The car ride to downtown Seattle was long and hot. We left really
late, later than I wanted, but I didn’t have a choice. The ride was
also during rush hour, so you can bet a lot of people were on the
road. The three of us (Reyna, Jasmine, and Lillian) were holding
our ever so beautiful posters in the back windows of the mini van.
I made a poster of my favorite Hanson brother Taylor. It had big,
bright pictures of him all over the red cardboard.(This poster is
now hanging on my wall next to my 6 foot tall Albertane poster)
Jasmine made her ever so beautiful poster of Zac. Hers had laffy
taffy guys on three of the corners (very colorful, weird looking
creatures), we saw a few people at the concert that did the very
same thing(as Jasmine, with the laffy taffy guys). Lillian did her
poster on Hanson as a group. All together, making the posters took
3 hours(that doesn’t include cleaning up). We saw lots of Hanson
posters, but not as nearly as beautiful as ours. We got there at
6:30 p.m.(I REALLY wish we could have came earlier, like 10am), and
there was a huge crowd in front of the front door at the Key Arena.
There were quite a few preteen and teenage girls, dressed in
Hanson shirts, and holding posters of their favorite
group…Hanson. It was warm outside, around 90 degrees. There were
thousands of people in the Seattle Center that night. Pearl Jam and
the Wallflowers were playing at Memorial Stadium, right across the
street from the Key Arena, where HANSON of course was
playing.(Admiral Twin was mistaken for the Wallflowers and Pearl
Jam while in Seattle). When a guard, or anybody walked by the front
door, almost everyone started screaming. They must have thought
that Hanson was going to be coming or something, who knows?
Lillian wouldn’t take her jacket off (which was really mine, but at
least it was at the concert), she was afraid her friends that were
going to the Pearl Jam concert would see her Hanson shirt and
tattooed arms. (The shirt really belonged to me too.) We had to
wait for Anne (Jasmine’s stepmom) and the little girls (Jasmine’s
sister, Mackenna, and her friend Madison, both are 7 years old) to
go eat for a half an hour. A lady asked us if had our markers with
us because Jasmine and I had stuff written on our cute faces.
Lillian again didn’t write anything on her face, afraid to be
embarrassed. She did write Tay and Hanson on her arms though. I
had Taylor written in green across my cheeks Lillian tried to put
glitter over it, but somehow it smeared, but I fixed it. I also
had Tay (with hearts around the name) and Hanson written in bright
red on my arms. Jasmine had Hanson written across her cheeks and
Zac across her forehead. Jasmine also had Zac Hanson, Zac, and
Hanson Rules on her arms.
When they (Anne and the girls) came back, we sat by the fountain.
It sprayed water out and got us and our posters wet. Finally they
finished eating and as we were walking towards the Key Arena, we
got our tickets out (which were section 125 row 15 seats 6-11, club
section which is right next to the stage, and right next to Ike)
and walked through the door. They didn’t even check to see if we
had cameras or weapons(who would have weapons at a Hanson
concert?) or anything. The guy that took our tickets told us to
take a left. We went left and went to the first stand, it said
‘programs’. The downstairs shop was totally packed, literally
hundreds of people in line.
Anyways, the stand we went to was selling calendars and laminate
necklaces(what happened to the programs? Later I found out they
sold out of programs, so now I have to order it through MOE).
Jasmine and I got both of them right then, very expensive, 35
dollars. After that Lillian had to get money from the machine (that
had a pretty long line) so Jasmine and I went to go see where the
seats were. We went into the door that said 125. The guy told us to
go in the door to the right and down 15 rows to our seats. We were
totally excited! We would be right next to the stage. Well we had
to sit for about ten minutes. Aerosmith and Motown songs were on in
the whole arena over the speakers. Then the lights went out and
girls started screaming very loudly. Admiral Twin came on stage
and sang about 6 songs.(At this time Lillian had taken off my
jacket and was jumping up and down screaming, like Hanson fans do,
she wasn’t embarrassed anymore). The bass player(I can’t believe I
forgot his name) kept dancing in our direction towards the left of
the stage(he he he it was pretty funny). The lead singer was Jarrod
Gollihare and he was also the drummer (he also wrote the Official
Hanson Book. They were all wearing black suits with white shirts
and yellow ties (I hope it was yellow ties, I’m not sure though).
