Ok, I’m gonna start from the begining of my little concert story. I got tickets to the Johnny No-Name concert in Las Vegas for myself and my best friend for her 17th birthday. The concert itself was at the Hard Rock Hotel, which was exciting in itself with all the rock and roll memorabilia scattered throughout the hotel, lobby and casino. When we first got to the hotel, we changed from our t-shirt and jean travel attire into skirts and nice shirts. This was a big deal for us since, after all, it WAS for my best friend’s birthday. After we had changed, my aunt, who had driven us up and was going to come to the concert too (she digs this kinda stuff, which is way cool), beckoned us to follow her. We slipped into some doors right under a sign for the Joint, the actual venue the concert was held in. There was another set of doors there, and you could hear the band soundchecking inside. We tried the doors, but they were locked up tight...Darn. We slipped back out and got some evil eyes from employees that were walking by...Oh well!

After that, we went out to wait in line. Our wait was almost 4 hours long! While we were in line, we met two girls from Vegas. They were very sweet and we chatted it up for almost the whole time. One of the girls went into the hotel for a minute and while she was there, she turned a corner and ran into none other than AJ himself! Some people have all the luck. She said he had blonde hair (he does), she saw a majority of his tattoos and that he smelled really good! He was on his way up stairs, probably to his hotel room after soundcheck.

When they finally opened the doors, because it was general admission, everyone RAN and I do mean RAN into the venue. Some people fell and were almost trampled. General admission, in my opinion, is a very bad idea and I honestly can’t believe some people actually brought children younger than 11. Anyway, my friends and I got good “seats” (there were no seats, we had to stand the whole time!) we were only about 4 or 5 people back.

Our first opening act was Mindi Abair, for those few of you who still don’t know who she is, she is a member of the Backstreet Band. I love her songs, but let me tell you, she is SOOOOOO awesome in concert. I met her after the concert, too, when she came out to sign autographs and she is nice and patient. She took a pic with me and my best friend and then signed a pic of her that a guy who was with her was handing out. Mindi is the only celebrity I’ve ever met, but, let me tell you, she is SOO very sweet. I hope that she starts getting some major and good publicity now, cuz she deserves it. You heard it here first...She will be the next Sheryl Crow/Sarah McLachlan/Jewel!!

Second opening act was Nobody’s Angel. They sang to a track and MAY have been lip syncing. It was hard to tell. But, anyway, they are really energetic and they’re songs are super catchy and great to dance to. Not to mention, they are good dancers themselves. One of the girls waved to me, so that was cool. They seem really sweet. I enjoyed them a lot...Not as much as AJ, I mean, Johnny and Mindi, but they really did a great job at getting the crowd pumped (not that we needed it, Vegas peeps are CrAzY!)

Then, the moment we were all waiting for, it was time for the man himself! I’m not going to go into total details because I can’t remember the names of half the songs he sang because, well, because I was so excited. But, I do remember that he ROCKED THE HOUSE! He was so awesome. I loved the way he tried to make eye contact with everyone at least once. He sang “Lay Down Beside Me”, “If You Knew What I Knew”, “Hey Mr. DJ” and a little bit of “Don’t Want You Back” in the middle of “Brick House”. Of course, he sang “Bad to the Bone”, and he also sang “If You Could Only See”. I don’t remember the other ones! lol

Some highlights:

* Someone threw a rubber chicken on stage...AJ picked it up, showed it to one of his security guards, laughed at it, and then started like walking around the stage like a chicken! It was so cute.

* Lots of bras were being thrown on stage. AJ picked one up, held it up to his chest and was like, “It’s my size, how did you know?” Then, he looked back at Mindi, laughed and threw it at her!

* AJ asked for a chair and they brought him a stool...He was like, “Stool, chair, whatever, I guess it will work”

* When he introduced the band, Tommy was wearing a cowprint vest. AJ commented on that and said he looked like a cow!

* Mindi stepped forward and sang a song w/ AJ...I can’t remember which one it was, though.

* Howie came with AJ to Vegas! He had us call Howie on stage...He went through this little thing about calling all the guys (Brian’s home in Orlando playin’ b-ball, Nick’s chillin’ in Tampa, I think he said Kev’s with his girl, Kristen, and then he’s like, I DID get ahold of one other guy, though and he said he’d come and do a little song with me) Anyway, we had to scream HOWIE at the top of our lungs when AJ counted to three. Howie looks so much younger without his goatee and, he was always hot, but now he’s ten times hotter!

* AJ threw two water bottles out to the crowd. I almost caught the second one, but I got pushed back and I fell to the ground...darn the luck. I did touch it though...lol

They didn’t have an MC for the concert, so AJ had to MC the entire thing! It was sweet, though. Over all, the concert was AWESOME. Even though we were packed in and it was hot, it was 100% worth it. I had the best time and it’s a birthday present my best friend and I will never forget!