Backstreet's Back

All Right.

I just got back from my first Backstreet Boys concert. And let me tell you, one good thing about getting old is that I find that I am no longer to cool for boy bands. I will even admit that they were a lot of fun. Almost as much so as the people watching. However, there was a price to pay for the utter coolness of my youth. I learned the hard way that no, A.J. McLean was not in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", and because a friend requested a photo of Brian Littrell, I took about five thousand photos of Nick Carter. (Trying to get one that wasn't blurry - that guy really likes to hop around.) Can I interest anyone in a little Nick?


The night opened with a warm-up act from Girlicious. Have you heard of Girlicious? This was my first acquaintance myself... apparently they emerged from a reality t.v. show. I think they can be summed up like this:



To get the crowd going, they did a lot of this, "When I say girl, you say licious, "GIRL!"...." At first I tried to be a good sport, but after a few times of saying the (non)word "licious" out loud, I started to lose respect for myself. It would be easy to attribute this to my grumpy old age, but I was happy to see that the table of 13 year olds behind us were staring at them with a mixture of boredom and confusion. Good for you, future women.
But lest we start to feel sorry for these ladies, I'd like to point out that they had at least one super fan there. A gentelman who never sat down. Who knew all the dance moves to every song. And whom often reached out towards the stage, as if he were trying to stretch his body far enough to touch them just for a moment.

(that's not the stretching, this is the stretching:)


And then the boys came out. They may be old for boys, but they maintained their youthfulness. And best of all, they still appeal to the youth. I didn't really expect to see anyone too far under the age of 30 year, but these junior high girls sitting behind us? They loved themselves some Backstreet Boys. And honestly, I kind of wished I could be 13 again so I could join them. Maybe make some plans to drive by a house later. Make a note of the light that's on in a certain room and think, "OHMYGOSH HEMIGHTBEINTHERERIGHTNOW!!!! AAHH!" Those were some good times.




Come on, don't you wish you could be them, too? Just for a night. I don't think I need to live all of junior high over again.

And fellas, you may not think this applies to you, so let me say that I hope you take another lesson from this. All that time we were growing up when you made so much fun of these boy bands, how did you not see the brilliance? Sing a song about how you'd never break her heart, and then put on a hat and sit at a poker table and sing about how lonely you are - you don't even have to learn to dance for that one! And the ladies swoon. It's brilliant, I tell you. Why do we fall for this? We don't know. We can't answer that. It doesn't make sense. But we don't have to make sense! At one time or another in our lives, we our put under a magical spell by singing, dancing boys. Goodness help us.

Even the (just a little bit slightly) older and wise of us could relapse at any time! You know when you did that really cheesy thing by telling us that "If I had the time, I'd come off the stage and give each one of you ladies a kiss" and they all screamed for you? (See how easy that was, guys?) Well, sometimes even the best of us may get carried away, and fan ourselves, Gone With the Wind style, at the thought of an otherwise unnatractive man's with way too much guyliner's kiss.



Why? I don't know. Because we want it that way?