Oh My Oh My Oh My!!!

I have the BEST husband in the world. Friday he told me that he had considered buying me tickets to see New Kids On The Block and take me that night, but decided not to. Well I was at Melodye's soccer practice at about 6:00. I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that he was going to go with me, which is really unbelievable. I called and told him to see if my parents would watch the girls and get some tickets.

THANK YOU Dad and Karen for watching the girls. He was able to get tickets. I picked Tommy, Brooke and their things up. We left, dropped the girls off, and started for Allstate Arena at about 7:00 with the concert starting at 8:00 and it was pouring rain. The wonderful driver my hisband is, plus we had the IZoom, we got there during the opening acts. When we go in, the security tells me I have to ckeck my zoom lens. OK no problem. We then go to the souvenior stand and I was able to get my jacket. It's navy blue instead of black, and one size too big, but I don't care especially since it was the last one. Then we go to find our seats.

We knew the seats were for the side of the stage. Not only were they directly to the side of the stage, but they were FREAKING four rows from the stage. It was unbelievable. I have never been that close and we only paid $75 each. There were seats still around us that were never filled. People really lost out on an awesome concert.

There were some crazy girls in of us. They were jumping around during the opening acts nearly knocking people in over rows over. I kept waiting for security to say something, but he didn't. Then when the New Kids were on they danced with each other and didn't even watch the concert. About 1/4 of the way through they left and didn't come back. Now mind you it was more enjoyable after they left, but they really did waste a lot of money.

So I was taking pictures with my Canon Digital Rebel XTI and the regular lens. The pictures were ok. After about 70 pictures a security guy came over and said I had to go check my camera in. My husband went to check it in so I wouldn't miss anything. The security guy apologized and said that he didn't have a problem but his supervisor did. So Tommy went all the way to the other side of the building to check it in with our other lens and bag. The security people there were complaing that they wished people would make up their minds. First there was no photography, then it was no professional equiptment, and then I couldn't use my regular lens that doesn't zoom in anywhere near the pocket digital cameras do. But when I gave Tommy the camera bag I took out our pocket digital camera and got much closer pictures. So thank you Security Supervisor you enabled me to get much better pictures even though you didn't think I would be able to without my big camera. And my dear dear husband even took the card out of the camera when he checked it to make sure that no one tried to erase the pictures.

Now onto the pictures. I do apologize that they are out of order, but I didn't feel like redoing them.

This first picture is from the end of the concert. This was Jordan's reaction to being flashed by a girl in front of us. I don't know if I would call it flashing; it was more like posing since she had it all out there for quite awhile. Jordan said "It's about time this happened."

Here are the backs of their jerseys. I love that I can read their names on the back. This was all the way on the other side of the stage so the quality isn't that great.

Here is a picture of the crowd as Hangin' Tough was ending.

I don't know how I got this shot, but I did and I love seeing the different symbols.

This was supposed to be the first picture. But here we are. I can't hold back my excitement and Tommy is just glad I am happy. At one point Joe read a man's shirt that said "Happy Wife = Happy Life." Tommy said that was completely true.

Here we have Danny on the platform on the side by us. The lighting wasn't the best there.

Here we have Jon pointing at the crowd to give us a chance to sing along.

Here is Donnie. I never could get good close up pictures of him because his hat was always in the way causing even more shadows than were there already.

Here is Jordan. I know it is not set up the best, but you can actually see his face without the problems with shadows.

Here is Donnie at the begining of the concert getting us hyped up. Not that it took very much.

I am so glad that I had this opportunity. It was a completely different experience than the concert on the fourth of this month. Just having these seats changed the excitement. But I am glad I went earlier and sat where I did way in the back because I was able to see all of the choreography and stunts from the front. They were hard to see from the side. But being able to see them that close was unbelievable. Oh, the sound of the concert was different also. It's hard to explain, but there was a difference. And yes of course I would go again in a heartbeat, if I had the chance.