After years of trying to get the magic back, New Edition finally strikes gold with a little help from Boyz II Men

When Boyz II Men began paying homage to its hometown in a packed-to-the rafters Liacouras Center Sunday night — Shawn Stockman and Nathan Morris shouted out Southwest and Wanya Morris pounded his chest showing love from North — concertgoers started tingling inside.

Something big was coming to the Philadelphia leg of the “New Edition Way Tour,” also featuring Toni Braxton.

The “New Edition Way Tour” — which takes its name from a street renamed for the band in Boston’s Orchard Gardens, where its members grew up and formed New Edition in 1978 — wasn’t about a headliner, it was about sharing the stage with friends.

This time, the Boyz II Men were at home.

The Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts alums had already gotten the sneaker-clad crowd to its feet with their first song of the night “Motown Philly,” during which the audience pumped its fists like it was 1991.

Wearing sparkling joggers — a casual contrast to New Edition’s glittering fedoras and matching raincoats — the band’s renditions of the sweet “Please Don’t Go,” the sultry “Ooh, Aah,” and the melancholy “Four Seasons of Loneliness” gave early 1990s senior prom vibe.

And when the trio handed out roses as they crooned their mega hit, “I’ll Make Love To You,” the teenage girls in the now well-over-40-women in the audience blinked back nostalgic tears.

But then during a particularly emotional delivery of “End of the Road,” it happened.

Bassist and long-lost the fourth Boyz II Men member Michael McCary emerged from a platform underneath the stage in a burgundy smoking jacket, mic in one hand and trademark cane in the other. And right on cue, his deep voice began explaining with sadness why the relationship in this song had to end.

We knew this pain. We felt it. The audience erupted and remembered, excited.

The rumors were true.

The long-standing feud with McCary — who left the band in 2003 after he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis — was over.

They performed together in other places, but they were finally back together in their hometown, Philadelphia.

Boyz II Men originally went by the name Unique Attractions. By the time the members met New Edition’s Michael Bivins backstage at the Philadelphia Heartbreak concert in 1989, they’d changed their name to Boyz II Men, borrowing from a single on the chart topping album.

The first song of the show was a new single written by New Edition second lead Ricky Bell “We Out Tonight” featuring Boyz II Men and Braxton inviting us all to the party that would be the evening’s show.

Braxton, whose array of twinkling bodysuits that included an all-white finale ensemble with wings, brought us back to the 1990s with the classics “He Wasn’t Man Enough” and “Just be a Man About It.” She reflected on her longtime friendship with New Edition and dedicated the final song, “Unbreak My Heart” to her late sister Traci Braxton.

It was clear New Edition members Bell, Bivins, Ralph Tresvant, Ronnie DeVoe, and Johnny Gill were looking out for their bandmate Bobby Brown on this tour.

It’s customary during New Edition shows that when the six members perform their individual hits as solo acts — that includes singles from Tresvant, Brown, Gill, and BBD — Bell, Bivins, and DeVoe — the other members exit the stage. It’s as much a courtesy as an acknowledgment of their individuality.

But not during the “New Edition Way Tour.” During this show, the group was more important than the individuals, especially during Brown’s performances. Brown — once the most flashy, the most egotistical, the most hung up on himself — needs his brothers now. And he’s not ashamed to admit it.

At 57 the elder statesman, no longer commands center stage unapologetically gyrating to fast-paced dance sequences in his big hits “Don’t Be Cruel,” “My Prerogative,” and “Every Little Step.” Instead, he moves around the stage deliberately, doing a careful two-step. The few times he looked like he was about to get jiggy with it, he stopped, teasing the crowd.

“You want to see Bobby dance,” he asked playfully.

All the while his brothers backed him up with the same B. Brown energy of yesteryear, flawlessly executing his one-man choreography, proving in spite of the decades of NE drama, they never gave up on him.

Tresvant still makes the ladies swoon. Boyz II Men joined him on the worst breakup song ever, “Do What I Gotta Do.” Women squealed with delight with the breathless serenade “Sensitivity.” Johnny Gill gave us an expected guttural showing of ballad “My, My, My” but lightened it up with up tempo “Fairweather Friend.” The once annoying frenetic energy of “Rub You the Right Way,” was actually welcome on this tour.

New Edition — who maybe inducted in the class of the 2026 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame — was at its best as a unit.

From Heartbreak album faves “If it Isn’t Love,” “You’re Not My Kind of Girl,” and the classic “Can You Stand the Rain,” to a medley of early favorites “Candy Girl,” “Cool it Now,” and “Mr. Telephone Man.”

The band performed hit after hit after hit, pausing at times to let fans sing in the words.

Bobby Brown left New Edition in 1985. In 1996, the band released Home Again, its first failed attempt at reuniting. Eleven years, later they reunited again at the BET Awards and since then there have been several concerts where they tried to reclaim that old magic; each time falling just a little big short.

This time, though, with the help of Philly legends Boyz II Men — they finally got it right.