I was shocked when my friend Liz casually informed me that Hanson was coming to our beloved Kirby on September 18th, 2000 - mearly five days before my seventeenth birthday. I nearly fell over and into the fetal position. Liz was already going to see the Philly show on the 16th, and I was pissed that I couldn't get any decent tickets to that show, since I thought it was the only show Hanson was doing around NEPA. But now they were coming to Wilkes-Barre... WILKES-FREAKING-BARRE. Amazing. Now... All I had to do was find out any and all information I could about the concert (cameras allowed in or not, signs allowed in or not, how much $ I needed for tickets, just who exactly I was going to this concert with and how I was getting there, among other things) and get out the lawn chairs and prepare to wait in line.
Which I did. I found out that the tickets weren't all that much - a mere $28.50 for the so-called "cheap" seats in the balcony and mezzanine. Truth be known, I honestly do not remember how much my ticket cost, but it was a little bit more than the balcony seats.
When I got to the Kirby Center at approximately 9PM on Friday night, I quickly counted and realized that there were five people in line ahead of me. Which didn't bother me in the least - I knew that there were going to be two lines formed when the tickets went onsale and I would be third in either line. I thought I was going to get good seats, within the first ten rows or so, which kept me all happy and peppy pretty much all night long. THOUGHT being the key word in that sentence. In the beginning it was fun, but near the end...
I've said it before, I'll say it again and I'll keep saying it until the day I die: Hanson Fans are the nicest people. Nicer than Backstreet Fans, nicer than 'N Sync Fans, nicer than O-Town Fans... You name a band, and I've probably had my fair share of experiences with each of their fans, and in all honesty, Hanson Fans are the most friendly of all of them. I've dealt with Ghetto Girls in line for O-Town, Backstreet Fans claiming they nailed Nick Carter when he was sixteen and 'N Sync fans that were downright vicious when I said I thought Joey was cute. But while waiting in line for Hanson, I made friends. I always make friends at Hanson concerts, at the Albertane Tour I made a friend, Shannon, whom I still chat with online occasionally. But I do make friends thanks to Hanson. Good friends that I still talk to, even though they live a few states away. A group of three girls so brilliant to think to bring a battery-driven boom box became the DJs for the night. I must have listened to every Hanson song ever put on a CD at least twice before 8AM the next day. I was a happy little teenager for a night - discussing and babbling about everything from the Haircuts to Taylor's inability to distinguish between the keyboard and bongos, since he beats on both instruments. I've often wondered how many keyboards Taylor goes through within one tour...
We were all happy and peppy and wired until about 3:30AM on Saturday. After that, everyone got tired. And grumpy at the thought of having to spend the night on the sidewalk in front of the Kirby. And we all needed one helluva lot of coffee to wake us up at 8AM when Duncan Donuts opened for the day and had about thirty or so teenagers using the bathroom and slurping down coffee like it was water. I pity the poor guy that had to deal with us first thing in the morning, I'm SURE I looked like death run over twice, but I really didn't care.
The last fifteen minutes before 10AM are the WORST for someone who's in line for concert tickets and wants a good seat. If anticipation could kill, I would be dead right now. I was all prepared to fork over the cash for three tickets (my two friends were standing outside, watching our sleeping bags and lawn chairs and such) and freak out royally when the seats were close. Fat chance. When I got up to the lady behind the computer connected to the ever-giving life force that is Ticketmaster, I shouted over the squeals that I wanted three tickets. She nodded, noting the wad of cash in my hand, and began punching in some numbers and then she hit enter. She paused. Her brows forrowed. She punched in a few numbers again and hit enter again. Nothing. She repeated this action two more times while I stood on the other side of the window, rapidly approaching heart failure, repeatedly wailing "Not now, please not now, not my tickets, please no..." She then sighed at me, gae\ve me a sympathetic look and said, "The best I have is Row BB on the floor."
