Various Artists News

(4/21/00, 12 p.m. ET) - 'N Sync will kick off its U.S. tour with opening acts Sisqo and Pink on May 9 in Biloxi, Mississippi. The group is currently rehearsing the choreography for the tour, and member Lance Bass tells LAUNCH that 'N Sync just got their first peek at the stage layout for the upcoming outing.

"Definitely we took this next tour to the next level," he says. "It's twice as big. We're doing stadiums and some arenas this time, so we had to adapt the stage to fit the stage. We saw the outline of the stage yesterday for the first time."

This time around, 'N Sync will make every effort to get up close and personal with the fans, according to Bass. "The stage is being built now -- it will be ready on the 30th, and that's when we start rehearsing on it. We get like a week and a half before the tour starts. It's amazing with the pyro and different things. I can't really reveal a lot of the gags that we are going to do, but it's going to be very entertaining and we are going to get very close to everybody in the audience."

Member Joey Fatone tells LAUNCH that the group will head to Los Angeles before they hit the road and shoot the music video for the new single, "It's Gonna Be Me," with director Wayne Isham, who directed the group's video for "Bye, Bye, Bye": "We actually had a meeting with Wayne Isham a little while ago about the concept and the idea we had for 'It's Gonna Be Me.' It's pretty cool -- it's kind of like a Toy Story-ish kind of thing where it's the whole theme with the No Strings Attached, and we are basically marionettes in the store, and it's pretty interesting."

Fatone explained to LAUNCH that the video will also give 'N Sync the chance to battle it out with Barbie and assorted other toys. "It's like this girl's trying to purchase us and get us, but all these other toys want to be the ones to be picked…so we have fights with Barbie dolls and teddy bears and stuff like that," he says. "We haven't come up with everything in detail, but it was a concept that we thought up. Plus, also, we had to do a whole head cast for make-up to make us look plastic like, wooden like -- like we are marionettes."

The quintet's long-range plans include working on a third album in August and September, touring in Europe with Britney Spears in October, and then bringing their act back to the states for another leg of U.S. touring around December. At the beginning of 2001, the group will focus on their feature-film debut, and they hope to have the next album in stores in March.

'N Sync remains in the top spot on the Billboard 200 for the fourth week in a row as No Strings Attached sold more than 422,000 copies, according to sales data released Wednesday.

-- Jason Gelman, New York