Last night I saw The New Kids On The Block a.k.a NKOTB in concert at GM Place (where the Vancouver Canucks games are held). Lady Gaga and Natasha Beddingfield opened the show for the first hour. I enjoyed Natasha’s performance because she was cool but personally I thought Lady Gaga was abysmal.

I remember when I was 9/10 yrs old, OBSESSION is probably an under estimated description of the stage I went through with NKOTB… (seriously). I also remembered when NKOTB toured to Indonesia back in 1990, I wanted to go sooo badly but obviously that was out of the question because they were in a different city, even if I was in Jakarta my parents would never let me see them. I remember wanting to cycle my bicycle with some church friends just to get to the concert even thought it was actually a 1.5 hour flight from my home town to Jakarta…

18 years later, I couldn’t believe my eyes when they came on stage and I saw all of them there. I couldn’t stop giggling for some reason, and what a great show they put on. They sang all their hit 80’s and 90’s singles such as “My favourite girl”, “If you go away”, “The right stuff”, “I’ll be loving you forever”, and of course “Step by Step”. The lyrics are cheesy but who cares?! We wanted to hear and see the cheesiness of their dance moves. I love them still. They look so good, some seem to age quicker than others but overall they’re still hangin’ tough and DEFINITELY are doin’ The Right Stuff.

I’ve never been in a large concert before so being surrounded by 20,000 people and it was surreal. I looked around and thought to myself, boy these guys are famous! They have the power to control the noise, the cheering, and the build up of anticipation. I can only imagine the energy they feed off the audience, it’s crazy! There were sooo many women and a few men(who were there mostly because of their girlfriends or spouses), and clearly they were having a jolly good time and couldn’t contain their excitement judging from the photo below:

I sat on the outside aisle and the highlight of the show for me was I got to shake their hands! Yes, not 1 or 2 of them, but ALL of them. I remembered Joe Mac actually grabbed my hand and smiled. The 10 year old child in me wanted to scream uncontrollably but at the same time I was overwhelmed and so I was frozen instead. They started walking down the aisle to get to the centre stage to sing “Tonight” half way through the show, and that’s when they reached out their hands to the crowd. The stage was round, it had a piano in the middle where Jordan played and it rotated, so we could see everybody. We had the best view because everything was so clear and close.

There were 2 big screens on both sides of the arena and people could text message to appear on the screen to be in the draw of meeting them after the concert. Some people wrote funny stuff but the best one was “I still sleep with NKOTB dolls.”

I admit that I was one of the many victims that fell into buying their merchandise. I bought a shirt and their HUGE book program. After the show, the shop was attacked by thousands of horny women and a few men who would grab a hold of anything and everything that has either a picture or writing with NKOTB on it. Within minutes, all the shirts was sold out (luckily I bought them prior to the show) and even the program was sold out! People were flinging their dollars up in the air and bought anything that was left on the floor and the shelves. I saw a plastic NKOTB keychain that would only be worth 20c if that, and they were selling it for 10 bucks! People were fighting for it because that was all that’s left. These guys are money making machine. It’s a mad house! I’ve never seen anything like it before.

Who would have thought this girl from Surabaya finally had a chance to see NKOTB live almost 20 years later, not only seeing them but touching them too. Eeek:-) Sad but true!