For one magical night, Jonas Brothers blew the crowd away

VIRGINIA BEACH

No company in the world does fantasy better than Disney, but watching The Jonas Brothers at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater on Tuesday night, one got the sense that the corporate behemoth with the squeaky mascot had outdone itself.

Last summer, The Jonas Brothers were playing venues like the Virginia State Fair. Tickets could be had for less than $10. Now, thanks to the intervention of Disney’s Hollywood Records who rescued them after being booted from Columbia for low sales, “the boys” as their handlers call them, are packing Madison Square Garden for days at a time. The Amphitheater was sold out.

Sales of throat lozenges and cough drops will likely be through the roof in Tidewater for the next few days, as the hordes of kid, tween and teen girls (and moms) in the audience screeched and squealed. Dressed in self-decorated clothing – the poor things were collectively forced to surrender thousands of homemade signs at the door – they screamed like horror movie ingénues every time the jumbo screens flashed texts messages from people within the crowd.

“I love Nick so much.” Scream wave. “Taylor loves Joe Jonas.” Scream wave. On and on this went, until the lights dimmed (scream tsunami) and “We Will Rock You” began to pump over the speakers. A string section on risers took the stage; fire erupted, and Nick, Joe and Kevin Jonas themselves rode a platform that moved like mechanical wave. Starting with “That’s Just The Way We Roll,” the number was so clean, so flawless, so pop perfect, you had to wonder if they were lip synching, if at least just partially.

But who cares? They looked sharp – Joe, 19, and Nick, 15, wore suits while Kevin, 20, wore trousers and a vest– and altogether so wholesome and fun, it wouldn’t have mattered if they were singing the Magna Carta. You’d have been into it.

Indeed, the gilded Disney gloss was inescapable, and this was a very good thing. When singing “BBGood,” the string section held up sings that said “Be Good,” and “Be Happy,” and you’d have to be a miserable, sullen old coot not to feel, well, good inside. More fireworks went off and Nick, who played piano and drum and guitar all night and is regarded as the group’s musical meat, did backflips.

Just when you began to think that the sugary Jonas schmaltz would send your blood sugar soaring, the band cut into the bass from The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” – injecting just enough grit to pacify even the most jaded of music snobs. Every portion of the show sounded sonically sublime; you couldn’t not dance.

Through more songs including “Video Girl,” “Gotta Find You,” and “A Little Bit Longer,” one could not escape thinking how precious the night must have been for the young people in the audience. Ignoring, if you could, the screams (God, please bless the inventor of earplugs), the tiny faces aglow and bodies bouncing uncontrollably were beyond adorable, they were unifying, a reminder of the need for faith in humanity. Special-needs children, their wheelchairs perched on the front rows, looked completely overjoyed, and watching these kids and their parents experience this kind of escapist joy without the worries and pressures of life for those minutes was almost enough to make a grown man cry.

Visual treats were dispatched throughout, including lots of pyro, more smart skinny trousers and vests, guitars festooned with bling and platforms that rose to put the JBs 20, 30 feet into the air. During one interlude, monitors featured a short documentary about Nick’s overcoming juvenile diabetes. At another point, the JBs whipped out hoses adorned with their crest-shaped logo, aimed them at the audience and soaked people with dissolvable foam. Like many other points in the show, there was nobody in the venue older than 12.

It was a flawless, remarkable show that could easily rank as a defining childhood moment.

Watching it unfold, a part of you wished upon a star that they would stay just like this forever, to remain preserved in a castle where only gorgeous moonlight could enter, where no hard luck or alcohol or the pressures of fame could ever creep in. However, adults of course know that The Jonas Brothers are not cartoon characters. Like three Pinocchios, they will suffer disappointments and heartbreaks, they will age; they may one day cease to perform together. And that’s exactly what made that night so magical. For just a little while, everything was perfect, suspended in time yet animated more beautifully than you ever could have imagined.