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One of the biggest pop music events of the year hits T.O. on Tuesday and Thursday nights as reigning boy band NSYNC takes over SkyDome's Skytent for two sold-out shows.

Here's what fans can expect from the group's No Strings Attached tour -- named after their hugely successful sophomore album that set a first-week sales record with 2.5 million copies sold in North America. Read on if you don't want any surprises.

The show is pretty much there in its entirety on the recently released video, NSYNC: Live From Madison Square Garden, which hit stores on Oct. 24 and will debut on MuchMusic Friday at 4 p.m., immediately following a backstage special.

The band's 90-minute performance at MSG, one of four sold-out dates at the venue back in July, was broadcast live on HBO in all its song-and-dance glory.

Seems the boys of NSYNC -- Justin Timberlake, Chris Kirkpatrick, Joey Fatone, Lance Bass and JC Chasez -- favour old-fashioned, vaudevillian values of "putting on a show" over eye-popping sets, elaborate costumes and a pyrotechnic extravaganza.

Still, there's the odd explosion and flame-burst plus a glass stage that separates from the main stage -- about halfway through the concert -- and moves the group through the audience on the floor so they can get closer to their fans.

There is also a segment featuring girls getting picked out of the crowd to take part in a dance club scene during Just Got Paid.

Otherwise, it's low-key all the way from the living room set that adorns the stage during I Drive Myself Crazy to the white lab coats NSYNC wears during It Makes Me Ill.

Simplicity works.

Halfway through 2000, NSYNC had the fifth-highest grossing tour in the U.S., according to Pollstar, with grosses of US$30 million.

Destiny

When the group held a press conference in Toronto in March, just after the release of No Strings Attached, they said the album title was meant to be a statement about controlling their own destiny.

"This is us, we're not puppets on a string," said Timberlake. "We're not being controlled by anybody but ourselves. So if it sucks, it's our fault."

Added Kirkpatrick: "The main meaning is that we have been stereotyped into a collection of people that we don't think we belong in. We don't want to be the second so-and-so. We want to be the first NSYNC. And I think with our sophomore album, this is the most important. That will see if we have staying power or we are a one-hit wonder."

As for No Strings Attached's "edgier, grittier, meaner" sound, the group said it wasn't a deliberate attempt at credibility. They co-wrote and produced the album.

"We didn't go out of our way to make it different," said Chasez.

"With time, you evolve as musicians. You're influenced every day by things you hear. So it grew on its own, really. The music changed because we've changed a bit. It's the evolution of NSYNC and the music."

No Strings Attached was originally set for a November 1999 release but got delayed after the band left their previous label and lawsuits ensued, but Bass said NSYNC's legal woes have had a positive impact.

"We, as a group, have grown closer together, I think, because of all the stuff that's happened in the last couple of years," said Bass. "I think we were a little naive five years ago when we started out, and now we realize that this is a business."

So far, the only other act to sell out two days at SkyDome this year was Latin-pop sensation Ricky Martin. He has a new album due out on Tuesday.

But NSYNC's only really serious competition, as far as teen pop is concerned, is expected to be the The Backstreet Boys' latest, Black And Blue, set for release Nov. 21.

Since the two groups now share the same record label, it would seem to be a fairly friendly competition. (There was, however, a recent report of an Internet-based mission to help The Backstreet Boys shatter NSYNC's first-week sales record.)

In other words, as the NSYNC tour winds down this year -- the last date in North America is

Dec. 1 in San Diego -- you can expect the pendulum to swing back to The Backstreet Boys' camp.

However, it's hardly the last we'll see of NSYNC. Most significant is a follow-up album to No Strings Attached, which has now sold 9.5 million copies in the U.S. and close to 500,000 copies in Canada.

"We're excited about the new album, which will be even more of a collaboration," Chasez told the current edition of TV Guide.

Other NSYNC projects are of the cinematic variety. The rumours are that Timberlake will star opposite real-life love and fellow pop star Britney Spears in Grease 3.

Meanwhile, an NSYNC movie, 'N Full Swing, is expected to be shot later this year and early in 2001 on a budget of $40 million.

"It's just a matter of finding a script that has five main characters," Chasez told TV Guide. "We don't want to do a cheesy Spice World type of flick. We want to do a decent movie with five good characters. A script like that is hard to find."

The NSYNC File

Here are a few tidbits about the uber boy band, who appear at SkyDome on Tuesday and Thursday nights ...

Other Confirmed Appearances: Billboard Music Awards on Dec. 5 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, Las Vegas, (8 p.m. FOX-TV); Rock In Rio For A Better World, a nine-day-long benefit festival to support young people in Brazil, where NSYNC perform Jan. 18.

New Music: You Don't Have To Be Alone, a serious ballad on the just-released How The Grinch Stole Christmas soundtrack.

Latest Dis: "NSYNC N'DIRT." -- One of the celebrity tombstones used in a Late Night With Conan O'Brien sketch.

Set list: No Strings Attached, I Want You Back, God Must Have Spent A Little More Time On You, Tearin' Up My Heart, Justin's Beat Box, It's Gonna Be Me, I Drive Myself Crazy, I Thought She Knew, Just Got Paid, Space Cowboy (Yippie Yi Yay), It Makes Me Ill, This I Promise You, Digital Get Down, Bye, Bye, Bye. (From their Live From Madison Square Garden video.)

NSYNC-ronicity

The music might be changing, but the reigning boy band is closer than ever