Well, it was finally March 13th, 1999, and my friends Tara, Angela, Denise, Lauren, Deanna, and I were going to the New Haven Coliseum ‘N Sync show! If you’ve ever purchased tickets more than THREE FREAKIN’ MONTHS before a concert, you’d know exactly how painful and long the wait was. But yay, the day had come and we were ready and waiting. After much toil about when we were going to leave and what we’d do when we got there, we finally left!
So, the concert starts at 7:30 PM and we all meet up in Hartford (about an hour away from the theatre) at around 4:45. We’d been planning to go to the ‘N Sync Day ceremony, but we didn’t because I was too late picking up Tara… that’s alright anyway, because it was probably a mob and I don’t want to deal with that crap. After a brief dinner of Happy Meals (if only you knew how long it had been since I’d eaten a Happy Meal, but they were giving away free Winnie the Pooh keychains. We all got Roo.), I realized that I’d forgotten my disposable camera. I was slightly pissed off, but to my content, Lauren had brought one.
We get to the Coliseum at around 6:30 and there is this mob of people there. I should probably tell you that the Coliseum is huge, like 12,000 seats, so this was a damn big mob. Whenever anybody saw someone that looked even remotely like an ‘N Sync guy (like they had hair or a shirt on, or any characteristic suggesting they might be a guy, God forbid…), the whole mob would start SCREAMING, and 12-year-old-vicious-teenybopper-screams are by far the worst ones. That was bad in itself, but the consistency made it even worse.
Of course, things were made much better for me, and much more amusing, when some ticket scalpers (and there were many, I promise) sold some Meet-'N'-Greet passes to an oblivious father and his two teenybopper daughters for the price of $150 for two... at first we were insanely jealous, but it occured to me that the Meet-'N'-Greet had been over for at least an hour. The two girlies came out and started crying to their father that it was over, and I couldn't help but laugh (although I did feel badly) because they had been gloating. This had to have been a wakeup call! The moral of THIS story is, never buy Meet-'N'-Greet passes after the afternoon of the concert!
Well, it was freezing as all hell, and there was someone blasting loud, annoying music… first it was the Shaggy and Janet song which I hear about a million times a day, then it was Britney Spears… I felt really bad about that one, because I heard it and immediately said, “Huh? Britney Spears?” and the girl next to me whom I didn’t directly look at said, “Yeah, they’re playing it,” and being as with one glance she appeared to resemble Denise, I thought it was Denise and almost said, “Well, let’s just go beat them.” Luckily, I looked just in time to realize that it was a stranger and she would have thought I was serious. That would have been bad.
So back to the freezing. It was damn cold and they weren’t letting anybody inside, so Tara and Angela went on a search for someone who would know why. They came back ten minutes later and said that if we went upstairs, we'd be let in sooner, but still not right away because there are some explosions during the concert and it hadn't been cleared with the fire marshall, and people couldn't be admitted in until it had been cleared. Shouldn't this be done sooner? I thought so.
After fifteen more minutes of waiting (did I mention that Deanna was over here and she really had to go to the bathroom, and was by now getting really mad that they wouldn't let her in?), we finally got in. Some of us went to the bathroom, others, including myself, went to find our seats. They were really good, so I was happy. Needless to say, Denise and I still wasted $15 each on two pairs of binoculars, that luckily did end up helping. Then, Tara and I went to the official merchandise stand and bought lanyards and programs (damn, these things are overpriced!). This was a miracle because there were hundreds of teenyboppers cutting in front of us. All I wanted was a program and a lanyard, and I got stuck behind mothers that were buying two hundred dollars worth of crap for their daughters. Eventually, though, we bought our junk and proceeded to miss B*witched's first song because of the pushing teenyboppers.
Finally, we got inside and safely down to our seats and finished watching B*witched. You have to know their song, "C'est La Vie," if you were wondering who they were. There's four of them, and they're young and pretty and actually cause me no jealously whatsoever. I don't know why, but there you go. They were really very good. I was amused because "C'est La Vie" is so pop-ish, but they have this one mosh-like song called "We Four Girls." They were really getting down with their head-banging. They're great dancers, really hip-hop, and surprisingly they only do Irish dancing to "C'est La Vie."
Then, out came Tatyana Ali. She's really pretty and really nice, and her dancers were really good. Her set, same as B*witched, was about 20 minutes. She sang "Daydreamin'" and "Boy You Knock Me Out" (sans Will Smith, of course), along with some other songs and a dance routine to a medley of Will Smith songs. That was really cool. She also had the tech crew bring up the house lights so she could take an audience picture for her website. That was pretty cool!
Next was 'N Sync. They had to completely rebuild the stage for their show, so we waited for about half an hour at least for them to come on. They played some really bad music in the meantime, but I talked to Tara so all was good. The news people from all around CT came out, and the screaming teenybopper girls made way too much noise trying to get on camera. I laughed at some of them. Good God, wasn't everyone at the concert anyway? Who would have seen them? But FINALLY the lights went dark (and of course, the screaming girlies started up).
There was this really loud and deep voice, and it said, "I've come to stop the show." Then there was this REALLY LOUD noise (although it's amazing that I heard it over the screaming teenyboppers) and a mechanical-looking robot thing came out on stage and the arms starting moving away from the body. At this point, I figured that there was something other than strings moving each part and it occured to me that it would most likely be the guys. I was really excited about this and so were the teenyboppers. Finally, the guys dropped the parts and came out on stage in these glowing costume things. I couldn't really tell who was who, but I know Justin was in blue and I think JC was in orange. They did a dance and then took out big sticks and threw them at each other. Then they took off their costumes to reveal shirts and jeans, I think it was.
