I wish my seats were close enough to take pictures that good...
I wish my seats were close enough to take pictures that good...
OK, I (Sarah) went to Las Vegas over Thanksgiving weekend to see none other than *N Sync in concert....It was a long journey & even though it's nearly a week afterwards, I'm still recovering from lack of sleep & am trying to get my hearing back from the screams of thousands of crazed fans. I know you've all seen the HBO concert, or been to concerts of your own. I'm not going to go into great detail unless I thought it was things that might have been different than the other shows. Mostly, this will just be about my personal experience, and if you think that's boring, then to damn bad, you can leave.
Here's the deal: I'm not going to use any real names for the people I went with. I just don't want them to be embarressed. I'm also going to tell you about my whole weekend, not just the concert, but there are some things you might want to read about before you dive into my interesting concert experience.
The People Who Made My Experience....(NOTE: Not their real names. To protect the innocent and all that crap.)
Angel ~ My friend who invited me to come even when we weren't sure we had tickets. Rip Rok ~ Angel's older sister Wise1 ~ Angel & Rip Rok's older 1/2 sister AG ~ Rip Rok's friend Jane ~ AG's mother Mom & Dad ~ Not my parents, but Angel & Rip Rok's.....
And here goes the neighborhood.....
THURSDAY (Thanksgiving)
3:30pm ~ I've had my dinner. At my house, we have a late lunch/ early dinner (a linner?) for Thanksgiving. After waddling to the den to watch TV, I get a phone call from Angel. Our conversation went something like this:
A: So do you want to come to my house tonight & we can just leave from there? Me: I dunno...Let me check if I can leave here- A:You don't have to come if you don't WANT to, but I thought it'd be easier- Me: Angel, I'm going to come, okay! Call me when you get back from dinner, I'll come over then, okay? Angel: Okay! 'Bye!
8:00pm ~ Get a call from Angel. My things for the whole weekend are packed. Angel & Dad come & pick up our massive Expedition. (An SUV....Six of us were going & they only own Jeeps & BMWs & Mercedes, which aren't roomy enough for all of us.) I go to Angel's house. We watch "Center Stage." We eat Hot Pockets. We watch "Final Destination." We eat ice cream.
FRIDAY
12:00am ~ We decide we'd better go to sleep because we have a long & painful drive ahead of us during the next day. Rip Rok comes in & asks if I'm excited. I resist the urge to say something like "Hell yes!" or "Duh!" & simply say "Yes." She's practically bouncing off the walls. (It's the first *N Sync conert for all of us.) Rip Rok says something about "We're gonna stalk them down & strip them naked." I tell her I don't want to see them naked, that it may scar me for life, give me nightmares, and other such things, but will help her "stalk them down." (I don't know about you guys, but seeing *N Sync naked isn't something on my "Things To Do Before I Die" list. Nor is it something I want to do at all.) Rip Rok & Angel aren't packed & are frantically trying to find things to wear while I sit & laugh. I occasionally get hit in the head with a piece of clothing, but try to ignore it.
1:30am ~ We finally go to sleep. Angel gets her bed & I'm camped out on the floor. I can't get to sleep because of too much sugar & energy. I keep thinking to myself "JC can fall asleep any time, anywhere & I can't even sleep at night in one of my closest friends house. If JC can do it, so can I. If JC can do it, so can I. If JC can do it, so can I......."
6:00am ~ Wise1 drags us out of bed. We mumble that we'll be up in two minutes, & fall back asleep.
6:30am ~ Angel & I finally drag our lazy butts out of bed. We throw on jeans, sweatshirts, & put our hair up.
7:00am ~ Rip Rok wakes up. Begins packing, screaming she can't find certain things, which Angel & I are intructed to look for.
7:15am ~ Everyone but Rip Rok gets in the car.
7:40am ~ We're still waiting for Rip Rok.
7:43am ~ Rip Rok finally emerges from the inside, carrying what appears to be a month's worth of clothing & other articles.
7:55am ~ Get breakfast burritos from a local gas station.
