DETROIT — The New Kids on the Block were still new kids on the block, relatively speaking, when the teenage heartthrobs hit the Palace of Auburn Hills on Dec. 2, 1989, for not one but two sold-out concerts.
"Yeah we used to do matinees back then, too," says New Kid Donnie Wahlberg, who fondly recalls that chilly December day and meeting members of the Bad Boys, including Detroit Pistons coach Chuck Daly, and being pleasantly surprised that they weren't such bad guys after all (even though they'd disposed of Wahlberg's Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals the year prior).
It's now more than 30 years later and the Bad Boys are long gone and so is the Palace, but the New Kids are still hangin' tough. The Boston boy band has embarked on the latest iteration of their Mixtape Tour, this time featuring fellow '80s and '90s hit-makers Salt-N-Pepa, En Vogue and Rickroll king Rick Astley.
