NKOTBSB!

I have been revisiting my youth a bit these last few months. I started dance classes again and I’ve gotten back into doing wardrobe calls. I haven’t done wardrobe  in years, but it’s good money and I get to play with fun clothes. The day after watching Rihanna (no, I didn’t buy the tickets), I ended up steaming that show’s costumes. And on Canada Day, I made lots of stat pay steaming Britney Spears costumes and standing under the stage dealing with sweaty male dancer costumes. Having worked in hockey, I can safely say that dancers smell MUCH better than hockey players. But back to revisiting my youth.

Last night was one of the best and funnest nights ever. Why? One word (or maybe seven?): NKOTBSB. I know – horrible. But I am so not ashamed to say that I had t

he best time at Rogers Arena with my girlfriends, watching the boy bands of our youth. I was too young to really absorb the whole New Kids craze (but I think I still have the tapessomewhere!)  but I was in high school during the Backstreet Boys hey day – and I loved them. So this concert was going to be more about BSB (despite a lack of Kevin Richardson, who was my favourite) than NKOTB for me. And in Section 105, Row 5, Seat 101, life was going to be good no matter what.

Needless to say, I enjoyed both equally but I have to admit, those New Kids almost tipped the scale. Donnie Wahlberg and Joey McIntyre rocked my world last night. I really like Donnie as an actor – if you haven’t
seen “Blue Bloods” on CBS or CTV, you need to watch it; Tom Selleck is also in it for an added bonus – but wow. At one point they were all in the crowd and he was four rows away from us. That’s REALLY close. Did we keep our cool? Not a chance. We all freaked out. It was great. lol. And I had forgotten that “Cover Girl” was his song. So there he is singing, and then he rips his shirt off. (I apologize that my video does not capture that. I had to put my iPhone down so I could jump up and down and sing.) Everyone went nuts. We’ll just say he’s in good shape. They all are.

“Young” Joey McIntyre has beautiful blue eyes (just like my hubby) and is also lovely to look at and in great shape (just like my hubby), but (unlike my hubby), dude can SING. At one point they stopped and told him to sing a song and he starts “O Canada”. Predictably, all 18000+ of us (age range 8 to 45) joined in and he finished it out. There is a reason he was on Broadway playing Fiyero in “Wicked”. He sang our anthem like he was Jean Valjean singing a showstopper in “Les Miserables”. I was impressed.

(On the subject of people who cannot sing. Alison and I were at Rhianna a couple weeks ago, and who happens to be sitting behind us but Canuck Christian Ehrhoff (who became a Buffalo Sabre shortly after) and his girlfriend. People were asking for his autograph and he looked familiar but we couldn’t figure out who he was. So I asked. And then everything made sense and I think he must have appreciated our saying hi but not wanting autographs or photos. The guy was harangued for about 20 minutes before the show started. Anyway, during a lull in his autograph line-up, Journey comes on through the speakers. Ali and I of course start to sing along, but who joins us but the German hockey player. Christian Ehrhoff is tone deaf but he know every word to “Don’t Stop Believing” – it was thehighlight of my night. 🙂 )

Jordan Knight is nice to look at but I’m indifferent to him and his falsetto. His brother Jonathan was pretty quiet when not singing and Danny Wood was never really on my radar. In BSB land, Nick Carter has grown up in spades, Howie is still adorable, A.J. has more tattoos and can still sing like no tomorrow, and Brian is just as sweet and goofy. When they all sang “Get Down”, the place went nuts. Talk about vintage. They performed all the songs we wanted to hear, but when “I Want That Way” started I wished Kevin would magically appear like he did in L.A. earlier in the month. He was the only thing missing from an otherwise perfect concert.

They did mash-ups of their songs and included some covers, and during the intros they showed us how goofy they are and how much they actually like each other. It was nice to see.

Matthew Morrison, otherwise know as Mr. Shu from “Glee”, was the opening act and there’s another good looking man who can sing very well. He had a great band, awesome back-up singers, and a pretty fantastic set list. He came on in a tux and ended up with his shirt sleeves rolled up. Nice and basic. When he did “Gold Digger”, the arena went insane.

I had the opportunity for tickets for tonight’s show but I’m glad that I didn’t take them because yesterday was great fun and I don’t think any of our phones/cameras would last through another night of photos, videos, and singing. Between Kate, Alison, and I, the entire concert was documented. Dawn was probably the smartest of all of us just watched, but how can we not record a fabulous night of good looking guys singing bouncy pop songs? 😉

We danced, we sang, we screamed – and about a third of the way through, I actually took out my ear plugs just to test the waters. And for this concert it actually made it even better. Go figure. And now Sean gets to deal with me going “oh-ohoh, oh-ohoh” and “Backstreet’s Back, alright!” for at least two days.