8:07am ~ Head to highway for the City of Sin. (aka Las Vegas)
To be honest, the rest of the drive was a blur until we got to Las Vegas. Anyone who's been on a road trip will understand where I'm coming from. There was a moment were Rip Rok tried loading all her *N Sync CDs into the 6 CD player of the SUV, complaining that there weren't enough spaces for her 10 or so CDs. At one point, I fell asleep listening to "Space Cowboy," which didn't ensure happy dreams.
8:00pm ~ LAS VEGAS!!!!! Finally. We check into our hotel, unload all our stuff from the car, dump it in our room, and head out on the town. We were staying in the Hoiday Inn Boardwalk, which has a giant clown face on the front of it, very reminiscent of the scary NSA clown, but this one has a hat, & is all types of ghetto scary. By the end of the night, we've visited Paris, New York,New York, Ceasar's Palace, The Venetian, Treasure Island, and several other casinos/hotels. We see several sets of girls who have obviously been to the *N Sync concert. You know the ones (maybe you ARE "the ones")...*N Sync shirts, "I wanna hump _____(insert *N Sync-er's name here)", etc. We point and laugh at them. The second to the last place we visit in New York, New York. For anyone who's been to Vegas, you know that from NY,NY, you can get to MGM Grand by walking across an overpass. Rip Rok decides it's time for stalking to begin......
11-something pm ~ MGM Grand. It's massive. It has it's own theme park for Christ's sake. We, of course, just HAD to come in from the furtherest set of doors from the Garden Arena. We walk to the arena. We wait. We see metal detectors. We see doors. We try and break into those doors. No such luck. We begin to leave. Some people come out of the doors. Rip Rok runs to catch to door to go inside, but she's a millosecond too late. We decide the people were just late concert go-ers, or uninportant MGM staff and start to leave. We head out towards the casino area. All the while, Rip Rok is instructing us to "Look for *N Sync girlfriends! Look for *N Sync family members! Look for *N Sync!" We're all pretending we don't know her, but still look anyway. As we're leaving, we see Studio 54, the casino club. Light bulb. I tell Rip Rok, Angel, & Wise1 exactly what I'm thinking.
I thought Rip Rok was going to have a heart attack right then and there. "Oh my God! Wise1, go in there!" Wise1 is the only "regal legal" in our group. She said she wasn't going in dressed like a bum, & besides, if she did go in & 1 of the guys happened to be in there, she couldn't exactly bring him out for an autograph & a picture. I thought it was a pretty damn good point, & it satisfied me, despite the fact badly I wanted that autograph or picture. Rip Rok wasn't satisfied. She said she looked like crap, but didn't care, and wanted to see *N Sync. We tried to see if Rip Rok looked like Wise1 driver's license picture, (them being sisters & all) but it wasn't close enough. We stand close to the club entrance for awhile, but get bored & tired quickly.
12 :50am ~ Decide to head to the hotel room. SATURDAY
Who knows what time we woke up at. Who cares. All I remember is at about 9 am, we head over to Excaliber for an All You Can Eat breakfast buffet. Excaliber is an awesome hotel. The outside's shaped like a castle & the inside is beautiful. We eat until we're stuffed.
10:00am ~ Walk around interior of Excaliber. Take pictures by dragons, kings, & other such random things. We go inside the Luxor, which is a giant pyramid with a sphinx out front. A way cool hotel. We also go to Mandalay Bay, & other hotels in that area. Las Vegas is definately prettier at night.
Noon ~ At FAO in Ceaser's Palace, some little girl is singing to Britney Spears. You can't really hear her, & she looks kind of frightened. Two FAO male employees are doing the dance to "Oops..." & look like they're having more fun than the little girl. We see the *N Sync marrionettes & spend a good 5 or 10 minutes laughing in front of the display. We go up stairs & see a group of little foreign looking kids with *N Sync hats, shirts, tattoos, & stickers on. The oldest one couldn't have been more than 5 or 6, & when they started playing "Bye, Bye, Bye" she turned to her little 3 year old looking friend & said "Listen! It's *N SYNC!!!" They all started dancing around. It was really, really cute.
