On December 2, 2022, boy band icons Drew Lachey (98 Degrees) and Jamie Jones (All-4-One) will join Jeff Timmons, Justin Jeffre, Erik-Michael Estrada, and Ryan Cabrera on a 12-date holiday tour that will run through December 23, 2022. If your brain was promptly boggled after reading that sentence, I get it — that's a whole lot of boy band magic coming to a stadium near you.
Drew and Jamie recently chatted with LittleThings about the tour, their families (Drew is a dad to a 16-year-old and a 12-year-old, while Jamie's three children are adults in college), and what raising kids on the road has been like. From walking strollers around stadiums to finding out their kids are way into album cuts that never made it to the radio, both Jamie and Drew have seen a lot as dads.
The idea for the tour came pretty organically. As Drew explains, the group put together a holiday special for ABC in 2021 that did really well: "It was kind of this perfect storm of nostalgia and pop culture and all these fun things coming together. When some tour dates opened up for this holiday season, we thought this would be a great fit for that."
The show itself promises to be unique. Drew says that yes, the groups and/or individual members will perform some of their own hits, but they'll also mix it up and take on each other's songs, too. And, of course, there will be plenty of holiday songs — classics, new songs, and new takes on classic songs that we all know and love.
And while the guys will make sure their own hits are performed, they might be done differently than you'd think. Drew says, "You might hear 98 Degrees sing an All-4-One song, or you might hear O-Town sing a 98 Degrees song, you never know."
When it comes to bands and groups that have maintained popularity that has spanned decades, it's natural to wonder if they ever feel a little burnt out singing certain songs, especially their biggest hits. Perhaps surprisingly, Jamie Jones says that each time he performs an All-4-One song he's happy.
Jamie says, "I've gotten to a point where it's second nature for me to sing All-4-One songs — I don't have to think about it. I love to scan the audience when 'I Swear' first starts, when everyone hears the intro part. I like to see the emotions that come across people immediately, whether it's crying, or dancing, or kissing, whatever it is. I think to myself, 'OK, I wonder why this song means what it means to you.' The one thing that's magical and beautiful about music is that music has a way of attaching itself to your memories. You can remember what you were doing, what you were wearing, who you were with, everything when a specific song comes on. To be part of people's memories in that way — this song starts and something inside you immediately triggers — for me, it's a huge blessing."
Both Drew and Jamie have spent years on the road while touring with their groups, and they've each brought their kids along for the ride. Drew admits that sometimes, that's not as glamorous at it might sound, like when he and his wife managed to fit an inflatable duck bathtub into their tour bus's shower, or spending time endlessly circling a stadium with a stroller because going outside wasn't an option.
He laughs, "It was just things you don't even think about being a possibility when you become a parent."
But in other moments, raising children the way that Drew and Jamie have been so fortunate to be able to do means their kids have experiences that no one else can ever match. As Drew shares, "We did a package tour with New Kids and Boys II Men, and on our day off we went whitewater rafting. It was me, Joey Mac, and Donny, and we were whitewater rafting in a river in Oregon. My 2-year-old and 5-year-old, just whitewater rafting with New Kids on the Block."
Jamie agrees. He shares, "All-4-One has been on this tour I Love the '90s since 2015 … my kids have been friends with everybody. I'll be looking for them and they're in Salt-N-Pepa's dressing room, chilling, or they're showing Coolio TikTok videos and teaching him TikTok dances."
He continues, "It's just been for me, as a dad … I think about all the things I have been so fortunate and blessed to expose my kids to, and to give them a real-world education [about] things you can't really learn in books and the internet, that you need to see for yourself. Whether it's hanging out in mainland China or going to temples in Japan, whatever it is, we've been very blessed."
Jamie adds that he's really enjoyed being able to share his career with his kids, especially when it happens organically. As he says, "What's cool to me is that after the concert, in the hotel, I'll hear my kids listen to album cuts, songs that I never told them about or showed them or that we performed. They'll come to me and say, 'Hey Dad, how come you don't do this song? I love this one.'"
He adds, "Last night I was practicing for this show and I hear my son listening to 98 Degrees records and O-Town records and I hear a couple of All-4-One records thrown in. This is just on his own … it's always really cool when they're discovering your music."
"A Boy Band Christmas" kicks off on December 2, 2022, in Bossier City, Louisiana. Additional tour stops are Biloxi, Mississippi; Niagara Falls, New York; Salamanca, New York; Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; Highland, California; Charles Town, West Virginia; Cincinnati, Ohio; Gary, Indiana; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Prior Lake, Minnesota; and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Tickets can be purchased on Ticketmaster, and we are 100% certain that this would be an excellent early Christmas present for the boy band fan in your life, full stop.
