Two hours before taking the stage in Minneapolis for a March Madness Music Series concert, the Jonas Brothers meet in Nick’s hotel room for some preshow brother time -- and, OK, to get their hair done. It’s early April, and as Kevin waits his turn, he pulls out his phone. “Check this out,” he says, bouncing up from the couch to show off a Google Maps image. A Twitter user has traced the line of people waiting to get into the show, equivalent to almost six city blocks. “Isn’t that crazy?”
Fans began lining up at midnight, camping out in their Jonas Brothers tour T-shirts from 2008 and blasting fan favorites like “Year 3000.” This kind of dedication has been par for the course since the sibling trio debuted in 2006 -- only now those fans are adults whose steadfastness helped “Sucker,” the group’s first single in nearly six years, debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March. (They’ll perform it at the Billboard Music Awards on May 1, airing live from Las Vegas on NBC.) It’s a feat the brothers never accomplished in their late-2000s heyday, despite selling out arenas around the world and topping the Billboard 200 twice. It’s also a stamp of grown-up pop stardom for a band that never got to age into it, thanks to an abrupt split in 2013 due to general burnout and conflicts over the group’s direction.