3:00pm ~ Eat at Planet Hollywood inside Ceasar's Palace. We've spent all afternoon trying to find Angel & Rip Rop concert outfits. So, instead of seeing more of Ceaser's, we spent the afternoon in Express.
4:30pm ~ Head back to hotel to get ready for conert.
5:30PM ~ Get to MGM. Oh. My. God. I didn't think I'd ever see more *N Sync fans in one place than that night. Why we went to the concert early, I don't know. The rest will be my review of the conert & what happened there. This story is true & any similarities to real people is completely, totally, and utterly on purpose.
By this time, Rip Rok has met up with her friend AG, & they go stalking down an *N Sync security guard who says "Justin's outside" into his walkie talkie. There are a lot of "outsides" in Las Vegas. They come back disgruntled.
6:00pm ~ They open the doors. There's a metal detector you have to pass through. I sure as hell didn't feel safe because people were putting their bags on tables between the dectors, but the staff wasn't checking them. IF I had a bomb, I wouldn't be putting it on my person. Plus, we were all pissed because the signs say that you could only have disposible or 35mm cameras, but I could have packed my big ass zoom lens camera in my purse & the MGM staff would have been none the wiser.
Angel & I go to buy merchandise. Wise1 stays with us while Riprok & AG go off with AG's mom, who we'll call Jane. While we're fighting off vicious teenys, Jane is getting AG & Riprok backstage. We go to our seats, not knowing where the other half of our party is, assuming they're either backstage drinking booze with *N Sync, or have been thrown out for trying to break into the dressing room.They return shortly & inform us that they have met Steve Fatone....And have pictures. Needless to say, we were pissed.
To make our moods even worse, our seats were semi-nose bleeds. Jane told us strategy to sneak down to closer seats (which I'm not even going to share with you because then we'll have everybody sneaking down & we just can't have that....), and half way through Lil' Bow Wow's set, we were almost to the floor. I'd say we were 4th or 5th row on that first section of seats that begin to incline, off to the right side of the stage. Then during the Baha Men, we got kicked back out, because people came for their seats. (PEOPLE SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED IN AFTER THE SECOND OPENING ACT!) but by the end of their set, we where closer to the stage. I'm getting ahead of myself, so let me start at the beginning of the concert. Steve comes out says some dumb stuff, but he's cute because he's a loser. Then he begins to introduce Dream, saying something about "They're song's all over the radio, it's really popular....." Excuse me? I'd barely heard of the group, & I'm one of the biggest teenyboppers on the friggin' planet. Steve, I think you need a new writer.
Dream ~ They come out looking like Britney Spears times four. That's not neccessarily a bad thing, because a lot of the time, Brit-Brit's a pretty snazzy dresser. The girls of Dream choose to copy Britney during a not so great fashion period in her life... Remember All Access '99? The shiny pink tube top with the shiny white pants? One girl was wearing that, only nothing was shiny, & instead of pink sewen-in knee pads, she had pink flames coming up the sides of her pants. (I think this one was named They sang one song I've never heard & could reallly care less if I hear again, & then they sang "He Loves You Not." Their intro was really, really gay. The one girl in Dream who, I think, can be offically called the most annoying one, was like "I have this guy &, uh, he kinda looks like Justin Timberlake. [screams from crowd] But there's this girl & she's trying to take him away from me...." Retarded. They sang their little song & went off the stage. They made me seriously question whether Puffy is on drugs & drinks (A LOT) or not. If I'd been a judge or member of the jury during Puffy's trial, this girl group alone would have made me put him in the slammer.
Lil' Bow Wow ~ This little guy was the last person I expected to see opening for *N Sync. OK, he was before Limp Bizkit or Eminem, but you know what I'm saying. His bitch, who's older than he is, comes out & starts rapping, then Lil' Bow Wow comes out of a dog hosue that's set up onstage. He's really cute, & because Alicia loves him, I took a picture from our nose bleed seats. (Needless to say, it didn't develope.) He sang one song I've never heard, then "Bow Wow (That's My Name)." At least that's what I think it's called. (All I know is that in the video for it, he jumps in Fred Durst's car & gets kicked out by Fred.) Then, he sang "Boucne With Me." I would have thought that none of the younger girls would have liked it. They were going nuts. If you think about it, he's kind of the hip-hop equivolent of Aaron Carter. And, let me just say that the bedazzled bandana he was wearing prepared me for one of Timberlake's fashion mistakes that I'd be seeing later that night.
