NKOTBSB.
Yes it happened, and it was beautiful.
Standing next to my sister, and two cousins we relived out pre-pubescence all over again. They sold us our memories, all set to the soundtrack of two iconic boy-bands. And judging from the reaction of the crowd, we weren’t the only ones that bought it.
When I think about it outside of the vacuum of twenty and thirty something women shrieking like teenagers, it’s downright cheesy. I read a review in the Calgary Journal by a forty year old music critic. He was most certainly not abusing his Facebook posting privileges with “OH MY GOOOODDD” “It was sooooo amazing” comments. He saw it for what it was for, grown men, singing songs made famous when they had much higher voices. He scoffed at the serenading of girls young enough to be their daughters on stage, and kitschy dance moves that were hardly synchronized. But, as they say, everything in this world is perspective.
Through the eyes of a girl who used to sit slowly flipping through Tiger Beat magazine, snapping hubba bubba, with a massive side pony-tailed meticulously crimped, it was magic. They didn’t disappoint her one bit. They played the songs that she loved, pulled out the 80’s choreography (I wasn’t the only one doing “Hanging Tough” in the crowd, rest assured) and had her turning to her cousin freaking out that “He looooked at me!!”. And that’s what we went there for. To forget for a split second about work, husbands, kids, mortgages, LIFE.
There were some obvious changes since many of us went to our first New Kids on the Block or Backstreet Boys concert though. In the bathroom I overheard someone telling their friend “They were trying”. And, it was blatantly obvious some of the trying was working, because pregnant women were in abundance. But it was perhaps the new found, um, appreciation for some of the older men in the bands that resonated with us now that we had grown up. As my cousin remarked, “He used to look sorta old and creepy… he’s HOT now”.
So thank you NKOTBSB. You gave me an evening I won’t soon forget. The laughs (ok, downright giddiness) shared between myself, my sister and cousins, was something I think we all needed. And if it wasn’t for the EPIC ( I do not use this word lightly people) NKOTBSB tour, we may have been forced to wait for the Spice Girls.
