GAL ON THE STREET "I could just lick him" BY SARA DONNELLY

On the corner of Free and Center streets, sandwiched between enormous tinted-window tour buses, about 50 women and exactly three men wait for more than two hours on a Wednesday evening for an autograph from Nick or AJ or Brian (was that Brian at the other end down there? Oh my God, did we miss Brian?) or Howie or Kevin. The Backstreet Boys, who fizzled into obscurity shortly after member AJ checked into rehab in 2001 for drug and alcohol addictions, are in Portland for their comeback tour, "Never Gone."

With some of the best-selling albums of all time on their resume, the youngest Boy is now 26. Two of the five are married. Nick, the Boy baby, was arrested for drunk driving this year.

A teenage girl flips through a glossy concert program.

"Look at AJ," she breathes. "I could just lick him!"

Minutes later, AJ appears, wearing a trucker cap with a drawing of a chipmunk and a caption reading "Ladies Like My Nuts."

A bouncing blonde in the back screams into her cell phone: "I’m looking right at AJ! Keith and I were just hanging out by the front entrance and we saw this huge crowd near the buses so we thought we’d walk up here and check it out. And we walk up here and AJ is just standing here! You have to get down here, Jess! If you could feel my heart right now, it’s beating so fast!"