RACHEL AND LORI'S REVIEW OF THE DALLAS CONCERT!!!!
Yesterday......what a wonderful word (referring to the day of the concert). Of course, sooner or later this will not be correct, but it sounded like a cool beginning anyway. ANYWAY, here’s the review of from the time that I got home from school (4:00 PM) til’ when I got home from the concert (11:30), believe me, it will be long, but not THAT long. Okay, so it will.
Well, I got off the bus, ran to the door, the door was locked. I banged on it then my brother opened it. I flew into my room and he just looked at me funny. I emptied my bookbag all over my floor and scattered the stuff around as I frantically packed everything I needed into the bag. I took a water bottle, a magic marker, my ‘98 calendar (just incase), all my Hanson c.d.’s (no clue why), paper, a magazine, my lucky rocks, my beanie cat, my little portable radio, pens, pencils and some ‘N Sync stuff just in case I saw a girl I was suppose to trade that stuff for Hanson stuff for. I then ran into the living room and dropped my bag......HANSON WAS STANDING IN MY LIVING ROOM!!!!! ----------....haha...j/k....ANYWAY......I looked at my brother. “Where’s mom and dad?” “Mom went to pick dad up.” “Oh.” DARN! Two days before my dad’s car was leaking radiator fluid so they had to take his car in. I knew we wouldn’t leave for awhile, so I got on the internet. I was wearing my JNCO’s, so I could stuff a bunch of stuff into them. I stuffed two disposable camera’s into my socks (they did end up taking them away if they were found on you at the concert -- mine didn’t get found!) And I wore my Sailor Moon shirt. I put my hair into a ponytail. About half hour later, my parents arrived and we were on our way by 5. We picked up Lori. She had brought a backpack as well. All I remember is that Lori had binoculars, and her binder from school. Lori was wearing a green striped “Lori” shirt and jeans, and we were both wearing our light blue Airwalks (the exact same ones). Anyway, I got the idea to make little signs from my paper and marker that said, “We’re going to see Hanson!!!” and so we made three. I was sitting in the back with my little brother and Lori, Lori to my right, C.J. to my left. They each held a sign to the windows and we got a couple of people to give us thumbs up...and a couple to laugh, but we didn’t care, we were too excited. I don’t think it ever sunk in that we were going to see Hanson (or even that we saw Hanson.....). Anyway, we got dropped off in front of Reunion Arena at 5:45 and saw about 6 lines -- probably a range from 20-70 people in each line, depending on the line. We first walked over to the merchandise vender and looked at all the stuff. They had stuff I didn’t know was merchandise! I saw stickers and buttons and T-shirts and posters and things that looked like backstage passes and stuff. I don’t think I saw anything under $10. Then we decided to walk around the side and inspect the gathering crowd of girls. A few screamers, but nothing good to see, so we walked back and looked for Jenny and Misty (It ended up they came in around the other side). So we just picked a line. We got into the shortest line and talked about the screamers and the girls with signs and the two girls we saw that were wearing the YELLOW DOC MARTINS *gag*. About 10 minutes after that, they opened the first doors and the screams broke out, we just hop-hopped into line. We walked into this air conditioned place and saw more glass doors about 10 feet in front of us. There were 2 doors opened and 1 lady collecting tickets on each side. We got up to her and handed her our tickets and she let us in. We immediately turned to the left, which was a good thing. We passed a vender (food) and realized we were a little hungry, we went straight to a merchandise table. “Do you like wearing all those on your neck?” I asked about the backstage pass looking things (it was a light blue string with a picture of Hanson in a plastic card holder with Hanson written on the back). She was wearing about 20 and looked a little uncomfortable. She got this annoyed look on her face and goes, “No.” “How much?” “20” “NO WAY DUDE!” I looked at Lori and watched her. She looked at me. “How much are ‘99 calendars?” “15.” “Okay.” I dished the cash, so did Lori. “Tour book?” “15.” “Okay” We dished the cash again. Then I was deciding if I should get a HUGE tour poster (about 5’ 5” X 3’ 6” - bigger than me). The lady said, “We only have that many, so buy them now.” So I did, I’m such a sucker. I was left with 5 dollars in my pocket. Lori had 15. Lori is now helping me write this. We then walked up the first set of stairs we came to. We looked down upon the stage and said how cool it looked. Then we walked back down the stairs to try to find our seats. They were well marked, but we just weren’t paying attention. The lady goes, “Tickets.” We handed her ours and she goes, “Section 122 