Baha Men ~ I liked "Who Let The Dogs Out" the 1st, oh, 956380231298465398th times I heard it. After that, it just made me want to throw up. I could stand to hear the song again, because these guys put on an awesome show. They sang two songs I've never heard, then "Who Let the Dogs Out." It was really great. They could dance & they were really working the crowd. Then they were like "OK, all for the girls in the house, we're going to say 'Who let the cats out?' & you're going to meow...." It killed it. They were a really awesome group to see live, though.
*N SYNC
Finally, what you've all been waiting for. The *N Sync part of the review.
After the Baha Men left the stage, the giant *N Sync banner was dropped. It was pretty scary to see their faces about 50 feet tall. At this point, Angel was ready to cry, & I was too, but for different reasons. I was scared by the gigantic *N Sync faces & the thought of puppets, but Angel was ready to cry becasue we'd snuck down to such great seats & were kicked out by some bitchy usher. Plus, Riprock & AG were STILL down in their seats close by the stage & hadn't gotten kicked out. Then, by some miracle, we spotted some friends of ours from our town, & they were sitting in the middle, directly in front of the stage. There were two empty seats next to them. We ran down, walked right past an usher without having to make up a story, & sat down. The seats weren't as close as before, but they were so much better than the seats we'd payed for.
We talked, & we were all excited. For a reason unknown to me, they were playing some live Rolling Stones CD. I'm sure very few people in that venue knew who it was, but they all started singing along with "Satistfaction." I wondered why they knew that song, but not the rest, but after 2 seconds of thinking, it hit me....Dear Miss Britney introduced that song to them. Not that I didn't enjoy the music, but would somebody explain to me how the Stones are supposed to get me pumped for *N Sync? Is anyone else seeing the connection, & if so, could you enlighten me?
We were still waiting...And waiting, and waiting, and waiting some more. Then it dawned on me. WE WERE WAITNG FOR THOSE LOSERS TO GET A HACKEY!!!! A note to *N SYNC:Screw pre-show rituals...I already have shelled out big bucks, stood in line for 45 minutes, and been assaulted by the screams of over a thousand teenyboppers, just to see your sorry asses in concert, and you can't even do hackey during the opening acts to save some time? Not only that, but you figure in that they have to get hooked up to come down from the ceiling, so I'm sure that takes a awhile.
FINALLY, the lights go out again. Then we hear that magical song.....
I have no strings to hold me down
To make me fret or make frown
I have no strings, 'cuz now I'm free
There are no strings on me
And when, you think the screams couldn't get any louder....Five puppets descend from the ceiling. They're actually pretty good at looking limp and puppet-like. All those years with Lou served them well.
I'm torn on my opinion of the concert version of "No Strings Attached." Sometimes, I like it, simply because it's different. Other times, it scares me because of the whole puppet thing. Fortunately, that night, I was in a good mood and enJOEYed the song. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)
After that was "I Want You Back." I really don't like the retarded beginning and would prefer they stuck to the plain, ol' "I, I, I, I, I, I want you back!" beginning, but alas, all good things must come to an end.
"GMHSALMTOY" was next. What was with those platform things? What relevance do they have with the song? I don't understand. I feel very bad for Chris...The poor guy is afraid of heights, and look at what he's had to do on all their different tours. If I were afraid of heights, I'm pretty sure I'd be scared shit-less up on a little disc without a harness or anything.
Next came "Tearin' Up My Heart." I love this song. They never play it on the radio, and I miss it so much. I don't really like the ghetto, wanna-be "TRL" like comments that flash across the bottom of the screen, but you have to take the good with the bad, I guess.
Costume change. Then "IGBM." Nothing interesting to report here.
