Response #3: Backstreet’s Back (with a special guest)!!

Posted by: amandaroyalljohnson on: December 7, 2010

In: Response Blog Posts
2 Comments

It might seem a bit shallow to end my blog this semester with a post about boy bands, but I couldn’t resist responding to the big news. My two favorite boy bands, Backstreet Boys (BSB) and New Kids on the Block (NKOTB) are teaming up on one stage for a tour in 2011 that will be a 20 something’s dream come true. The two groups made the announcement that they will be joining forces on Ryan Seacrest’s radio show on November 8^th and the excitement has been buzzing through celebrity blogs ever since.

I was only about four when NKOTB were in their prime – I had the sleeping bag, the giant pins, the Barbie dolls and the video and cassette tapes. My sister and her friends introduced me to the band, but I was “too young” to join them at the concert (I had to settle for Chuck E. Cheese’s instead). My parents promised me and my friends that they’d take us to the next concert so we made puffy paint poster signs to prep for the big day. Unfortunately, the band split up and that “big day” didn’t come until 20 years later. I went to the NKOTB reunion tour when they came to the Verizon Center and it was worth the wait – hearing Joey sing “Please Don’t Go Girl” still had the same affect on me as it did in grade school and I came home wearing a fluorescent “You Got the Right Stuff” t-shirt with two giant pins attached.

Although I continued dancing around to my NKOTB greatest hits CD, I added another boy band to the mix in middle school, the infamous Backstreet Boys. This time I was “old enough” to actually go to a concert so my dad took me and my friends to their Millennium tour as a birthday present one year. I didn’t want the fun to stop so I kept going back for more – I went to five more BSB concerts over the course of just a few years. I have many fond memories that come back to me every time I hear their songs like cruising with the windows rolled down on my way to volleyball practices with my friend Stef, and waking up early to stand in line and master the lottery drawings at our local Ticketmaster sales office (that was before you could buy concert tickets online and trust me, making fun of the chaotic crying fans in line was much more fun than hitting the “refresh” button on a computer screen).

My Backstreet Boys close encounter at Clarendon Ballroom

Similar to NKOTB, some of the Backstreet Boys tried a short-lived solo career, but they kept their promise “as long as there is music, we’ll be coming back again” and so did we. My friend Stef visited me in DC a few years ago so that we could relive our carefree high school days when the Backstreet Boys came to Clarendon Ballroom to promote their comeback CD, Never Gone. It was quite a change from the huge coliseums we were used to, but we were ecstatic to be in arms reach of them right next to the stage (my boyfriend joked that they’ll be performing at the local Burger King next… boy was he wrong). Since then, I’ve seen them perform at Wolftrap and have shared my passion for their music by singing my own rendition of “Larger than Life” at my favorite karaoke bar, RockIt Grill.

Given my past history, I jumped out of my office chair when I heard the news that the two bands were uniting as NKOTBSB in 2011. They sure do know their fans well – I’ve already signed up for the email alerts and have been following them on Twitter. Their first hyped-up performance on the American Music Awards seemed a bit forced, but I’ll definitely be buying tickets to their DC show when they go on sale this Friday. I think some members of NSYNC are feeling a little left out :).