is over there.” And pointed to a couple rows over. We felt stupid. We shrugged, laughed and walked around, actually FOLLOWING the guide numbers. We found our seats and spotted Jenny and Misty almost instantly. “JENNY! MISTY!” We cried out and zipped down the stairs. Lori passed Rachel and in order to catch up, Rachel almost fell down the stairs! (NOT FUNNY- or fun!) We hugged and greeted them. Lori was all excited and since the other three of us had been through it, we weren’t all that excited just to be in the seats. Lori got mad at us for not being excited. We just calmly explained, “Been there, done that,” pretty much. On the loudspeakers, they were playing music....oldies mostly. They played “Mr. Postman,” “Stop: in the name of love,” the whole Aerosmith c.d. (the one with Cryin’..) and some others. We now realize that we are hungry so me and Lori volunteer to go get food first. Lori gets a large Dr. Pepper, French fries, and a bag of Peanut M&M’s. I got French fries and was left with about 3 dollars. We returned to our seats and ate. While we were eating, Jenny goes, “Hey, that looks like Mark from Admiral Twin.” We were like, “WHERE?” Then she goes, “Nevermind, its not him, I think, well, maybe.” We cracked up (so, we were a little hyper). We decided just to go check it out anyway. So, we walked over to the side stands, where there was an opening to the floor seats. Jenny goes, “Excuse me, are you Mark from Admiral Twin?” (I’m not real sure about this part, but Lori remembers it). And he goes, “Yeah.” Jenny asked him if he remembered her from the Tulsa concert and he goes, “Honestly, no, I don’t.” It was so cool to meet him, I was the first to ask him if he would autograph my humble piece of paper. He agreed and I go, “Make it out to Rachel.” He goes, “With two L’s?” It was too late by then so I just said I’d fix it. It turned out To Rachelle Mark Carr I thought that was so funny, so I just scratched the extra L and E out. Then when he was done signing ours he goes, “Yeah, Jarred’s over there.” I go, “Will you call him over here?” And he goes, “Why don’t you guys call him, he’ll come over.” When Lori asked for Mark’s signature she goes, “Make it out to Lori.” and I go, “L-O-R-I.” He laughed. Anyway, someone called Jarred and he was like, surrounded by about 10 girls. Now, us being the first to discover Mark had now turned into about 15-20 girls. Go Jenny, go Jenny After about 4 girls got his signature, I began to call his name. He finally paid attention to me and signed my paper. I go, “I liked your book.” (referring to the official Hanson book). He smiled and said, “Thank you.” Some stupid girl goes, “You read his book?” I go, “Yeah, the official Hanson book...” She goes, “You know Hanson? Are they nice?” and of course Jarred goes, “They are nice.” and she goes, “Who do you like the best?” and he goes, “Oh, I like them all.” Anyway, he was still signing my autograph and some girls started screaming. I go, “STOP THE POINTLESS SCREAMING! GET OVER IT!” We kept talking. I asked him if they got a lot of screaming girls. He said a few, but “they got over it.” He made fun of me, but I laughed anyway. Then I moved through the crowd and waited for Misty, Jenny and Lori. Jarred, might I add, looked awesome, blue jeans, blue shirt, and bleached hair that was like, spikey, and he (according to Lor) had blue eyes. I went back to the seats and waited for the others. Then Jenny pointed out that lots of people were holding up Moe cards. She goes, “What if they are doing some contest or something?” So I held mine up on and off until I really knew what the purpose was. If some guy came by and took your Moe card number and your seat number, you were put into a drawing to go backstage. The guy came by us, but would not take my card number, what a jerk. ANYWAY, we just sat in our seats and we watched people come in. Jenny saw a girl with just a sports bra and jeans on, the ushers made her get a shirt on. HAHA! I kept yelling “HANSON WHORE! HANSON HOE!” Jenny got mad at me cause of all the little kids around (but that’s a whole different story). Then these two little boys and their moms sat in front of us. One’s name was Taylor and the other kid, we can’t remember, but we took a picture of them, they were so cute. Taylor had a Hanson shirt on and so did “kid number 2”. They were 9 and 8 years old. THEY WERE SO CUTE!!!! So, we listened, danced to, and sang with the music on the loudspeakers. Between each song, the crowds of girls would pointless scream. (I soon realized that I would be pointless screaming sooner or later, and stopped bashing the teenies). Some guy selling the glow necklaces got one section to start doing the wave, it went on for awhile. We all calmed down and watched as they began to set up the stage. Then the lights went out and a curtain was drawn up. Spotlights shined on Mark Carr, Jarred Gollihare, John Russell, and Brad Becker