Meeting Backstreet Boys was
'like our dream come true'
By JOHN SCARBECK
(Cherie T**** and Lisa S***** of Ottawa, Illinois)
Two fans of the Backstreet
Boys recently spoke with and hugged member of the pop group during a suburban
Chicago press conference.
Lisa S****** and Cherie T********,
16-year old juniors at Ottawa High School, attended the Oct. 6 conference,
along with 70 other fans, before a concert at the All State Arena in Rosemont.
"It was like our dream come
true," said T*******, who hugged Kevin Richardson and A.J McLean, two of
the BSB members, as they left the conference.
S****** asked the group a
question during the conference, and said she was almost in shock, stuttering
when she spoke.
"I just talked to the Backstreet
Boys," she recalled thinking afterwards. "The Backstreet Boys know who
I am!"
T****** also asked a question,
and told the singers, "I love you guys" after the conference.
The girls, both of Ottawa,
didn't plan to attend the conference. They'd arrived four hours early
and were hoping to catch a glimpse of the group. S**** said she received
a wristband-allowing admittance to the press conference-from a man handing
them out to a mob of girls near the box office. After she got it,
the man said only one more would be passed out, to whoever correctly answered
a BSB trivia question.
S****** answered the question-that
"We've Got It Going On" was the BSB's first U.S. single-and gave the last
wristband to T******. The girls then went to the conference in a
room across the street from the arena.
T***** said besides the lucky
fans, a few media representatives attended the conference. A Chicago
Channel 2 news camera filmed her asking the group a question, and the scene
was televised on the next morning's news.
"They have pimples just like
the rest of us," S***** said.
T****** said some of the members
were shorter than she thought they would be. She said when she hugged
A.J., she noticed he was about her height, 5 feet 4.
Littrell- T*****'s favorite
Backstreet Boy- turned out to be shorter than the girls thought, also.
"I had to bend down a little
to give him a hug," said S*****, who is 5 feet 6 but was wearing two-inch
heels.
T******* didn't have time
to say much to Richardson when she hugged him because the group was leaving.
S***** gave Littrell a big
envelope filled with birthday cards, poems and other presents for the group.
"Then I said, 'How about a
hug?' So he gave me a hug," she recalled.
S****** also hugged Richardson,
but Carter, her favorite BSB member, was surrounded by other fans.
"So I just reached over and
grabbed his arm," she said. "I go, 'Oh my God, I just touched Nick Carter's
arm!"
The girls went to the concert
following the conference; they also saw the Oct.5 performance at the arena.
They are the biggest BSB fans at their school, S***** said, and possibly
in Illinois.
"I've spent approximately
$3,000 on merchandise in the past two years," she said.
Income from a part-time job
paid for the 32 BSB shirts, five movies, five hats and other memorabilia
she's collected. Both girls said they've been fans since 1997, when
the BSB became popular in America.
They said the group is even
more popular in Germany and Canada." Many of their albums have "gone platinum,"
S***** said, or sold more than 1 million copies.
The Backstreet Boys coalesced
in 1993, in Orlando, Fla. McLean, Howie Dorough and Carter met during acting
auditions and later began singing together, eventually bringing Richardson
and Littrell into the group.
The boys began singing and
dancing at local gigs soon after, and landed recording deal with Jive Records.
The group released its first single in 1995.
S******'s mother, Jana, and
T*****'s 15-year old sister Christi are BSB fans. Jana S**** went
to both of the concerts with the girls, and Christi T***** was excited
to hear her sister met the group.
"I called my sister, and she
started screaming," Cherie T***** said.
Lisa S****** said meeting
the band was her biggest goal, and now that she's achieved it, her life
is complete.
"It meant everything to me,"
she said. "Nothing can bring me down now."
