Scott Mervis of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette critiqued *NSYNC’s show at the Mellon Arena last night and didn’t have much good to say about the scaled back and more intimate show. Mervis said, “The get-to-know-the-group part was fairly intolerable with the boys trading off bad jokes and Clarion native Kirkpatrick, the one with the goat beard, freestyling on fairy tales like he had indeed just come from the parking lot of a Grateful Dead show.” Mervis also predicted solo days for the group’s pair of frontmen Justin Timberlake and JC Chasez: “The better Timberlake and Chasez sound and the more tired the five-piece choreography appears, the more they look like solo artists, and here’s guessing that day comes sooner rather than later.”

The full story at post-gazette.com has since been removed.

Dan DeLuca of the Philadelphia Inquirer reviewed the *NSYNC and Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs concert at the First Union Center on Thursday, blasting Puffy and not having much better to say about *NSYNC’s show. DeLuca says the group “stressed their lineage with a pleasant medley of Beatles and Temptations songs. But just when you thought their taste was good, if obvious, they covered Christopher Cross’ ‘Sailing.’ Yecch!”