Title: Amber, mom know Boys from A.J. to Z
Source: Orlando Sentinel
Source: http://tru-talent.net/articles/ambermomknowboysfromajtoz.htm
Date: July 22, 2002
Author: Douglas Quan, Sentinel Staff Writer
Topic: Other
AMBER, MOM KNOW BOYS FROM A.J. TO Z
Amber Bryant and her mother, Angie, had been living in Orlando for just eight weeks when they spotted him.
It was Backstreet Boy A.J. McLean driving along Sand Lake Road in his SUV.
"Drive!" the 19-year-old barked at her mother.
Angie tailed McLean all the way to Downtown Disney.
When they pulled into a parking lot, Amber was too scared to get out of the car. Her mother jumped into action.
"Sorry to bother you," Angie said to McLean as he got out of his car. "We just moved to Orlando. Will you say hello to my daughter?"
"Certainly," McLean replied.
And he did. Even posed for a picture with Amber.
That event ranked pretty high on the Bryants' list of their boy-band encounters. It was even better than the time McLean gave them the shirt off his back at a concert. Well, not gave, exactly. Amber and her 43-year-old mother had to wrestle away the sweat-stained garment from a group of other screaming fans.
But that was years ago, before the mother and daughter from Austin, Texas, decided to drop everything and move to Orlando -- just so Amber could be close to her beloved Backstreet Boys.
'REALLY' DEVOTED
Amber Bryant is a fan, she insists, but she's not obsessed.
Obsessed describes those crazed people who follow bands from tour to tour, hiding in their buses and sneaking into their hotel rooms.
"Doing extreme things that could get you in trouble is obsession," says Amber. "I'm devoted."
OK, REALLY DEVOTED.
Amber started listening to the Backstreet Boys about five or six years ago. She liked their music. Their dreamy songs cheered her up when she was feeling down.
Then she saw how cute they were.
Amber would spend hours a night online with other fans talking about the Boys -- their songs, their clothes, their lives. Pretty much "anything and everything," she says.
Amber felt a particular kinship to McLean, the band member often dubbed the "bad boy" of the group.
He was raised by a single mom -- just like Amber.
When the Boys launched their Millennium Tour in 1999, Amber begged her mom to go see them in concert in Memphis, Tenn. Angie didn't need a lot of convincing. She, too, had become a big fan.
"I'm a sucker for those romantic songs," she says.
But seeing their concerts live wasn't enough for Amber. She had to meet these guys.
In December 2000, Amber and her mom came to Orlando for a week to attend a charity event being sponsored by Backstreet Boy Nick Carter.
By the end of the trip, Amber was hooked on Orlando.
"Why don't we move here?" she asked Angie.
Mom's answer: "OK."
BEST FRIENDS
Ask Angie or Amber Bryant a question about the personal lives of any one of the Backstreet Boys, and they race to see who can answer first.
"Kevin is married to Kristen, Brian is married to Leighanne, Howie is not seeing anyone, but his sisters are Pollyanna and Angie," says Angie, counting off each name on her fingers.
Amber chimes in with the names of A.J.'s pets. "Panda, Bear, J.D., Vegas . . . "
The way they banter, it's almost as if Amber and Angie are sisters, not mother and daughter.
"More like best friends," says Angie.
They go out for pizza every Friday night. And they always go to concerts together.
Amber says she can't imagine going to a concert without her mom, even if she gets a little embarrassed when Angie gets up to dance.
"We've always been close," she says. "It's always been me and her -- since I was three."
Angie acknowledges that the move to Orlando last October was filled with risks. Neither of them had jobs lined up.
"But Amber wanted to go. And I had been living in Austin for 43 years. Why not make a change?"
But their first few months were tough. They lived out of a hotel. It wasn't until February that they found full-time jobs -- Angie in the supply management department at Darden Restaurant Group, and Amber as a day-care teacher.
Three months later, they were able to afford an apartment, where Amber's bedroom has become a Backstreet shrine.
It boasts Backstreet posters, a Backstreet lunchbox, Backstreet toy figurines and two plastic tubs filled with videotapes of the band's television performances.
And taped to the wall is the photo of Amber with A.J. McLean at Downtown Disney. It's among her faves.
Both say they have no regrets about their move.
"You never know who you will run into here," says Angie.
NATURAL SUCCESSION
Amber and her mom aren't devoted exclusively to the Backstreet Boys. Amber got her tongue pierced last year when a radio station asked listeners how far they would go to meet the band O-Town.
And the mother-daughter tag team often waits -- sometimes hours a night -- in the parking lot of the recording studios where the group Natural rehearses. Angie isn't merely the chauffeur; she'll jump in and chat with the guys, too.
"They know her better than me!" says Amber.
Paul Russo, Natural's manager, smiles and shakes his head when informed of the Bryants' move from Austin to Orlando.
