interlude)
• "Space Cowboy (Yippie-Yi-Yay)"
• "It Makes Me Ill" (contains elements of "Sir Nose D'Voidoffunk)
• " This I Promise You "
• "Video Interlude"
• "Digital Get Down"
• " Bye Bye Bye "
• "Outro" (contains elements of "Tom Sawyer")
• "No Strings Attached"
• "It's Gonna Be Me"
• A medley of "I Want You Back" and "Tearin' Up My Heart"
• "This I Promise You"
• "Bye Bye Bye"
• 1 Backstreet Boys
• 2 The Mickey Mouse Club
• 3 Bye Bye Bye