Jaw, meet floor. Floor, meet jaw. Thirteen freaking hours of sitting on a sidewalk in the freezing cold and pitch black with roaches crawling over our sleeping bags in Wilkes-Barre, PA, which is NOT the best place to be after dark, and the BEST she had to offer was ROW BB?!? I was ready to break the glass and hold a shard of it up to her throat until she gave me the fifth row seats that I wanted and initally expected. But I refrained from my homicidal thoughts and acted rationally. "Ok, I'm on the floor - I can just rush the stage like I did at 98 Degrees and get front row that way, no problem," I thought, and grumbled "Ok" to the woman, who printed out the tickets and handed me my change which consisted of about three dollars and a few quarters and dimes.
I walked out of the Kirby feeling... deflated, for lack of a better word. It had been a long two years since I last saw Taylor Hanson strutting around a stage in front of me. And I actually wanted Taylor to SEE ME this time. To see me not getting squished, much like the Albertane Tour. Well, that idea went straight out the windows of Kirby Center's six doors at about 10:02AM on Saturday, August 18th, 2000. The next time I do this, I'm stealing someone's MOE Card.
I had to wait a whole frickin month for the concert... This was pure torture. Not only did I have crappy seats, but I had to wait to occupy them. A month before a Hanson concert sucks in the eyes of a Fanson. It REALLY sucks. But, of course, I had to wait, and wait I did.
I was strongly considering bringing signs to my concert. So I started making them during my month of boredom. One I was dead set on bringing had "Film is Expensive" written on it in red glitter. Another was "Can You REALLY Read This?" Another I REALLY wanted to take was "Tay, Make Me Happy and Take It ALL Off." But I actually thought about it... Diana (their mother) or Walker (their father) would be none too pleased if they were watching from the wings. So I stuck it under my bed with all the other posters I had made, for different concerts ("LFO and KRZ RULE!" ~ I Stayed Up 48 Hours to Make This BSB Poster!" ~ "You're My Knight In Shining Armor!" among others) and I decided to make a poster that one of their younger siblings would actually be able to see without their parents trying to cover their eyes.
I never did bring a poster to that concert. I wanted to, but... I just reminded myself that if I did, I would be considered a teenybopper and I did NOT want that.
The night before when I walked downstairs headed for the door with orange watercolor paint, my mother insisted on not letting me cover the car with Hanson symbols, but (me getting my stubborness from her) I went back outside at about 2AM, and armed with a penlight, I painted one small enough in the back of the Tracker, near the liscence plate. She never noticed it, amazingly. It was big enough to see from other cars, but apparently my mother didn't notice it. Or if she did, she really didn't care.
I woke up feeling like crap - I had been awake until at least 3AM trying to get the symbol perfect, painting it and re-painting it at least forty times, and I was dead tired when my mom woke me up at 8AM. I need at least 8 hours of sleep or I become an annoying little bitch. Unfortunately for my mom, this is exactly what I became.
At 12:30 I left for my chorus class at WVW High School. I couldn't sing anything, I had Where's The Love running through my head continuously. So, naturally, it was kinda hard to sing Dust In The Wind when Taylor Hanson is running laps through your mind.
At around 1:10 I picked up Sue and we headed to public square. We checked out the back of the Kirby - no one was there yet, other than a few buses and trucks. Okay. So... What to do, what to do... Instead of sit there and feel like teenyboppers, we decided to go shopping at a nearby store, Boscov's. Basically a department store, for those of you reading at a location somewhere other than Northeast PA. Anywho, I could've sworn that I saw a Hanson wandering around the Young Men's department, but since I'm a chickenshit, I decided to watch from afar for a few minutes... but I bolted when Mystery Young Man turned toward the rack of hats that I was trying to hide behind. I'm smoooooooth, yea ;-)
At around 2:45 we decided to go back to the Kirby. Wonder of wonders - there were about twenty people there (amazingly enough, most of them were adults, all older than 18 - there were like, five or so kids there around my age), waiting alongside a bus. I grabbed a spot nearest the building, because the sidewalk is lower near the curb, and I could see over everyone's heads. After waiting about ten minutes or so, the door to the bus opened and out came Zac Hanson. Damn, he's tall... Then again, everyone's tall to me, I'm only 5'2". I tried snapping a picture, but he was off the bus too soon, and all I got was the top of his head over the crowd. When I was taking pictures there, I had to hold the camera up above my head to even get them; the whole time I was praying to the Gods of Kodak that my pictures would come out. Next off the bus was Isaac, carrying a guitar case, who got an amazing number of screams. Wait... There's three Hanson brothers... And the two that I didn't have a crush on already came out of the bus... Taylor stepped off the bus. I mentally shreiked. I took pictures. I felt like a teenybopper. But at that point, I liked Taylor Hanson for three and a half years. And here he was, about four feet from me. I nearly passed out.
