Boyz II Men

In the dressing room at Foxboro's Showcase Live, the R&B group reflects

In 1994, the Philadelphia-based R&B group Boyz II Men became the third musical act in Billboard history to replace themselves at the top of the magazine's Hot 100 chart, with two No. 1 singles in a row - a feat previously achieved only by Elvis Presley and the Beatles. But Shawn Stockman, Wanya Morris, and Nathan Morris (no relation) insist that they've never been superstars.

"We're the most popular unpopular band around," Wanya (pronounced Won-yay) Morris says. "We're not John, Paul, Ringo, and the other guy." On a recent Wednesday, the band members, all in their mid-30s, are in the dressing room of the new Showcase Live entertainment venue in Foxboro waiting to play to a packed house. The Morrises, wearing loose sweatshirts and plenty of bling, are on the couch. Stockman is sitting at the vanity, watching his reflection as Anthony Velasquez, the band's stylist, trims his hair.

Stockman was in town a couple of days before the rest of the group and spent the extra time - in true rock star fashion - walking around the South Shore Plaza in Braintree. Wanya Morris jokes that Stockman wore a costume to keep a low profile. "A white man, with, like, this long beard," Stockman adds, miming the beard.

In actuality, "We're the type of group that can go onstage, do our thing, get the crowd going crazy for us, then go out shopping the next day and nobody recognizes us," Wanya Morris claims.

That's surprising, considering they've been in the public eye for almost two decades and sold more than 60 million records between 1992 and 1997. But their heyday has passed. In 2003 the band lost a member, Michael McCary, who quit due to chronic back pain, and last year the trio released its first major-label album in five years, "Motown: A Journey Through Hitsville USA," which was produced by Randy Jackson of "American Idol" fame. (Yes, Nathan Morris says, Jackson really calls people "Dawg" in real life.)

This tour, which pays homage to the likes of Marvin Gaye and Percy Sledge, is markedly scaled down compared with tours of the past, which stopped at sports arenas, amphitheatres, and civic centers. The Motown tour is heavy on Indian casinos, state fairs, and smaller concert venues like Showcase Live, which holds about 1,000 people, as opposed to the nearby Gillette Stadium, which holds about 69,000.

Regardless, the Boyz still have a wide appeal.

"Everybody goes to our shows - black, white, young, old . . . from the day we started we've had the type of songs that [appeal] to everybody," Stockman says.

"You see 8-year-olds in the audience sometimes," Nathan Morris says. "They learn the songs from their parents."

Tonight New England Patriot Tedy Bruschi is in the audience. That a 247-pound linebacker would attend an erstwhile boy band concert doesn't seem incongruous to these guys. They play for a lot of athletes, Wanya Morris says, acknowledging that football players tend to keep their fandom on the down-low.

"Football players give it up a little, but they won't get up and dance," he says. "Basketball players really give it up."

Shortly before the concert is due to start, a tall, thin, confident man in a really nice suit raps on the open dressing room door, and all the guys jump up to hug him. It's Marvin L. McIntyre, the band's tour manager in the early 1990s who took over after former manager Khalil Roundtree was murdered by an armed robber during a tour with rapper MC Hammer.

McIntyre and the band talk about basketball for a while - discussing the Celts' recent loss of James Posey to the Hornets, remembering the greatness of Danny Ainge - before McIntyre takes a moment to reflect on the career of the band.

"You all made history; now you're making a living," muses McIntyre, a graduate of Lexington High School who now works at the Artist Development Center in Atlanta, where his job title is "impresario."

"We're coasting," Stockman says, but it's clear a few minutes later when they hit the stage in perfect harmony - staying on pitch in spite of the piercing screams of the fans - that they still work hard.

The band acknowledges that some audiences are easier than others. "We had one girl in the audience the other day . . . she was giving us signs," Wanya Morris says, and the rest of the band starts to laugh, remembering the young woman who was scowling and making obscene hand gestures at them for their first several songs.

"But you know, somewhere in the concert that demon just left her," Wanya Morris continues, "and she was smiling the rest of the show."