NKOTBSB round 2 - a night to remember!

* I started this post nearly 3 weeks ago, life got in the way and it's been sitting in my 'drafts' folder ever since 


I'm actually surprised I still have any followers since I've basically been rambling about nothing but boy bands for the past 2 months. That being said, I'm also a little surprised I have friends left at all that don't share my current-obsession.


Anyway, 15 year old Ella will slowly be retreating so expect a gradual shift back to my normal posts. Until then, however, I have to update you all on the second concert from Saturday night.


If you were ever a New Kids or Backstreet Boys fan (or fan of any band/celeb) I think you'll appreciate this story!

All 9 when they first come out

After seeing the show in June and knowing how amazing it was, right away I started looking for tickets for the August show. Now, naturally I tried getting the best possible seats available, but there was also another deciding factor. The bestest says we cheated, I see it more as using insider information.

mash-up of "The One" and "Single"

To increase audience interaction for fans who couldn't afford the expensive floor seats (like us) - BSB started a great system of starting one song at the top of the first level and walking all the way down some aisles towards the stage. This is a genius move on their part!


One of the first blocks of tickets TicketMaster gave me when I was searching for August was 12 rows up from the floor, and aisle seats. Something right then told me to jump on those tickets. So much so that I pretty much ordered them before I had full confirmation from my friends. They would all tell you in hindsight - Best. Decision. Ever. There was no way to know for sure which aisle they would come down, and which Backstreet Boy it would be because they changed it up every show. Very sneaky!

NKOTB

The show was once again amazing, but the best part happened just over half way through. We were all momentarily distracted from the show by big burly security guards putting down ropes along both sides of the aisle we were sitting beside. That's when we knew we were at THE AISLE. It was probably another 15 minutes or so before it was to happen, but we were all giddy with anxious anticipation the whole time. 


We knew from previous experience that the aisle scene happened right after the New Kids sang "Tonight". As soon as the lights went down, our excitement went up. The opening chords of "Shape of my heart" started, and all I could hear was the bestest behind me going "Who is it?? Is it Brian??". All I could see at this point were security guards until S (seated on the aisle) cut in with "It's Nick! OMG It's Nick!" 

Hello Mr. Carter, nice to meet you

He came down the aisle slowly, touching hands as he went. He came to our section, touched all of our hands and then started to turn to the other side. I'll be honest and admit that any rational thought left my mind completely at this point, so without even thinking about it I reached out and grabbed his hand so he turned back to our section and touched our hands again. Side note: if you happened to be sitting across the aisle from us and missed out, I do apologize!

While this was happening, somehow part of my brain was being alerted to the fact that there was more commotion coming from the top of the aisle. I looked up only to see AJ coming towards us! That was the biggest shock of my life because I could swear at the first concert they picked 4 different aisles instead of doubling up. I vaguely remember grabbing the bestests arm and going "OMG it's AJ! OMG it's AJ!" 

I heart you

AJ also came down slowly and made sure to touch as many fans as possible. Meanwhile, Nick was getting mobbed by fans at the bottom of the aisle, forcing AJ to stop briefly where he was. Which happened to be right in front of us! That's right. He was standing right in front of me, shook my hand and went "Hello. How are you?" My mind went completely blank, and I managed a very eloquent "HI!...... I'm .....goood!" (I don't even remember adding the "I'm good" but the bestest assured me that I did)


This show definitely topped the first one, and may even come close to topping front row many years ago! I'm a little sad that the summer of NKOTBSB is over, but when they come back you can bet that I'll be going again!

Fun Fridays!

It's time for another edition of Fun Fridays over at Jen's Blog

Happy Friday! 


This weekend I will be spending time with these girls (minus Jay, 2nd from left plus Kay not pictured)..

@ NKOTBSB round 1 in June, photo courtesy of the Bestest

And these boys..

nkotbsb.com

No biggie right? 

Judging by my plethora of posts in the last 2 months, you've probably all realized that my teenage self seems to have taken over my life recently. I'm sort of hoping that after tomorrow's concert (and possible DDUB stalking in NYC) it will slowly die down again. 

