Behind the Jonas Brothers' World Tour 2009

The Jonas Brothers have been at the American Airlines Center in Dallas for almost two weeks, rehearsing for a tour that begins just down the road (and just about half an hour from their North Texas home) on June 20th at the brand new Cowboys Stadium in Arlington. No one was supposed to know this. But since it's the Jonas Brothers, obviously, word has gotten out.

So outside, not far from a car covered in shoe-polish devotion to the trio, two girls lean over the railing to the tunnel entrance of the loading dock, woo-hooing every visitor, yelling out messages to be relayed to Kevin, Joe and Nick. "Tell the boys we say hi and we love them," they shout to keyboard player Ryan Liestman, who looks like a cross between young and old Axl Rose and never breaks stride.

They'll get a chance to be closer soon enough. "We wanted a great way for everyone to have a front-row seat," Kevin says, referring to the band's new in-the-round stage setup, which almost travels from one end of the arena to the other. "In the audience, you only are 30 to 90 feet away from us at any point."

Inside, it feels more like the last day of school, since all the gear will be packed up and shipped out tonight. Joe pilots a Segway in lazy circles. The crew fight it out on a ping-pong table, occasionally joined by Nick. There are baseball gloves and bikes scattered. On the floor of the arena, near the stage, the band has dragged out a trampoline and the tumbling mat used by Dallas Mavericks mascot Mavs Man for dunking exhibitions during timeouts. Joe spends a few minutes good-naturedly trying to double-bounce the band's stylist off of it.

All of that, though, belies the work that gone on at the AAC up until now. Even though their last tour was shot in 3-D and released as a feature film, the new production is much more ambitious (so much so it requires 19 trucks to haul it around — twice as many as last time).