a.k.a. Admiral Twin. They were dressed in suits and looked really clean cut, really nice. Mark started to talk, he says, “We’re Admiral Twin and we’re from Tulsa.” He talked about some other stuff that I don’t remember and then Jarred goes, “This song is called ____ (don’t member), and it goes, almost exactly like this.” I thought that was so funny. They played this really awesome song (all of their songs were awesome), and then they went to another song. Then they stopped, Mark goes, “We’re still Admiral Twin and we’re still from Tulsa.” Then Jarred goes, “And this song is called ____ and it goes almost exactly like this.” They started the song. Might I add that Jarred is a mighty fine (literally) drummer - he was awesome!!!! Not that the others were bad, its just I really liked Jarred. {Jarred plays drums, Mark plays guitar and does lead singing (usually), John plays the guitar, and Brad plays the rhythmic guitar, accordion, and saxophone}. The next song was called Phone Call # 27. They did the “We’re still Admiral Twin...” and “..it goes almost exactly like this..” (they did that with about every other song) and they talked about their c.d. and stuff....its entitled Unlucky, and you can get it on-line at http://www.admiraltwin.com. Song number four was something along the lines of Such a Saint(I think). They started playing it with white lights at first, and every time they said “sin” the lights turned red. (If I didn’t get the song title, I either left it blank, or guessed.) Then they played Sun and Moon, which was awesome, I Don’t Know What I Know, something else and then Figi Fandago. They had announced that would be their last song. During the concert, John, like, jumped all over the stage, it was pretty cool. Finally they thanked us for being such a nice crowd and they left. {Prepare for 25 minute interlude} Then the stage crew started setting up for the Hanson stage. Girls screamed and they brought out Taylor’s keyboard. Then Lori saw a little light on the ground by the keyboard, she goes, “Vacuum!” Then we looked closer and saw it really was a vacuum, it was funny. We watched them place the Hanson logo on the stage. Then a black curtain dropped and screams rang out. Teenies will scream at the toss of a quarter. (pun intended, you’ll get it later if you finish reading this INCREDIBLY long review--I bet Misty and Jenny already do). They played songs over the loudspeaker again, and again between each songs, the teenies screamed. I was talking to Lori and Jenny, the control board for the lights and stuff was about 4 rows down. I coincidentally looked down and saw a man walking toward the control board. I looked at him and go, “Oh my gosh, that’s Walker Hanson!” Jenny, Misty and Lori looked and it really was Walker. We saw people shaking his hand and introducing themselves. We watched him for awhile, then he started messing with the lights. {End 25 minute interlude}. Finally the movement behind the stage stopped, the lights went out, the music stopped and everyone screamed (I do mean EVERYONE *cough* *looks other way*). Then we heard the beginning to Gimme Some Lovin’. The curtain dropped and Isaac, Taylor and Zac Hanson were revealed to us. We screamed, everyone screamed, parents shook their heads in disbelief. Lori and I looked at each other and screamed drew our binoculars to our eyes. A girl behind us screamed and her voice cracked, we made the joke that she blew a tweeter (if the saw the Billboard Awards 1997, David Spade did that). We were really excited to be there at this moment, I grabbed a camera out of my sock, grabbed my notebook and purple pen (which I had taken notes on Admiral Twin too), and sat on top of the chair (it was like a movie chair, the ones that automatically fold up when you aren’t sitting on it. I sat on it when it was folded up) and put my feet on the person in front of me's chair and I was comfortable. Some usher lady kept telling people to put their cameras away (in front row, they A. smashed your camera or B. took your film) so Lor and I hid ours. Finally the whore went away and left us alone. After that, Hanson talked to us, I have NO clue what they said. *looks at notes* OH......Taylor announced this was the final stop on the tour and some of us screamed. Taylor had his hair in a ponytail, so did Isaac, Zac left his down......mmmmm....it was pretty (no offense by that, it was a compliment). Taylor was wearing a black, short sleeved button up shirt with a white undershirt, black pants and black shoes. Isaac *sigh* (that was a bad sigh), Isaac, Isaac, Isaac *shakes head*, was wearing his brown leather pants, *gag* (yes that was an insult), he was also wearing a short sleeved DARK green shirt, only his undershirt was black too, his shoes, I’m pretty sure, were black. Zac wore blue pants (that’s from what Lori saw, I could have swore they were gray or forest green *confused*) and, oh go ahead and guess, yep, a black shirt and it was short sleeved as well. His wasn’t a button up though, he kept the same shirt the whole time. There was awesome lighting. The colors would change when Zac hit the cymbals during each song and it was awesome, I wasn’t paying attention to the colors that were flashing though. Anyway, then the song ended and we heard the opening for Thinking Of You. They played it and we took pictures (I took notes) {and that’s pretty much what happened in every song, so I’m not going to point it out anymore.