After Sherin came, five minutes after the Hanson family went into the Kirby (I got a great pic of Zoey, but I'm not gonna scan it since I know that Hanson doesn't like pictures of their family circulating on the web), all three of us went to Wendy's to grab something to eat, since we didn't eat anything since that morning. I had a frosty and fries, if you're interested. We kept on talking about stupid things, like what we would do if Hanson just decided to walk in and order something. I decided that I'd probably be too much of a chickenshit to say anything other than "Hi," and give them a smile of some sort. After that, I'd probably run into the (soundproof) bathroom and scream my head off. ANYWHO, after we got done eating, we went back over to the Kirby. Where we found out that a local radio station (WKRZ) was giving away Meet and Greet passes to the concert. Of course, since I NEVER listen to KRZ, I had no idea this was happening. I wasn't about to Show My Hanson Pride by writing on my face with makeup or making a sign that said KRZ Rules. No thanks, I'll leave that to my teenybopper friends. My friends Megan and Jenn decided to try for the passes though, and Megan promised to get my liner for MMMBop signed. I know she would've, but she didn't win and sat in the Kirby's lobby bawling like a baby. But she had a right to, the DJ that was giving away the passes was only giving them to people who were wearing tube tops/halter tops and Megan's not the type of person who would ever wear something like that to a Hanson concert. Either way, they didn't win and we went into the Kirby broken-hearted.
Other than the fact that our seats were in Ohio, I was pretty content with myself at that point. I was surrounded by Fansons, I was making friends and I was pretty happy with the world at that point. I always end up making friends through Hanson, their fans are the nicest people. I think this is because we all go through hell on practically a daily basis for being a Fanson, and we all feel for each other. I do, anyway.
M2M was the opening act for this concert. I loath these girls. They're just too damn sweet for my taste. Also, I had just found out that both of them are dating Isaac and Zac, and I was pissed off for Megan, who has a thing for Zac. They weren't all that good, so I only took one picture of them just for "proof" that I saw them.
Hanson didn't take that long to get onstage. Anticipation was killing me, as it usually does... But either way... I don't remember all that much from the concert itself, but I do remember that they opened with Look At You. And Taylor did his little "Oww!" thing. And I squealed. I swear, only Taylor Hanson can make me squeal. Not any other band, not any other group or any other person, only Taylor. He's the only person on this planet that makes this soon-to-be-eighteen year-old wanna freak out like a teenybopper. He should be proud.
When Taylor started singing Save Me, I swear, I did not breath for the first four seconds of that song. I just stood there, my mouth hanging open, totally stunned at the vocal abilities of this guy. I knew he was good live, but THIS GOOD... Wow. Yet again, I felt the urge to proclaim my love for Tay through that of a shreik. When they played the opening notes of This Time Around, the crowd went CrAzY. The place exploded. This Time Around is the anthem for Fansons, there is no doubt in my mind. EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THAT AUDIENCE WAS SINGING ALONG, WE WERE SO LOUD THAT YOU COULD NOT HEAR HANSON AT POINTS. This is what I live for, I love the looks on Taylor's face when he saw us singing so loud. Priceless... The boy could not have been happier.
What happened after the concert is a bit blurry... I do believe that we were basically sitting around waiting for someone to pick us up. We didn't bother going around to the back of the Kirby - I had been hearing that Hanson was doing Quick Leaves for their shows on this tour and I didn't wanna be crushed by all the people trying to get one last glimpse of Ike, Tay and Zac.
The concert was amazing - they played extremely well, put on a great show and it was well worth the cash I dropped for it. The next time Hanson comes to NEPA, I'm waiting in line again - and I'm bringing a freaking MOE Card if I have to steal one from someone in line.
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