Get Yo' Self a BAD BOY!

Last night, rather than being a low key adult that stays home, cleans her apartment, packs for a weekend trip and goes to bed early I decided to revisit my teen years with a Backstreet Boys concert.

The girls and I met for dinner and drinks – guzzling our Peach Sweet Teas (with vodka, DUH) and watching the girls/women/gay guys/reluctant or secretly gay boyfriends head toward the concert venue. (BTW – the venue was a hockey rink. Classy.) As it happens, a few cocktails pre-show no longer makes it when preparing to see BSB live. You need homemade shirts. You need Glo-Sticks. You need short hemlines and high, painful heels.

My work attire definitely did not give me a “I’m such a groupie I’d sleep with you immediately just to say I did” look – more so it was a “I should be drinking wine on a sailboat.” Blue and white stripes are totally hot…if you’re sipping champagne with the Captain. Had I known to go full-slut I would have gone shopping WEEKS ago.

After paying our tab, which was conveniently the same price as two tickets to a BACKSTREET BOYS concert, N and I opened a few beverages to slip in our purses for the walk. We weren’t boy scouts, but I can tell you that we are always prepared. (In this event, N was..)

We blindly found our seats, or what we considered to be close enough to our seats – but not without a few stumbles (come on, it was pitch black in there!) and spilling beer down the back of the girl in front of us. It was then that I realized how old I really am. The combination of food, booze, heat and a full day of work had exhausted me. Yes, I do enjoy the boy band goodness of yore, but more so I enjoy melting into my mattress and pillow.

“I hope they don’t start screaming. Ugh,” N said as the lights begin to dim. Then it happened. It was like a pterodactyl screeching its mating call while preying on a young, idiotic, neon wearing teeny-bopper. I looked to my immediate right to see N’s tonsils vibrating, her perfectly straight teeth extended as far apart as possible and her mouth producing what can only be described as the piercing cry of an injured animal. A few tequila shots and she quite possibly would have been trying to slingshot her bra on stage.

We weren’t even that close.

The hour that followed included much karaoke – don’t worry, I was drowned out by other BSB loving folk. However, it seems that the international sensation that was BSB is no longer working with an unlimited production budget. The video screen was playing graphics that resembled a screen saver circa 1995, back when you had to lift with your knees to move your computer. I think there were back up dancers, however it was hard to tell if they’d actually been trained or recruited from the street corner.

While operating a man down, the ‘Incomplete’ set seemed to have lost steam. Yes, it was pointed out to me that they are in their mid-thirties. Combined with the simplistic screen saver graphics, it was as if karaoke DDR was happening on stage.

But who would pass up an opportunity to see a childhood favorite in a po-dunk suburb with a crowd as big as my high school? Not I.