Jonas Brothers unleashed a mob of thousands on the Asbury Park boardwalk (PHOTOS) – NJ.com

Joe Jonas was dressed for the occasion.

As the pop star and his brothers, Nick and Kevin, emerged from The Stone Pony Sunday night, slinking through a corridor of screaming fans, across Ocean Avenue and onto a stage built on the Asbury Park boardwalk — where thousands more diehards had been waiting for hours to see the Jonas Brothers perform — Joe was wearing a cut-off denim vest, a la the city’s veritable lord, Bruce Springsteen.

“It feels good to be home,” Jonas, a New Jersey native, yelled to the adoring audience, who mobbed the Jersey shorefront, spilling down the section of closed boardwalk around First Avenue and beyond in all directions. Hundred more fans filled the beach and stood on stacks of lounge chairs, while others tried to elbow some room at the Watermark bar a block away, with its second-story outdoor deck useful for viewing.

The ultra-popular and Bergen County-bred trio were in town recording a remote performance of their bouncy new single, “Only Human,” to be aired Monday night during MTV’s star-studded Video Music Awards, which for the first time will take place at Prudential Center in Newark. Pop mega-stars Taylor Swift, Cardi B, Shawn Mendes and New Jersey’s own Halsey are among the A-list attendees.

The news broke Thursday that the Jonas Brothers would not only be filming in Asbury Park for the VMAs, but they’d be playing a short concert afterward to whoever was in earshot of the boardwalk — free of charge.

Naturally, fans began showing up on the boardwalk as early as 10 a.m. Sunday, jockeying for position on the line to get as close as they could to the stage.

The crowd swelled as the sun began to set behind The Stone Pony, which was where the JoBros’ performance began, running through a verse and chorus of their No. 1 comeback hit “Sucker” before trotting out onto the main stage and running through “Only Human,” complete with a full 10-piece band and a firework finale. The guys did two takes of this whole setup, with the crowd instructed to cheer and sing along both times.

Then, they stuck around to play a few more tunes off their June album, “Happiness Begins”: the band played “Cool” and “I Believe” before finishing with a full version of “Sucker.”

After six years apart, which most notably spurred Nick Jonas’s hit-laden solo career and Joe Jonas’s success as leader of the pop-rock band DNCE, the guys reunited earlier this year and struck gold in March when their return single, “Sucker,” debuted at No. 1 — the group’s first song to reach the top of the Billboard Hot 100. Their breezy reunion album, “Happiness Begins,” was released in June and also debuted atop the Billboard albums chart.

Joe, 29, Nick, 26, and Kevin, 31, grew up in Wyckoff — their dad, Kevin Sr., was senior pastor at the Wyckoff Assembly of God church — before moving 20 minutes south to Little Falls as teenagers, where they wrote their first album, “It’s About Time,” which was released in 2006. A year later, they guest-starred on an episode of the hit Disney Channel show “Hannah Montana” starring Miley Cyrus, and in 2008 appeared in the monster Disney movie “Camp Rock” opposite soon-to-be pop powerhouse Demi Lovato.

The trio became mega-stars among tween-to-teen listeners and would release three more LPs before announcing the Jonas Brothers’ hiatus in 2013.

See the group’s performance on TV Monday night, as the VMAs air on MTV from Newark starting at 8 p.m.

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Bobby Olivier may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter@BobbyOlivier and Facebook. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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