It happens more often than you think, he says. Some fans will go to extremes.
He says he has encountered mothers who introduce their daughters to band members as if they're "giving their daughters away."
Lou Pearlman, the man who created the Backstreet Boys and spawned the boy-band phenomenon, divides fans into two groups: "You have fans, and you have fanatics," he says. Fans wait outside the front of the hotel for their favorite band members to come out. Fanatics find their way to the back entrance.
"It's wild and crazy," Pearlman says. "But it's harmless."
He says the worst thing that could happen to a group is to show up in a town and discover there are no fans waiting.
"These guys live for fans," Pearlman says.
STAR-STRUCK
It's the morning of the "Red, Hot and Boom" concert in Altamonte Springs. Amber stands in front of the mirror at home admiring the blond streaks in her strawberry hair. Every bang has to hang just so.
The July 3 event will feature O-Town, Avril Lavigne and Rich Cronin. But nobody in the lineup makes Amber's heart thump more than Aaron Carter, the 14-year-old baby-faced sibling of Nick Carter, of Backstreet Boys fame.
"Aaron is as cute as a button," she says. "He's so fun to watch in concert. He reminds me a lot of Nick. There are people older than me who like him too."
At a concert last year, Amber snatched one of the white towels that Aaron used on stage. She's determined to have him sign it at tonight's show.
Amber is about to start dressing when the phone rings. It's the day-care center wondering whether she's coming to work today.
"Tell them I'm sick," she says.
Amber's mother doesn't care that Amber is skipping work for the concert. She'll be ditching work today herself.
They arrive at Cranes Roost Park around noon. The sun is blazing and the area around the floating stage is already covered with sun worshipers, beach blankets and umbrellas. Some arrived at 3 a.m.
Amber, her mother and Amber's two friends find a place to sit.
Amber brings an O-Town poster to get signed. And, of course, she has the white towel. But if Amber is hoping to have Aaron Carter sign it, she's going to have to fight for it.
Hundreds of other screaming girls here want a piece of him too.
The show begins around 4 p.m., but Amber's favorite performers won't be up until later in the evening. She and her friends spend much of the afternoon casing the lobby of the nearby Embassy Suites hotel, hoping to glimpse the stars before they head out to the stage.
At 5:43 p.m., Rich Cronin, lead singer of Bad Mood Mike, enters the lobby. He's got the boy-next-door look that makes teenage girls swoon.
Amber joins the small mob of girls rushing over to snap pictures with him.
MOB RULE
By sunset, the park is packed shoulder-to-sticky shoulder with spectators. After nine anxious hours, Amber's wait is over.
"C'mon, make some noise for Aaron Carter!" screams the announcer.
The crowd erupts.
Roving strobe lights intersect in the distance. Carter skips onstage, wearing white pants, and a white, collared T-shirt with orange flames on the front.
Amber extends her left arm toward the stage. She's screaming.
For the next half-hour Carter performs a mix of rap tunes and love ballads. In between songs, he flirts with the girls in the audience.
Each comment is met with more screams.
After the performance, Amber joins a mob of girls chasing Aaron and his bodyguards into the hotel. They're stopped in their tracks by hotel security.
Angie, meanwhile, collapses in a recliner in the hotel lobby. She's had a long day.
By 11 p.m. Amber and her friends are standing in the parking lot behind the hotel with about two dozen other girls. They arrive just in time to see O-Town leaving with their suitcases. Around midnight, Angie swings her car around to the parking lot. Carter has still not shown up. Maybe it's time to go.
Then some of the other girls begin serenading Carter with one of his love ballads.
He appears on the balcony and tells them they need singing lessons.
He's joking, of course.
"I'll be down in 30 minutes," he assures them.
Thirty minutes pass -- and still no sign of Carter.
Only a handful of fans remain in the parking lot. Hotel security officials order everyone out.
"You're loitering," they say. Some of the girls throw a few angry words up at Carter's room.
"I just wanted my towel signed, that's it," Amber sobs.
By 1 a.m., the parking lot is quiet. Amber and her friends are the only ones left. They all reach the same conclusion: Aaron Carter won't be coming down.
"This is the chance that you take," Angie says.
Amber takes one parting glance up at the hotel room. The light is still on. But the drapes are closed.
"It bothers me that he didn't come down," she says.
But she's a devoted fan.
"I won't hold it against him."
ETERNAL HOPE
Sure enough, two weeks later, Amber is sitting in her bedroom talking about future promotional tours and concerts where she might be able to meet the Carter brothers.
"Nick and Aaron are my next goal. I want to meet them," she says.
Amber reports that she's started dating a guy.
He doesn't like boy bands. Nor does he look like a boy-band member.
That's OK, though.
Amber cares more that the guys she dates are "nice" and "funny."
"But if they look like A.J., that's a plus."
