Jess's Experience
Ok so my mom, my best friend, her
mother and I all got in my car at 9:15 AM and drove to the mall.
We got there at 10 AM which is when the mall opens. There were already
quite a few people there so we went straight to the center court which
is where the show was. The YM fashion thingy started at 12 PM, so
we had 2 hours to wait. We were about in the 4th row of people there
already, we made friends with the people around us who are awesome and
around 11AM they wouldn't let anyone out of the concert area because they
said you wouldn't be able to get back in, which sucked because then we
all were starving and we couldn't get food! Ok well anyway, at 12 PM the
fashion show started and there is one guy model who is HOT AS HELL! His
name is Tom and man.. he's hot and got a great reaction from the crowd.
They do the same fashion show twice so at 2 PMit was the same deal.
O-Town was supposed to come at 3 PM and amazingly THEY WERE EXACTLY ON
TIME! What are the odds? Seriously, I expected them at around 3:30 because
they were coimng to the mall from another appearance in Manhattan and traffic
from there to Jersey can be horrendous. Ok so O-Town came on and
they were gorgeous. Oh god.. words can't describe how Ashley looked.
Oh and before I get into this I thought I'd mention that if you were there
and had a sign, thank you for not holding it up during the show and respecting
those behind you. All the girls in the front had huge signs and didn't
hold them up once to block the view :-) And there was this one sign that
I think was mean it read "Ashley loves Shelli (then Shelli was crossed
out) and the girl wrote her own name." Now I just wanted to say that that's
mean to Ash because at the time we didn't know the details about why they're
just friends now and that could be painful for him but luckily the girl
didn't hold it up while Ashley was there. Ok so onto the show.. first
they did "All for Love" Dan REALLY is an awesome dancer! And I took
all my pictures during "All for Love" cuz I was going crazy. Next
they sang "Baby I Would" and I was right in front of Ashley and by now
I had gotten to like the 2nd row (I'm good at shoving) and HE LOOKED AT
ME FOR MOST OF THE SONG!!!! And then Jacob came over to touch hands and
he missed me by like a centimeter.. darn! And OMG on "shield" Erik threw
the towel.. he really made it his trademark, but then they all threw them
out, so it just wasn't the same.. lol. Then they sang a 3rd song,
I couldn't hear what it was called but it was good. Their harmonies are
getting tight and they sound awesome. If you ask me, I've seen *NSync
and BSB live and O-Town sounded a lot better! Then at the end Trevor started
picking up things that had been thrown onstage but they had to go so he
couldn't. Then I had to run upstairs to find out where the "secret
location" was for the meet and greet. I found my way to the store
where they were and was ushered in by security. After waiting for
like 3 minutes, who waltzes in but Lou Pearlman himself, but he was on
the other side of the room so I didn't get to talk to him, but I took a
pic from far away. I made a shirt on my computer that I was getting
autographed that had the individual pictures of them from Popstar! and
the O-Town logo. Ok, so I finally got up to Jacob who was first and
Jacob starts looking at my shirt like it is the coolest thing he has ever
seen. He goes, "Man.. this is fly!" then he goes "Hey Ash look at
this" and Ashley looked at it but he was taking a pic with a fan but he
was like "Wow! Awesome!" and then Jacob was like staring at it and I don't
know what he was thinking, but I think he for some reason couldn't find
his pic to sign under so I showed him where it was and I moved on.
Next was Ashley <sigh> He looked at the shirt and was like "Wow, you
made this? That's so cool" and then he signed the shirt VERY slowly because
I guess it was hard to sign on and when he was almost done I was like "Ashley,
can I have a hug?" and he was like "Yeah, of course" and he fixed his pants,
stood up and hugged me and as he hugged me, he whispered in my ear and
was like "Thank you so much for coming and supporting us, we really appreciate
it. It was really great getting to meet you, one of our biggest fans."
Then I moved on to Trevor and he took the shirt and looked at it and went
"Whoah, this shirt is tight!" then he signed it and I suddenly realized
that I had a camera so I was like "Trevor, can I take a pic of you?" and
he was like "Yeah of course!!!!" and I did and he looked really hot cuz
he was wearing his glasses. Then I realized that I didn't take
a pic of Ashley so I continued to hold up the line and was like "Ash, can
I take a pic of you?" and he was like "Sure!" So he posed for me, and then
I felt bad for not being able to get one of Jacob but he looked at my camera
anyways so I got him in the background. So next was Dan who is sooo
nice. He was like "Hey!! What's up? Nice to see you here? Did you
like the show?" and i was like "I loved it!" Then he looked at the shirt
and went "Cool that's me!" and I was like "Yeah!" then I asked him for
a pic and he said ok so I took one. Last was Erik, he (like Jacob)
thought the shirt was like amazingly cool, and signed it and he wrote the
O-Town logo again at the bottom, but I think he forgot how it was cuz he
copied it off of my shirt. Then I said "Erik, can I have a hug?"
and he was like "Definately!" so I hugged him, then I asked for a picture
(yes.. I really held up the line a lot) and he got all ready and he was
posing then right before I took it, he goes "OMG wait a second!"
then he picked up my shirt and held it infront of him as if he were wearing
it and goes "Ok, now I'm ready!" so I took the pic and then Erik was like
"Bye!" and security ushered me out. (They were glad to get rid of me.)
So I went to the food court to find my mom and my friends mom (my friend
was with me at the meet and greet, she hugged all 5 of them... why was
I too dumb to think of that?!) Then I went to go buy food cuz I was famished
when my mom calls me over to our table. They were talking to a woman,
a man and 3 kids. I go over to find out that they were Erik's aunt,
uncle, and 3 of his cousins. They were all wearing shirts with Erik on
them like my shirt was but his aunt saw my shirt and came over to investigate
cuz my iron on transfer worked better. This was the first time they
had ever seen Erik perform with O-Town and we asked if they were going
to meet up with Erik later but his aunt said they couldn't get backstage
passes! So we talked to his aunt and uncle for a while and as we were talking,
who do I see walk by, but Jackie from the 25!! I didn't want to ditch the
Estrada family though, so I just watched him walk by. Then I took
a family pic of the 5 family members (the little kids were adorable!) and
we ate and then left. That was my encounter and it was wonderful,
definately one of the best afternoons of my entire life!
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