Have a great weekend!

Tales of a 15-year-old Backstreet Boys fan - March 2000 - part 1

Remember when I first blogged about the amazing the NKOTBSB show in June HERE ? With the countdown to NKOTBSB Round 2 quickly winding down - 6 days to go! - I've been re-immersing myself in all things Backstreet and learning all things New Kid. The excitement for the upcoming concert has me reminiscing of the greatest concert I ever went to and the events that lead up to it. I alluded to it in my previous post, but did not go into detail. 


In December of 1999 it was announced that the last stop on the world famous "Into the Millennium" Tour would be in my home-town in March of 2000. We'd only been to one other BSB concert prior to this so naturally our 14 and 15-year-old selves were dying to go. The way tickets were sold back then was that you had to get a green wristband, which were given out about a week before the official "on sale" date. Hundreds of wristbands with 5 digit numbers were given out for each location, and on the morning of December 11th 1999 one number was chosen at random. That number would then get first pick at the tickets and each following number and so on. That meant that anyone whose wristband number was right before it had to go to the back of the line.

The way it happened to work out for us was that there was myself and 2 girlfriends - then other girls - then my mom who had so graciously agreed to wear a wristband 'just in case'. We were put into the lineup by our respective numbers, and once the 500 or so people were settled, THE NUMBER was drawn. Naturally no one could hear the actual number, but it quickly trickled back through the line like a wave. Once the wave stopped, chaos and screaming broke out. 


It's been over a decade and I can still vividly remember hearing the number and knowing it was a higher number then our wristbands and thinking we'd never get tickets.My mom says I gave her the saddest look ever (I have no recollection of this) but she very calmly came over to me and said "It's my number".  


I swear at that moment the world stopped. For several minutes. 


I'd heard what she'd said, but it just would not compute in my head. By the time reality set back in she was already marching up to the ticket window. In the 2 minutes or so she was busy paying, my girlfriends and I had been reduced to shaking, anxious messes. We knew our prospects were good, but we had no idea how good - we were betting on maybe 5th row floor. She came out with FRONT ROW tickets. 

The actual tickets - I know, a little hard to see

I wrote a concert review 3 days after the concert and posted it on a popular website at the time. Something spurred me on a few weeks ago to see if I could still find it. It may have been lost in a virtual "dusty file cabinet" - but I found it and in my next post I will share it with all of you! 

NKOTBSB - Teenage Dream

Hello little blog! You've been terribly neglected the last few months, here's hoping that will change. I'll do an update on my life in a "this and that" post either tomorrow or the next day. There will also be a review of my trip to Rome with a few accompanying pictures coming up shortly

I've been back home for exactly a week now, and what a week it has been. After only getting in late Tuesday night, I had to *drag* my tired-jet lagged-self to a wee little concert on Wednesday.


Something my blog friends (and other readers) may not know about me is that back-in-the-day I was a HUGE Backstreet Boys fan. We're talking a room covered in posters and spending pretty much every waking minute either listening to their music, talking about them or watching them on TV. The highlight of my BSB-obsessed life came in March of 2000 when my girlfriends and I had FRONT ROW tickets to see them.


As the years began to fade, so did my interest in the boys. Things like school, work and boyfriends kept me busy. Out of loyalty to the past I've still gone to most of the concerts when they've been in my area, but not all - and certainly not with the same enthusiasm as during my teen years.


This past fall rumours began circling that the Backstreet Boys were teaming up with New Kids on the Block to do a combined tour. I've never really been a New Kids fan - they were a little before my time. The bestest (also former BSB fan) has an older sister who was a HUGE New Kids fan, so she organized a plot for us all to go to the show and surprised her sister with a ticket for Christmas. There would be 5 of us going in total, and I hate to admit it, but a few of us went into this concert with a good dose of cynicism and "I think we're too old for this".


Then the show started.


Oh. Em. Gee.

