Saturday, October 11, 2008

NEW KIDS have "The Right Stuff"

Good things come to those who wait.

I waited 20 years for Friday night. Last Spring, Jaymey and I heard rumors that New Kids on the Block were getting back together. Once we knew it was fact, and they started announcing concerts and the East Coast concerts started selling out in under an hour, we made a deal: The minute you heard of a concert within flying distance of a Southwest plane on the west coast, you have permission to buy tickets. We found out about the San Jose concert, which weren't on sale yet, but we could buy pre-sale tickets if we had an American Express card. We had done something similiar with Kathy Griffin a few months back (with Citicard, which I had) and had got 4th row seats, so we started calling everyone we knew to find someone who'd let us use their American Express. Thankfully, my dad and stepmom had one, so within about an hour, we had our tickets pruchased.



Kym + Joey = 20 years of love! You may know that Joey McIntyre is on my "List of Five." I have loved him since I was 13. Yes, I know he is married. Brent knows I love him and I made sure I reminded him that Joey was on my list before I left for San Jose. You never know - I could get lucky. As if! (I watched Clueless this morning)



Jordan and Donnie are pretty much the same. Jordan has lost weight since his "The Surreal Life" stint. Donnie looks older but both guys still have crazy energy and chemistry with the crowd.



Danny, who I thought looked like a monkey 20 years ago, has definitely grown into his face. He's hot now! And he has 4 kids. For some reason, that makes me feel old.



And then there's Jon. Apparently one of the reasons why NKOTB broke up was that Jon was getting panic attacks when going on stage. I guess he is now over them, which is a good thing for us. Anyway, Jon had this interesting smirk on his face every time he wasn't singing. It really looked like he was thinking, "I can't believe we sold out this arena. Look at all of these chicks who paid like $100 to see us. For God sake's, I'm over 40. But who cares, I'm getting pa-aid!" It was pretty funny.
At one point, in between songs, Joey yells out, "Ladies and gentlemen, Jon Knight!" The camera went to him and he looked really surprised. The guys were cracking up. Jaymey thinks they were calling him out because he had stayed out of the limelight the whole time. The crowd got pretty quiet and we started wondering if he was going to sing a solo, which would be rare. But he just stood there. Eventually, they moved on but I felt bad for him. Regardless, anytime the camera panned to him, the crowd went wild.



A co-worker asked what I was doing this weekend as I left town on Friday. When I told her, she asked, "What kinds of people will be there?" I said, "A whole bunch of chicks in their early thirties trying to re-live their junior high days." When Jaymey and I got to our seats, we asked how old our neighbors were -- yep, early thirties and a 29-year-old.

In fact, the gals next to us were from Sacramento and had gone to that concert the night before, so they gave us the guided tour through it, which was very helpful. They brought signs with them. They had one for almost every song. Jaymey and I kept staring at each other saying, "Why didn't we think of that?" That is just totally something we would do and just proves how overworked we are that it wasn't even a thought to bring signs with us. Duh!
Between each song, Jaymey and I would face each other, hold hands and jump up and down screaming with excitement. Yep, like 13-year-olds.

All in all, it was in the Top 3 concerts, I've been to. All you haters can just keep hate'n. Better seats at their next concert for me!