Here's where the show slowed down. This part was really kind of ghetto. They were like "We want to bring you into our living room!" It was reallly stupid. I just don't understand. I'm like 50 rows away from you, and your make-shift living room furniture is supposed to make the setting more intimate? Riiiiight. I really like "I Drive Myself Crazy," and they sang it very nicely.
To understand this next part, you must understand Alicia and I. (No, she didn't come to the concert, but it's relevant, I promise.) Alicia hates Joey. For some reason, she can't stand him. She doesn't like Joey, or "I Thought She Knew." I don't understand why, that's just Alicia. I think I like "ITSK" and Joey's part in that song just becuase Alicia doesn't. Well, I was ready to scream REALLY loud for Joey and Chris during "ITSK" , especially Joey, just because they never sing. But, they didn't sing "ITSK." Instead, they sang "O Holy Night." It was very nice, very beautiful, etc, but dammit, I wanted to cheer for Joey. Oh, well.
Another costume change. While they were changing, we got to "watch" *N Sync "backstage." Why would you watch NTV (*N Sync Television, for the 5 people out there who haven't seen the HBO special or been to a concert.) if you were *N Sync? I just don't understand. Plus, that whole Pokemon question was as retarded as the day is long. This means *N Sync assumes all their fans are 10 years old. Anyway, then they did "Just Got Paid."
I really fail to see why they felt they had to spell "club" with a "K," changing it to "Da Klub." During the middle of the song, JC and Justin start getting into a white boy break dancing contest. Justin does the running man, and then, JC DID THE WORM!!!! It was possibly the greatest moment of my entire life. It was better than the "booty shakin'" part of the song were they all slap their asses.
It was scary clown time again. Why does *N Sync think of ways to FRIGHTEN the audience while they're quick changing? What did "..But this is OUR time!!!" have to do with anything? I'm seriously scarred for life now because of that MFin' scary clown.
"Space Cowboy" was next. I love this dance. Some parts are questionable and random, like when they hold their noses and shake their fingers. What's that? "Joey, we TOLD you not to eat that burrito before we came on stage!" Anyway, overall, very good. I love how they come out of the floor. Lance in leather's always a good thing too.
"Makes Me Ill" is kind of a jip...Only Joey's wearing a hairnet looking thing. Still, one of the more enjoyable parts of the show. I kinda wished they'd just let Justin die at the beginning. Oh God, now the teenys are really gonna come after you.
I don't really like "This I Promise You." It's a really pretty song, but it gets on my nerves. What was really cute was when they were like "Let's get closer the audience." When they got off the stools, some body threw Joey a shirt that said "Super Santa" and had a Superman logo with a Santa had on it. All the other *N Sync-ers, especially were making fun of him for his shirt. AFter they got on the moving platform, Joey was hamming it up...He dumped his water bottle on people, leaned out over the side, etc. (The only picture of mine that turned out from the concert is from "TIPY" and Joey's lifting his leg....I can't really explain it.) I'm pretty sure at least 5 people got injured trying to get the towels they threw into the audience.
Next comes "Digital Getdown." This dance holds no candle to "Space Cowboy," except for when they hump the floor and JC licks the floor. The clothes they wear are realling ugly for this. Guys, you can't let Justin pick the outfits for everyone. Baby blue is just so....Ugh.
It was at this point Angel and I pondered leaving to see the tour bus off. We decided it wasn't worth it, and chose to stay for "Bye, Bye, Bye."
"Bye Bye Bye" ~ The monk thing I didn't get, but maybe there was some spiritual thing I'm too retarded to get. How the HELL did they come up with that? "How can we come in for BBB?" "Hey guys I have a great idea! Let's come out as monks!" Stuuuuuuuupid.
That's my review. Nothing else interesting happened after the show. Here's my the grand total of MY contribution to the $212 MILLION that *N Sync grossed this year
That's not even counting the NSA CD, or any other *N Sync crap I've purchased this year.
See towards the edge of the picture on the right where the last light shines on the audience? Those are the seats Angel & I finally ended up in. Our seats can't be seen in this picture. I'm not even sure if this is MGM, but all arenas look the same to me.
Back home!!!
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