I've been to my share of BSB concerts, and I have to say this was definitely one of my top shows. Ever. It was fantastic. Both groups put on an AMAZING performance, they were all energetic and happy and just like the Backstreet Boys of yore. I felt myself instantly being transplanted back in time a decade, cheering along with the rest of the sold-out stadium. My girlfriends and I loved the show SO MUCH that we promptly bought tickets to see them again in August when they come to a city about an hour from here. 


More than that, it only took 2 hours to turn me into an absolute New Kids on the Block fan! They were fantastic, absolutely amazing. And I'm a little ashamed to admit I completely fell in love with Donnie Wahlberg. I love his show "Bluebloods" but this just confirmed it for me.

You can't look at that and tell me he's not gorgeous, right? 

A zen kind of moment

Hello bloggers,

I'm trying to squeeze in a quick blog while I'm sitting in my Social Science class. I think I have something like 4 drafts saved now of posts that I've started and discarded in the last 2 weeks. Every time I sit down to write, something else gets in my way. I've been pushing myself to get all my work done lately, and the final stretch is finally upon me. There's about 4 weeks left in my semester, and then I'm off for the summer!



Now that the weather is getting better and Spring is upon us, I've made a pact with myself to get active and get myself into shape. I've been toying with the idea of getting back into yoga for a while now - and when I say "back into" I'm referring to the semi-attempt I made in my 3rd year of University when I took an "Eastern Philosophies" class - so on Tuesday the Bestest and I attended our first yoga class. 


It was about an hour and a half of poses similar to the one pictured above accompanied by zen-like music and  the soothing voice of our yoga teacher. We emerged feeling fit, healthy and slightly-less-stressed-out. Yesterday we felt stiff, sore and slightly-hit-by-a-car-like. Today seems better though so I have faith it will work


Side note to the Bestest: look at the picture I found, wonder how many classes before we can do poses like that - something to look forward to?

looks painful, no?

I learned two major things from my first class: ex-dancers seemingly have the WORST balance in the world, and knowing the difference between left and right is VERY helpful when doing Yoga - both things I will be working on next week!

Some pictures from Malta and an update on my life

I managed a whole 2 posts in all of March - yikes! I'd like to say that I'm now back in full swing, but that simply isn't true yet. It may not be true until the middle of May at this point, as school is really starting to swallow me up completely. 


I've been home from Malta for almost 2 weeks now and still have not found the time to write about my trip in any great detail. I think I've literally been spending all my free time working. Yuck. Some girls from my class and I have started coming in early before class and staying later just to try and catch up on assignments and lesson plans. 


Aside from school, things with me have been good. Quiet, but good. Last Friday I took a much-needed break from school work and spent the day doing errands and having lunch with the Bestest. It was definitely much needed. I will stop here and head back to my books, but before I go I'll leave you with a few silent images of Malta - and a promise that a post about my trip will follow shortly! 

Downtown Valletta 

Gozo Island

St. Julians

am impasse.

Blog Status: Ella is sooo hungry and is craving fast food

Almost 2 weeks and no post, and now my first post will probably be somewhat of a downer - excellent Ella!

My excuse for the past days? None really. I've been busy with school (and I'm getting a lot more responsibility in my placement) but even that leaves my evenings fairly open.

I've also had increased free time in the evenings due to the untimely ending of a certain fling - but alas, still no blogging

I just haven't had the motivation - which isn't to say that I didn't want to, because I did!

I spent the majority of my saturday with my 3 best girlfriends. It was actually planned before the end of said fling, but really could not have come at a better time! Because our schedules are so vastly different, it's incredibly difficult to find a time when all 4 of us are free, but it just so happened that Saturday night worked out perfectly.

We spent the evening looking at old pictures for the Bestest's wedding slide show, which of course included a long trip down memory lane. It was good to spend the evening with these girls, and it provided me a great distraction at the same time.

All in all, the weekend definitely had its ups and downs - and I'm currently adjusting to not having someone fairly important in my life anymore. It's a little loney, but it's getting there.