After Admiral Twin finished their little performance, there was a
half hour break for set up. A few girls were looking over the rails
to where Hanson was. (They were right beneath us.) Zac (I think it
was Zac) shot a few of them with water and again almost all of the
girls in the arena started screaming. Anne had gotten soveniers for
Lillian, Jasmine, and me when Admiral Twin was performing, so we
didn’t have to buy much when they got in line. But I went out to
buy stuff, because I promised myself I would have something cool
from the concert. So I got in line and made my way to the
front(sorry but people were just standing there). I only had 94
dollars to spend. The T-shirts were 25 dollars each and a poster
was 15 dollars each (they must have known how much Hanson fans
would spend on them). I got one T-shirt, one poster, one necklace
thingy, one calendar, and one pack of stickers(I love all of my
stuff). I only had 7 dollars after (by the way, I saved that money
and I’m never going to spend it). I went back to the seats early
to go sit down(by myself). The Hanson part of the concert was to
start in 15 minutes(the crew was setting up the stage for
you-know-who). Workers there were selling glow-in-the-dark
necklaces and glow sticks. I bought a red glow stick. There weren’t
many people that had the glow-in-the-dark stuff in our section, so
that made Hanson see me in the section(he he he).
The people in front of us were there with their children, they had
bought a program and they let me look at it(thanks again who ever
you are). Well now here’s when Hanson (ohmygod!!!). The
lights get really dark, so you can’t see Hanson get on the stage
(but we could, remember we’re right next to the stage). The
screaming got even louder! (I wanted my first concert and first
ever concert to be how it’s supposed to be, loud. I didn’t wear my
earplugs). Right away the bass line in the beginning of "Gimme Some
‘Lovin" was blaring through the speakers, and then the lights on
the stage came on, and then there was Hanson singing! Oh I
absolutely love that song (hey it was the first song they sang when
I was in the same room, except for the little clip of "Weird" at
Planet Hollywood, please read my experience!) In the middle of
"Gimme Some ‘Lovin, poor Taylor his bottom keyboard fell down!(he kept
it up with his knee). Luckily, someone helped him out and duct
taped the keyboard up. After that song they sang "Thinking of You"
(the beginning of the concert is almost exactly like "Live at the
10 Spot"). Then you know what happened??? I was having so much fun,
I can’t remember the order of the songs from then on. When they
sang "River" whenever Zac did his little "understand" echo thing,
Lillian, Jasmine, and I would look at each other and sing along
with him. That was fun. Well after a few songs they said,"back in 5
minutes", and went off stage (which was over by us). Then the Three
Car Garage was set up. They sang songs from their Three Car Garage
CD and "With You In Your Dreams" and "Madeline". It was really
cute. Taylor unbuttoned his shirt and took it off!!! WOW!!! He
left it off for the rest of Three Car Garage. Then Tay and Zac
went off stage, and left Isaac out there to sing the most beautiful
song "More Than Anything". He played Taylor’s keyboards and sang, it> was wonderful. Hanson told the audience to calm down a little, but
since there was 14,000 people in the arena, not everyone was quiet.
Oh well, at least I wasn’t screaming. Then Isaac went off stage, and
when all three of them came back, they had gigantic water guns!(Taylor
put his shirt back on when he was backstage) They were squirting
everyone(except us, that wasn’t fair). Taylor threw his water
bottle out to the crowd and some girl got it(I would have loved to
have it). After that they did this little thing where they were
only playing music and not singing. At this time, Taylor went back to
the drums and Isaac went to the keyboards(along with his guitar) and
Zac came down to the front row and gave his drumsticks to a little
9-year-old girl. The girl was so cute because she was running back
and forth showing them to people. A little later when Hanson sang
"I Will Come To You" Taylor started playing, then all of a sudden he
stopped and said he forgot to tell us the rules of the concert. I’m
sure you know what they are, it is like "don’t sit down, don’t
stand still, and you gotta have fun". Well I was pretty mad at my
section of the arena. Everyone was sitting down except us(Lillian,
Jasmine, and me) and a few people back behind us. Then Hanson told
us (the audience) that this sing would be their last song. Taylor
said he was getting tired, when he was walking on the stage, his
entire back was covered with sweat! Yucky!(well, it’s not really
yucky because it’s Taylor). They sang "Man From Milwaukee". Zac did
his little voices, but he didn’t have his megaphone, so it sounded
kinda funny. They said their good-byes and cleaned up the stage. By
the way Taylor got hit in the face with something that was thrown
onstage. He looked pretty mad. Well, I knew something wasn’t right
because Isaac had armfuls of gifts thrown onstage and was taking them
backstage. After like 1 minute, Zac’s voice came on. He said,"How
come you guys aren’t leaving? Do you want us to come back and
sing?" Of course we screamed, and they came back to sing. They sang
"Summertime Blues", that is a really cool song. Taylor was walking
around on stage with the microphone telling us(remember the
audience) to yell "there ain’t no cure with the summertime blues",
or something like that. It was kinda hard to hear him because of
all of the screaming. Then finally at the end they sang a little a
cappella part of "Weird". It was great! Then they started squirting
the audience with their huge water guns. Then they said "goodbye",
and that was the end. All in all, that was the best night of my entire life.
© 1998 Reyna
