May 17, 2001 03:54 AM
2383 Views
2,500 Miles for 'The Boys'
On March 11, 2001, we drove three hours to Raleigh, NC and stayed at a Microtel. Our flight for Phoenix, AZ was to leave at 7:40 the next morning. My mother is deathly afraid of flying. The week before, every time she thought of flying, she would nearly have a panic attack. It's just something she can't get over.
At around 6:30 the next morning we got in the car and drove the 3 or 4 minutes to the airport. We boarded the plane and sat down at the only three seats available together for my mother, sister, and I. As the plane began to roll and get ready for take-off, my mother looked at me, and said ''those Boys just have to know what I do to get to them!'' And so our venture began, our sixth venture to see the Backstreet Boys in concert.
A Beautifully Crafted Car
The next day, we decorated my grandmother's 2000 Toyota RAV4 excessively (i.e. pictures, shoe polish, black and blue balloons). The result just made the creators step back and look at it, impressed. Getting to the concert wasn''t as fun; you just drove on the freeway to get from Sun City to Phoenix, and then the few miles from the exit to the arena. Not to mention, the parking lot isn't the same as I''m used to, the Charlotte Coliseum. The America West Arena just has parking around it, where you pay people that have nothing to do with the arena itself. Kind of a bore, but there were a few people who saw our car and honked!
What are all these radio stations?!
At the entrance of the arena, three local top forty radio stations crowded the sidewalks. They blasted their on-air music, almost as if it were a battle between each of them. The lines to get in sat in between two of these radio station booths/vans, and at one point the one on the right played Nsync's This I Promise You, with which the one set up on the left came back with BSB's Shape Of My Heart much louder. I''m sorry, you just DO NOT play Nsync outside of a Backstreet concert and get away with it. The crowd booed at the station on the right. Gotta love my fellow Backstreet fans :).
Nsync shirts?!
This is just something that I thought was a bit interesting. In bigger cities on the west where there are much more people, I guess it is inevitable that you will find rude and amazingly annoying people. Two girls came walking in between the two lines wearing too-tight shirts with the faces of Nsync on the front. I looked at them in dismay and then in disgust, they just smirked and smiled at each other (I did NOT come to a BSB concert to see some snobby Nsync fans!). I really wanted to slap those looks of their faces before they gave me anymore attitude. Ugh, Nsync fans! shakes head in disgust
Don't touch my poster!
As we went through the doors of the arena, the woman scanned our tickets and passed us through. My sister came through with our neon colored poster concealed as best she could. The woman, with a permanently stuck grouchy face, snatched the poster out of her hand and set it up against the wall and never said a word. My mother was furious, and ready to kick someone''s butt. So she went back and, annoyed, asked the woman if she could keep the poster but put it in her purse. What a dumb woman! She let my mom take it. grins
Ahhh, The Boys make up for difficulties so quickly!
On this tour, the arena is set up with the main/big stage at the front, and a small circular stage at the back. Well, we had floor seats, about 20-something rows back. Our view of the front stage was pretty good, and just the experience of having floor seats was great. But the best part was the fact that our seats were hardly five feet away from the back stage. The two sections of floor seats in the back had some seats extracted due to the fact that they needed so much room for the gate and the stage, equipment, etc. We were one of the last rows before the seats were cut into!
This time it was much easier to see the special effects and stage setup. We saw it straight forward and it was so much better. It was also easier to hear the music over the screaming. The Charlotte one we attended was just the fourth show of the tour and they were still working out bugs in the system. This Phoenix show was close to the end of this leg of the North American Tour, and it was technically and visually better.
Krystal performed at this concert also. Since the Charlotte concert I have downloaded her single and enthusiastically sang along and danced to it when she performed. She really is a crowd-getter! We BSB fans love her! The rest of the show was setup exactly the same. Although, I can see how at each place they personalize it for that city. There were some differences between this and Charlotte. It''s like taking a standard birthday card but personalizing it for that certain person.
When the Backstreet Boys appeared at the back stage, I thought I would start hyperventilating. Ok, maybe it wasn''t that bad. Everyone crowded around the gate and just gazed at those faces. Far away they seemed perfect, yet too distant. Now we could see the certain features we all knew and loved, and had seen so many times in magazines and on television. The lines around Brian''s eyes when he smiles those thin little lips; Nick''s little bits of teenage acne, amazing blue eyes, and the way he scrunched his face and closed his eyes tight when he sang; Kevin''s serious aura; AJ's precisely trimmed facial hair, and newly done corn rows; and Howie''s straightened hair, winking eye. My mind raced as I studied all these things and I was hardly paying attention to what they were singing. But from previous experience and the few notes I picked out, I knew that they were singing I'll Never Break Your Heart/I Promise You and How Did I Fall In Love in its entirety. As before, everyone hushed before Howie''s drawn out note for the word 'life.'
I was just in awe of these men that I have adored for so long, since they were just boys. This was the closest I had ever been to them. Even at the fan conference a year ago I wasn''t so close. I felt like reaching out and taking Nick''s hand as he sat on the edge of the stage, but I was out of reach. I wasn't that close. At that moment, I wanted to know what his skin felt like, just shake his hand (although I know good and well his hand feels like any other person's hand).
During this time that they were on the back stage, my mother took some of the pictures. Several times Nick saw her holding up the camera and smirked cutely into the lens, arching his eyebrows (that melting stare, he knows how to do that too well!)...but my mother only took one picture of him doing it. Our poster, which my mom held up, said ''Havelock loves Howie'' once more. This told him that we were the same people from NC the previous year, and had come 2,500 miles to see them. He, again, kissed two fingers and held them out to us.
The concert was an amazing experience and took me closer to my men than I had ever been. I had so much fun; I danced, and sang...clapped and screamed. How is it that they could get so much better, so easily and so wonderfully? It is quite a beautiful thing, to be so deeply entrusted into their lives. Their music and performing is a spectacle in its own right. It's hard to explain to you, perhaps an outsider to this renowned phenomenon. I remember reading in an article someone had written about another Backstreet Black & Blue concert: ''some of us may get sick of this infamous group, the Backstreet Boys. They've been around so long, but seeing them perform, now I know why their fans can't get enough. You just don't know.''
©Cindy Park-2001
