*** My first concert experience ***
Backstreet Boys live in the Amsterdam ArenA
5th June 1999

Saturday 19th December, 1998 was the day when this whole story started. Place? Our local post office in my hometown Veenendaal. A couple of days before Christmas started the ticket sales for this concert, which would be my first one ever. When I arrived there around 8:00am in the morning, I actually didn't expect such a huge crowd. At least 100 people were patienly waiting in line to get the best seats. Nobody knew how soon the concert would be sold out. On purpose, I chose for standing places 'cause I hoped to be able to get a little closer to stage that way.

After more than a looooong wait of nearly half a year, the day of the concert was getting closer and closer. The day prior to the concert I went to the stadion to see how many girls were already standing there. Next day it was THE day of the concert. After a train trip of approximately 1 hour we (the girl I went along with and her sister) arrived at the ArenA near Amsterdam. Already thousands of people (mainly girls of course) were already anxiously waiting to have the best positions. It was only 8:30am when we arrived. The qeue was divided into several blocks in which only a certain amount of people were permitted to stand in. The blocks were being controlled by security people but everyone was standing in front of the opening to the next block all the time. Sometimes the pressure on the people in the front was that high, that the security people had no choice than letting go a few people to the next block. So that's how we got from the 5th.... to the 4th.... to the 3rd block.

It was about 4:45pm when the doors went open. Everyone only thought about having a good place and runned over the steps to the entry of the stadium. They didn't even have a chance to check our tickets, neither they checked our bags. OK, so there we were, in the hall itself. The concert was "in the round" which means that the stage is centered in the stadium, instead of a classical stage in front of a concert hall. It surprised me a little to see how much space there was, there was no need to press against other persons at all. At first we could even sit down to wait for the show to begin.

At 19:15, the show was opened by Fabienne. She's an ex-VJ of the populair music tv network in Holland, TMF (The Music Factory). Since a couple of months she's got her own single out. It's called "Will you still love me" and it's pretty cool. Anyway, she opened the show by announcing the first support act. It was E-life, a rap/R&B group from Rotterdam. They did 3 or 4 songs. Thereafter Fabienne appeared on stage again and she performed her own single. At approximately 20:15, the final support act appeared on stage. It was Tatyana Ali, known from the American comedy series "The Fresh Prince of Bell Air". She did 5 songs I think.

Then it was time to prepare for the main show, of course everyone was waiting to see the boys coming up in person. At 21:15, finally the lights went off, music started to play and the boys appeared on one side of the stadium. Dressed in some kind of Star Wars costumes (see the pictures) they flew over the audiance on surfboards. First of all they posed all around the stage to present themselves and then they kicked off with "Larger than life". I will never believe the loud volume that 61,000 girls can produce. Man, I was deaf before the music was even playing. But it's all part of the show of course! The first song was followed by "Get Down" and "The One".

Here's the list of songs:

1. Larger than life
2. Get down
3. The one
4. As long as you love me
5. Quit playing games
6. Don't want you back
7. The perfect fan
8. Back to your heart
9. Everybody/We've got it going on
10. That's the way I like it
11. I'll never break your heart
12. No one else comes close
13. All I have to give
14. Show me the meaning of being lonely
15. It's gotta be you
16. I want it that way




During "Quit playing games", they were flying over the audiance (again). Poor Brian, he's afraid of heights. Before they started to perform "The perfect fan", they asked 5 mothers and daughters on stage to sing to. Many jealous girls in the audiance were just screaming at the boys, it was pretty amusing to see. When performing "Back to your heart", a piano was taken on stage and Kevin played it since he has also written this song for the new album, Millennium. During the whole show they changed clothes about 4 or 5 times, varying from Star Wars costumes (see pics) to white, black and casual.

The concert ended at about 23:15. It was a pretty long show so everyone was a little tired of standing, screaming and singing along with all the lyrics. All in all it was an increadible performance which I will never forgot in my whole life!