Then huge flames went up and they did "Here We Go." It was tacky, because the song is tacky, but they were really good. Of course, everyone was singing and dancing, my friends and myself included. I turned into such a teenybopper that night, but it was much fun. Then they sang "You Got It," complete with all the dancing and pelvic thrusts. My Lord, let me tell you that I saw more pelvic thrusts in that night than I have in my whole life. Luckily, most were from Justin. Tara "Just Call Me Timberlake" and I were happy.
Then was the anti-highlight of the evening. JC comes out and says to the audience, "Now, there are two things in life that you may or may not have. The first thing that you may or may not have is a little thing called looooove. The other thing, that I KNOW you don't have (damn you, JC), is a seat on stage." The guys then proceeded to bring out ten previously selected girls (and they were such sluts, I mean it! They were half naked the whole time in their tube tops and micromini skirts, it was shocking.) from backstage and sit them down onstage. They sang "For The Girl Who Has Everything" to them (well, parts, they faced them for some of the time and the audience the rest of the time) and occasionally went and sat with them. Joey, Lance, and Chris were getting kind of cozy with their six girls, and Justin went over to his two girls once and put his elbow on one of their knees (oh, gee, isn't that sexy?). JC, good old JC (he's good now, but wasn't good when he ridiculed us), didn't go near his girls and actually didn't even walk them backstage when the other guys did. That was fun.
Did I mention that the whole time there was a really big screen behind them for the far-away-seat people? Well, there was, and they did close ups. Not that I really needed it because of my trusty binoculars (which flew to my eyes whenever I expected a pelvic thrust... Jesus, people, don't be dirty! It's not like I get to see Justin do that often!), but this was really close-up. Hurrah! So after For The Girl, this little documentary comes on about the 60's and then 'N Sync came back in tacky 60's outfits and proceeded to sing "That Thing You Do." I was rocking out, because I love that movie and that song! Not more than 'N Sync, but close... thus, this was a dream moment!
After that, they showed a 70's documentary and 'N Sync came out with Jackson 5 outfits, complete with afros, and sang a Jackson 5 medley ("I Want You Back, ABC, and some other songs). Chris did the honor of leading the whole thing, and he eerily sounded like Michael. Then was an 80's documentary and out came 'N Sync in more tacky clothes. On top of the stage was Joey in a Pimp Jacket, and he did the singing for "Celebration." Let me tell you, the audience was getting down on that one! Lastly, there was a documentary on - what else? - the 90's and 'N Sync came out and did "Crazy For You," a.k.a. the PELVIC THRUST SONG! My God, we were all so blissful, especially 'cause most of Justin's action was on our side. I was yanking on Lauren's sleeve the whole time, saying "Oh, take a picture!"
Then they sang "I Drive Myself Crazy." Yes, for those on you wondering, it was the Chris version, so that was good. It was really nice when they did the beginning as an a capella. At the end, I was tearing up because I love that song, and I love Justin... it all worked out! After this came "I Just Wanna Be With You," I think, but that may have come later. Anyway, there's not much to say about this song because I don't like it much and nothing special happened anyway. At least, besides Justin's little body roll. Oh boy! Next came Lance talking about how he finally figured out what was different about out audience: God spent a little extra time on us. What a line. So obviously, they sang "God Must Have Spent A Little More Time On You," to which the whole world knows the dance moves. It was pretty cool, because lots of people had those glow sticks and it was cool seeing them move in unison. Of course, it was really nice because it's a really nice song.
Immediately after, we heard the opening music for "I Want you Back," so of course the whole audience got really excited. Justin did his little intro, and I was going nuts, and they performed the song and it was fabulous! After they did their anthem, they went off stage and more bad music came on. Many people thought this was their cue to leave, so some people just got up and left. However, Tara and Denise had been to the Thursday night show in Providence, so I knew it wasn't over. To my amusement, they played the video for "U Drive Me Crazy" on the screen, and it was hilarious! They dresed up like the Jackson 5 in that, and the Spice Girls, which was a complete riot - it really worked for them! It was odd, because there were these scenes in which Justin had a bowl and was stirring with this really demonic facial expression, and Joey kept putting his head into the bowl. It was so weird. During the whole video, my friends and I were yelling the lyrics along with the video, and we got all these "How do you know this song?" stares from people who obviously didn't own the single.
After this little screening, they came out in white sweatsuits and looked godly. The music for "Sailing" started up and they sang a little bit of it, when all of a sudden they got lifted off stage by these harnesses. This came as now surprise to me because Tara and Denise had told me, but it was still really cool! First, they were just suspended, and then Justin, Lance, Chris, and Joey were put back down. JC, though, came out over the audience, and then the other guys did too.It was a pyramid in the order of Lance, Justin, JC, Chris, and Joey, so we were right below Lance. That was fabulous! We got pictures. After being put back on stage, they said, "Thank you for coming to our show, we hope you had fun..." and everyone was thinking, "It's over?" But no, thanks to me handy-dandy concert guide friends, I knew it wasn't.
Some dance music then came up and they started singing "Tearin' Up My Heart." Of course they did the whole, "When I say "'N," you say "Sync..." and then finished the song. It was really good, and then it was over after they said their final goodbyes and flew out over the audience again. That was pretty cool because Lance looked directly at the girl standing next to me and waved, so he should have had me in his periferal vision... I hope so! Anyway, it was a really cool concert. It would have also been nice if the teenyboppers had shushed, but it was still fabulous! Especially the pelvic thrusts.
© 1997 daydream883@juno.com
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