Okay, I can't tell you where we were or any of the specifics about the roads we were on or anything, but I'll do my best. This'll proabably bore you to death, but it was cool for me so I'm writing it anyway.
I would like to thank my Dad for taking us into the depths of traffic and turning around when there was no music. I would like to thank everybody who gave my money at my graduation party, 'cause I used it to buy my video camera. And I'd like to thank my parents for chipping in on the price of that, too. And I'd like to thank Jewels' parents for letting her spend the night that night. And I'd like to thank our little brothers for being the idiots they are. And I'd like to thank *NSYNC and their 'people' for coming to the world's most crowded concert venue. And while I'm at it, why not thank the academy...
Jewels and I tried really hard to get tickets for *NSYNC's NSA concert tour, but we couldn't. So we swore to be together on the day of the concert, so we could wallow in our misery together, or something. It would just be wrong to be apart. So on the day of the concert (which was in the town Jewels lives in, which is about 30 miles from me) my dad drove my brother and me to Jewels' house. On the way there, the roads were backed up, I'd say, at least 10 or 15 miles from the concert location! And it was so cool, all these cars had posters taped to the windows and "honk if you love *NSYNC" signs, and were blasting out It's Gonna Be Me and It Makes Me Ill. In our car, the radio was on, blasting Britney Spears' You Drive Me Crazy (Stop Remix). I was singing happily, since we knew our way around town and around the traffic. So we got to Jewels' house, and my dad went to my grandma's. First, we went in Jewels' room and amired her poster of Justin Timberlake. Then we went accross the street and hung out for a while with, let's call her Jessie. Jessie is a huge *NSYNC fan (she swears she's their biggest), and she wasn't able to get tickets either. So we all wallowed together, and chased Jessie's little brother around on his tricycle. It wasn't fair; people were coming from across the country to see this concert, and the concert town's own inhabitants couldn't even get tickets!
After a while, I started getting worried. Why? Well, Jewels and her little brother were coming to spend the night at our house, and my dad was going to bring us all back home. He had said that there was a possibility that we could drive by the concert on the way home! But he had been gone too long--surely the concert was halfway through by now! So I frantically called my grandma's house, and begged my father to come NOW.
Before long, we were all on the road. It must have been around 10 p.m. The roads were more crowed than I had ever seen them in my life! I grabbed my video camera and turned on the nightshot. The closer we got to the concert, the more exciting things got. The line of headlights was endless. Group after group of kids were walking to the concert, some yelling excitedly, others looking tired and upset about missing the beginning of the concert. I was glad to be in a car, even though the string of headlights was endless, and the walkers were the ones with the tickets.
The windows were down. I heard a sound. Eveyone in our car was silent. I could barely hear it, but it sounded like music that would be in a movie. It wasn't *NSYNC, but it was coming from the stadium. We were passing the stadium, and someone was talking. I strained to block out the noisy cars passing us, and listened closely. Who was it? It didn't sound like anyone from *NSYNC.
This is when our car's crew lost control. My dad was convinced that *NSYNC was taking a break, and began talking non-stop about how unfortainate that was. The boys argued over who's voice it had been. I shouted at everyone to shut up so I could hear the voice. But by far, our funniest passenger was Jewels. She was convinced the voice had belonged to someone form *NSYNC, and began breathing, "Oh my gosh! We heard them! We heard *NSYNC!!" I pointed my camera at her as she said this, her trembling little hands at her mouth. Okay, so I was excited too. But at least I wan't acting like that! My dad continued on, and pulled into a parking lot about a mile from the concert. There we stayed for too long, waiting for the "break" to be over. Then Jewels and my bro spotted lasers shooting into the sky. My dad went back twards the stadium.
YES!!! My heart began to pound. What I was hearing was familiar. What I was hearing was It Makes Me Ill. What I was hearing was the five guys that I had seen on a box in my livingroom and heard on a round piece of plastic--and now their distance from me could be measured in feet! The sound was not the one I could hear over and over again on my CD--it was happening now, live, and would never be repeated exactly the same again!!! If it wasn't for that wall, I could have seen it! It made me anything but ill!
I saw police directing traffic. They were at the entrance of the stadium parking lot, where every word of the song could be heard clearly. They were actually getting paid to do this rather than paying to do this. I announced, "I wanna be a cop when I grow up!"
Not far from the stadium, my dad joined a string of cars that had pulled along the shoulder to hear the concert. The people from the car behind us started dancing! Me dad popped open the back hatch and I focused my camera on a billboard. Jewels, her brother, and my brother all piled into the backseat and strained to hear evey note and word over the noise of the passing cars. It was so exciting, it didn't seem real. Pretty soon, Jewels and my most anticipated moment was coming: The end of This I Promise You. We think it's the most beautiful sound in the world. And just as we began to hear "Every word I say is true...", my dad had to start in on how beautiful Justin Timberlake's voice is! On my video tape, you can hear me at this point go "Shut up!" in a meaner voice than I'd ever want to use at my father. But I didn't care; it was a once in a lifetime kind of thing to hear this being sung live this close by, and I didn't want to miss it.
There were only two more songs, I think, in the concert, but we listened closely and I taped the whole thing. I taped the lasers shooting into the sky and the flashes that could be seen over the stadium wall from on-stage explosions. When the concert was over, we pulled back onto the road quickly to beat the traffic. I taped Jewels, who was saying something like "It was so cool how--OH MY GOSH, FIREWORKS!" We turned around, and I spotted a glimmer of fire in the sky before the trees blocked my view. All the way home on the highway, we listened to the No Strings Attached CD so loud and sang with it so loud that our throats hurt when we finally got home at midnight.
So later on, I watched my video of the concert from Madison Square Garden (I had taped it from TV) to see what we had missed, and what we would have seen, had we been inside the stadium. My conclusion is that the voice we heard was not someone from *NSYNC and wasn't really a break, either. It was that scary clown face that comes up on the big screen and talks. The lasers we had seen from the parking lot were the ones that flash during Space Cowboy. But even if we only heard four songs, I didn't care. And when I turned on the news when we got home the night of the concert, I saw something that made me think that maybe it was fate that we hadn't gotten tickets. The news crew was interviewing a girl who was standing along the roadside, crying. She had been walking for hours, and had lost her family, who had her ticket. The concert was almost over, and she still hadn't gotten in. And besides this, I was also thinking, even though we were sort of far away from the stadium, we could still hear a good deal of the music. If we had been inside, surrounded by screaming girls all around us, would we have been able to hear the concert any better?
Still, if you know how I can get tickets for the next concert, let me know!
