summer 1999. i could be found crying in my room at some point because i didn't win tickets to the backstreet boys' sold-out millennium tour on jam'n 94.5. i stayed up day and night to win those tickets; i was a woman possessed. but after being brutally shafted as caller 24 when they were looking for 25, i gave up hope. didn't the pop gods understand how crucial this was to my formative tweenage years? backstreet, o-town, LFO. this was my boy band trifecta (note the omission of hanson....NOT a boy band). frick 'n' frack, the backstreet boys all access video, "the heart and soul of nick carter"...i was intimately familiar with all of these bsb-isms. but i never did see them in concert.
as fate would have it, i would get my chance over 11 (!!!) years later when a pal asked me if i wanted to go see them on their "this is us" tour at mohegan sun in connecticut. as far as i knew, they hadn't released anything since 2005's "never gone", but had apparently churned out two more albums since then. oops!
regardless, i obviously jumped at the chance to ogle nick carter and mimic the "larger than life" dance that i may or may not still know by heart. and it was a BLAST...minus the absence of dearly departed kevin. i was INCREDIBLY impressed with their singing/dancing skills...i mean, i didn't even think they could sing this well when i was 13, for god sakes. they played stuff that had been buried in the recesses of my brain for god knows how long, but i still knew allll the words: "i'll never break your heart"?! WHOA. but maybe my favorite and most amusing moment came during their new r&b jaaaaam "undone" when nick - lookin' sexy as haaaale - looked like he might be preparing to pass out due to his stylish but impractical scarf and struggled to take it off/awkwardly danced with it. thank god someone captured this...and had a better view than me. not gonna lie...kind of diggin' the song, too.
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