Backstreet fans invade MuchMusic

 TORONTO (CP) -- Hundreds of shrieking teenaged fans turned fashionable Queen Street into a concert hall Sunday night as the Backstreet Boys took over MuchMusic's downtown headquarters.

The crowd of mostly girls crushed up against barricades to get a glimpse of the singing and dancing hip hop quintet, who performed songs from their hit record Backstreet's Back and answered questions from fans across the country.

MuchMusic opened the parking lot at the Chumcity building to accommodate the hordes, but it wasn't enough -- the estimated 2,500 fans filled the street from side to side.

"Our Canadian fans are very special to us. We won't forget you," Kevin Richardson, the eldest of the group at 27, told MuchMusic VJ Master T.

The Orlando, Fla., group has good reason to feel sentimental about this country. Of 10 million albums sold worldwide by the Backstreet Boys to date, two million have been sold here.

While they have been huge over the past two years in Europe and have only recently gained ground in the U.S., Canada -- particularly Quebec -- has remained a profitable and loyal market.

Richardson, along with group mates A.J. McLean, Howie Dorough, Nick Carter and Brian Littrell played to a crowd of 27,000 at SkyDome Saturday night.

But at much cosier MuchMusic on Sunday they were treated to tributes from several young fans, who sang and danced to Backstreet tunes while the boys looked on.

They also had to answer some pretty thorny questions, like: Which is their underwear of choice -- boxer shorts or briefs? (For the record, four voted for boxers, with Carter the lone holdout for briefs.)

Donna Bresell, 15, and Jean Kissin, 15, of nearby Mississauga said they waited nine hours just to stand within 20 metres of the singers.

"It's not just that they're good looking," said Donna, clutching a homemade poster with cutouts of the boy's faces.

"They can sing well and they're just really sweet -- you can tell that from all their videos."

"I just love Nick -- I just love him," Annie Merchant, 14, of Toronto repeated over and over through clenched teeth as she watched shivering from the street.

Those fans lucky enough to get into the main studio also enjoyed a dozen or so upbeat tunes in an intimate setting, while those outside stood in freezing rain to watch through the windows.

There were some casualties, most with twisted ankles, hypothermia and over-excitment, who were hustled into the building's lobby where an impromptu emergency centre was set up.

Two dozen police officers and private security kept the audience at bay while the Boys donned winter coats and stepped out into the street for an a capella version of their hit Quit Playin' Games (With My Heart).

The clean-cut group have needed heavy security throughout their Canadian tour.

Hundreds of fans in Ottawa were rewarded with autographs Friday after they lined up outside the National Press building for the group's only press conference of the tour.

The crowd pressure will only increase tonight when they begin a five-night stand in their mega-fan base of Montreal.