As you all probably know by now, I was a pretty hardcore Debbie Gibson fan back in the 80s. Besides Debbie, I was also super into the other ladies of the 80s – The Go-Gos, The Bangles, Paula Abdul, Heart, Madonna, Whitney, Cindi, Janet…these women were my heroes. For some reason, I was never really moved by the guys. Their music was fine but I didn’t want to BE them. I wanted to play like Debbie, dress like Cyndi, dance like Paula, and belt like Whitney. The guys were just…there.
Way back in November, one of my friends emailed a group of us and said, “HEY! New Kids on the Block are coming to LA in June, we should all go!” And I was like, “SURE!” because I love any opportunity I can get to hang out with my friends. On the morning of the concert, Mike said, “Hey, this is a geezer concert for OUR generation!” (If you recall, I’ve gone to concerts for Billy Joel, Fleetwood Mac, Queen, and Willie Nelson in the last few years.) I made a face but figured he was right. I didn’t anticipate seeing anyone below the age of 35 at the concert, and other than a few kids who came along with their moms, I was correct.
Somehow, I’d managed to miss that Paula Abdul was one of the opening acts (the other was Boys II Men). When I realized this I flipped out because PAULA ABDUL. I loooooved her! I loved her in her videos and I especially loved her spacey comments on American Idol. I was BESIDE myself. And when she came out on stage, I lost my mind a little. She still looks fantastic and her dancing is amazing. She’s 55 in a couple weeks!
She’s also really good at lip syncing BUT WHO CARES.
Paula came out there and she played all of her hits and she danced her butt off, and when she was done I was like, “Okay! I can go home now!” But no, then the New Kids on the Block had to come out and harsh my vibe.
So they come out and I’m like, “Hey, look! It’s Joey and Donnie and Jordan and the other two!” I’m a real superfan.
And they definitely had been taking care of themselves. I know this because they took every opportunity they could find to lift up their shirts and show us their abs. I’m not hating – if I had visible abs, I’d be doing the same.
I was expecting them to come out and play their hits, but instead they started their show with a new song. A NEW SONG. And almost everyone in the audience was like
Like, who came for the new stuff? PLAY STEP BY STEP ALREADY!
My favorite part was when Joey McIntyre sang the song “Tonight” with his son, who looks EXACTLY LIKE HIM.
It was so adorable and I’m SUCH a mom that this was my favorite part of the concert.
I joke, but the concert was entertaining. The guys had clearly worked really hard on their show, and they sounded good. It’s not their fault that I only wanted to hear an extended remix of Hangin’ Tough, The Right Stuff, and My Favorite Girl.
Of course, the best part was being with my friends. We had so much fun dancing, singing along, and laughing. SOOOO much laughing. I mean, how could we not laugh? Donnie Wahlberg was on stage.
Maria says:
So funny that you said Paula “was really good at lip synching, but who cares” because that was exactly what I said about the show in Sacramento. I did qualify it and say she sang 1 song. She was the first cassette tape I ever owned. People reading your blog probably don’t know what a cassette is lol! I too enjoyed being at the concert with a bunch of mid 30 year olds
Samantha says:
Funny you should say that people reading the blog wouldn’t know what a cassette tape was. I’m 30 years old and my school was on the poor side of school funding so when I was in preschool and Kindergarten, whenever my teacher had a “lesson song” to teach my classmates and I, she had to play a record on an old record machine that was at least 20 years old at the time. They don’t even make record machines as a singe item or even VHS, which were all the craze when I was growing up. I didn’t realize exactly how much difference there was between me, being 30, and somebody turning 21, until I asked the 21 year olds I work with if they knew who Lambchop was. I’ll tell you that they didn’t……they didn’t even understand who he was even when I tried to explain a couple of songs that he sang. It wasn’t until I explained what year he was on TV that they said, “Oh, that’s too early for me. That’s before “my time”.” I was like,”wha? I can’t be that old!” Lol ?
cynthia says:
I went to the show in San Diego and was very pleasantly surprised. Part of it was probably just having a night out (#momlife) but I had a blast. My BFF from junior high (who I went to a couple NKOTB concerts with back in…uh 1990 ?) came down from LA and we sang, danced, and laughed for the whole 4 hours.
Kymmi says:
I guess you have not discovered the JOY that is “Rock This Boat” on Pop. Highly recommend just for the LOLs (they’re good sports, I’ll give them that)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4307856/
Leslie Williamson says:
I was at their Portland OR concert last night. Donnie informed us that it had been 26 years since they’ve been here and boy did they make up for it! So much off stage audience interaction and they played all their top hits. I was so impressed. Paula doesn’t need all that video behind her, she danced great though.
Becca says:
Yes! I have memories of choreographing a dance to Straight Up with a friend for our end of 2nd grade talent show. I’m pretty sure we chickened out before showtime, but there were some serious recess practice sessions.