} So, then they talked to us for like 3 seconds, Taylor yelled something, and we screamed (the only time our group screamed was when they started a new song pretty much -- and sometimes it took us a minute to calculate what song it was. Audio was 10,000,000 times better than when me, Misty and Jenny were at Grapevine Mills though!). The next song was Where’s the Love, then River, then Weird. On Weird I actually jotted down some more notes. When it was playing, a man selling pictures of Hanson that were autographed came through our row. Me and Jenny bought one. I had to borrow money from Jenny to do that, THANKS JENNY! I still think they are fakes, but oh well. After the song was over, they again announced this was their last show and thanked the they thanked everyone that helped them on the tour, Isaac goes, ”You guys clap every time we say a name.” I swear there were a million names! Anyway, then they played Magic Carpet Ride (the oldies fans should know that one). Hanson thanked us and went off the stage. We were confused but then Jenny told us this is when they do the first set change. Sure enough, the stage crew came out and began to set a different set up. It had a small drumset for Zac, a couch for Isaac and a chair with a keyboard in front of it for Taylor. While they were pulling the oil derrick looking things up (it was a designed drape that went over the set), one got stuck, so they had to lower it and bring it back up. Then they came back out and then sat down at their different places. I was looking through the binoculars and looking at Zac because on the other set, you could see Isaac and Taylor perfectly fine, but when it came to Zac, all you could see was his hair and maybe and arm every once in awhile, you just couldn’t see him over that drumset! So I pretty much took to looking at him the whole acoustic set time. They babbled about something saying the first song was from 3 Car Garage, then got to the first song, Sometimes. Then they played my favorite song from 3 Car Garage, Stories, then With You In Your Dreams, then Madeline. On Madeline Zac had the shakey things AND YOU COULD HEAR THEM WELL!!! I believe the pattern was 3 shakes then he hit the two together. After that they played Money (That’s What I Want), an awesome song that had been remade a million and one times. Then Zac talked to the crowd, “Um, please don’t throw things, I just got hit in the head with a quarter.” Some stupid girl had actually thrown them money. Then after Money (That’s What I Want), Taylor and Zac left Isaac alone. He talked about the new album and announced that it would be released in November and that this song would be on it. He was talking about the song More Than Anything in which he sang alone and played the keyboard. Let me just make a comment, he has a GREAT voice. I guess I really never noticed it, but he really does have a great voice. He also has great skills on the guitar and the keyboard and he’s fine and that’s not saying that Taylor and Zac don’t (or aren't), its just that I’d like Isaac to have a compliment without Zac and Taylor getting one, for once, too. After it Isaac shook his head as he walked off the stage. According to Jenny, he skipped a whole verse and repeated a verse instead. The stage crew again put the stage back to the first set it was. Taylor and Zac came back on stage and they played Speechless. During it, Isaac walked over to the platform that Zac and his drums were on and jammed next to Zac on it, then he walked over to Taylor and they sang into the same mic. IT WAS AWESOME! *note: with our binoculars, we could see really good, so we kept looking at Hanson through them, then we’d focus on them w/o the binoculars and it was really hard on our eyes. We also literally had to scream into each others ears to hear! I just remembered that stuff* Then they played some song I’ve never heard of before, its called Ever Lonely. I had no idea who its by or where its was from, but now I know its by them. Zac stood up, then sat down and goes, “I WILL COME TO YOU!!!!!” We then heard the opening for I Will Come To You. I put my arm around Jenny and Lori, Lori put her arm around me, Jenny put her arm around me and Misty. We swayed from side to side almost the whole song. Isaac started to talk and he goes, “we’ll dedicate this to the back rows way up there.” and then he says some other stuff and goes, “and we couldn’t spend one minute without you!!” After that, they played A Minute Without You. On A Minute Without You on a drummie part, Isaac goes, “Zac Hanson ladies and gentlemen!!!”