Hangin' Tough

I knew I was in trouble when I saw a woman in an electric blue cropped suede jacket with HUGE shoulder pads. But, M looked so adorable in her NKOTB t-shirt (which she was beat up for when she wore it in elementary school) and we gleefully entered the Verizon Center hand in hand.

I was nervous that I had gotten bad seats. I was right. We were practically behind the stage. Another thing, is that I hadn't shaken the curse of the concert stink. The guy in front of me at the Erasure concert farted the entire time. The couple in front of me at the Alicia Keys concert burped ham sandwich. And at NKOTB, there was some major farting. I think it was all the beer the girls around us were drinking.

There was an empty section to the left of us (because it was farther behind the stage). We moved and realized that we had basically the same view, we could now see BEHIND the screen so caught all the close-ups of Joey McIntyre's scruff and M claims, hair plugs. We saw backstage high jinks like one of the New Kids doing the twist with a stage hand as well as running around and assembling on the lift. And we had a whole, fart-free section to ourselves. That is why the seats are empty in the photos. Seriously, there were a lot of other people there - the concert was sold out.

Who were our fellow concert-goers? I think 99.8% of the crowd were white women. Oh, I think I saw 3 African women and a gay couple. But, the vast majority - let's just say there were a lot of white arms waving along to the music. I think that a lot of moms had loved NKOTB along with there daughters and there were a lot of women in their 40s GOING BANANAS! More so than their now older daughters. And one of the moms was totally intrigued by the gay couple - I think she event took a picture of them. M equates moms liking NKOTB with Demi marrying her kid's celebrity crush Ashton Kutcher. And the new New Kid's fans, well, they were drinking a lot of beer. Another thing I noticed, apologies in advanced, these were big women. I have always been incredulous that the average size in America is 14, 5'4" or shorter. Now, I believe.

There was a lot of synchronized dancing, Joey wore skinny jeans, I had forgotten how much I liked "I'll Be Loving You" and priceless smiles and giggles from M.