Title: Even Mom approves of Aaron
Source: The Plain Dealer
Source: NATIONAL; Pg. 01A
Topic: Winter 2001 Concert Review
Author: Chuck Yarborough
Date: March 5, 2001
Even Mom approves of Aaron
When heartthrob Aaron Carter has a concert, parents have a hard time saying 'no'
It's a typical scene, this break between concert opener and headliner. Some people rush the T-shirt and poster stall. Some grab a snack. Others score the CD for the previously unheard-of first act. And most head for the head. Decidedly atypical is seeing little boys leave the little boys room with dutifully washed hands still wet because they can't reach the paper towel dispenser.
Welcome to an Aaron Carter show, where the only people with car keys are Mom and Dad.
At 13, Aaron Carter and his tousled blond mane have the adolescent world by the braces. The younger brother of the Backstreet Boys' Nick Carter already has a platinum album and a legion of fans, including 7-year-old Nikki Korakas, a first-grader from Toledo who had her mom up at 5 a.m. yesterday to drive to Cleveland for her first-ever concert, one of two sold-out Carter shows at Lakewood Civic Auditorium.
Standing in the cold before the doors opened for the 2 p.m. show, Kathie Korakas said the two-hour trek and 40 bucks for a pair of tickets were a small price to pay for her daughter's smile. Decked out in black vinyl from head to toe, with the glitter in her Chapstick competing for sparkle with the blue in her china doll eyes, Nikki confided that "Aaron's Party" is her favorite song. Asked to sing a line, her grin widened and her dimples deepened, but not a sound came out.
If the Norman Rockwell scene in the men's room was unusual, hearing security guards advise the concert-goers to thank their parents as they entered the auditorium was positively uplifting.
Emily Raisanen needed no such prompting. It was harder to tell which came first when she and two friends picked up their tickets at the will-call desk, the squeal or her sweet "Thank you, Mommy." Emily and her Fairview Park friends Ashley Puller and Kelli Maloney were there to celebrate Kelli's 14th birthday.
For Carl Myers, getting the tickets was just part of being Dad.
"I've got eight kids, and I can't do a lot for every kid, so when one asks for something special, I try to do what I can," said the Lakewood resident whose generosity - and 40 bucks - meant 12-year-old Lauren and 9-year-old Brian could see their favorite performer.
Note the absence of their dad on the ticket list. Although many parents attended the show, many were content to drop off the kids. Or even hang out in the vestibule reading, like Marie Pinardo of Fairview. Her daughter Rachel, 11, and Rachel's best friend, Ariele Manley, 10, were in Section 5, Row E, bouncing squeals off the walls as Mom worked on Marcia Muller's "female detective mystery" "While Other People Sleep."
But it was obvious that the book was not set in the auditorium, especially when young Carter followed the Finnish all-girl group Tik-N-Tak to the stage, skittering about like a Ping-Pong ball in a windstorm and belting out tunes in that "please-God-don't-let-it-crack" voice boys get at 13.
Little girls in "Aaron is so hot" T-shirts pogoed in the aisles as their hero (frankly looking a little gawky in black pants and a lilac shirt) cavorted with four dancers. Hundreds of Glo-sticks (sold by promoters for $6 each) whipped through the darkness like frenetic fireflies in formation at a bonfire, all accompanied by screams in a pitch you wouldn't wish on a dog's ears.
Or, as it might have been put in another time, on another medium: Oh, the hormonality!
E-mail: cyarborough@)plaind.com Phone: 216-999-4534
GRAPHIC: PHOTOGRAPH BY MIKE LEVY / THE PLAIN DEALER Thirteen-year-old Aaron Carter performs at Lakewood Civic Auditorium before his many preteen fans. photo C Fans from all over Northern Ohio gathered at Lakewood Civic Auditorium yesterday for Aaron Carter's performance. Ten-year-old Krisina Kekel of Mentor clutched her prized tickets as she stood in line.