. Then they played Good Lovin’ (originally by the Rascal’s, if you’ve seen My Girl, its on that movie), and after it they talked about MOE. After Good Lovin’, Taylor goes, “You guys should know this one!” They played MMMBop. We sang and danced along. Before “last” song, Man From Milwaukee, they thanked back-up people and introduced them. I didn’t hear the names at all, but I remember they put a spotlight on them and whoever it was played and bowed. They did the back-up keyboardist first, then the back-up guitarist, then the other back-up guitarist they’ve had since at least Arthur Ashe Kid’s Day. Then the back up keyboardist goes “and don’t forget Hanson!!!” Zac banged on the drums and Taylor ran up behind him. Zac stood up and got a squirt gun and ran down to the front of the stage and squirted people. Taylor played the drums. That is like the whole reason I went to the darn concert! IT WAS AWESOME! Taylor is an AWESOME drummer!!!! Then they got to their original spots and Zac whips out the infamous glowing drumsticks....they are actually not glowing drumsticks, they are drumsticks with lights in them and the lights flash white, red, blue, green, yellow and purple. Then they played Man From Milwaukee; on Man From Milwaukee, you couldn’t hear Zac’s talkie parts!!! When they were done, then thanked us for being a great last crowd and left. As the walked off, I watched the back-ups give Hanson high fives as they walked off the stage. The stage just sat there for five minutes. I was confused again. Why weren’t they coming back out for an encore? We started chanting “Hanson! HANSON! HANSON! HANSON!” Then you hear, ”Do you really want us back?” It was Zac, “Okay, but this time we’re playing with ALIENS!” They came back on stage and the back-ups were dressed like aliens. Some people had already left. I noticed Isaac and Taylor had taken off button up shirts. I also noticed Taylor was wearing a black watch. I looked at Taylor through my(Lori’s) binoculars and I kind of fell back into my seat. Taylor, Zac and Isaac emptied water bottles into crowd and squirted crowd with their squirt guns. Then Isaac dumped a water bottle on Taylor’s head and Taylor dumped a water bottle on Isaac and then they got squirt guns and squirted Zac and Zac squirted them and they were just in a big water fight, it was so funny. Finally they sat down and started the encores. For the first encore, they played Look At You. It was AWESOME! AND I DO LIKE LOOK AT YOU! For encore two, they played Summertime Blues. Isaac did this one, INCREDIBLY low part with his voice, I didn’t even know it was Isaac. Jenny told me. I, again, fell back into chair. During Summertime Blues, Isaac takes over Taylor’s keyboard, Taylor went out and touched fans and squirted the audience with squirt guns. Then, as a grand finale they sang an a cappella verse of Weird. After that, they left for good, and so did we. We walked out to where Jenny and Misty agreed to meet her dad. It was so weird, our eyes were out of focus and if you put your hands over your ears tightly and you hear people talk to you and you hear yourself talk weird, that’s what our hearing was like. It was, well, tunneled. My ears hurt just thinking about it. Jenny saw her dad. She asked if her and Misty could go watch for Hanson to come out. We stood over by the back doors where there was this 15-25 ft drop. There was a safety fence around it, and people knew they would come out the back door. It was smart because we could see them, but couldn’t reach them. We stood around there for like ten minutes, then walked around front. We saw a tour bus that was playing T, T & MON on the V.C.R. and there were two limos by it. Decoys, I thought automatically. Of course we went back around to the other place and stood there. I then informed Jenny and Misty that Lor and I had to go, we walked away. On the way out to find my parents, we saw a big crowd of people and noticed that ADMIRAL TWIN were signing autographs. We decided against getting the other two guys signatures. Then we walked out and found my mom. We asked her if we could go back in and see if we could get the other two's signatures, but she said no. We didn't object, we were tired and couldn't see or hear well. It ends up that Me and Lor were the only 2 who took pictures and boy do we feel special. They aren’t developed yet, but I hope they turn out good.
I just want to add this one note, the next day each of us suffered from ringing in our ears, headaches, neck/back/body aches, blurred vision and sore throats, it was strange what all that noise causes and we just wanted to warn you about a few of the side effects of the concert. THE END!!!!!!
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