Backstreet's Back Alright!!

On Saturday August 23rd we went to the Backstreet Boys Concert. They Performed at the Grand Stand at the Fair. The crowd was packed with teenage and adult women and then Thomas! The show was entertaining and they still can sing and perform even in their older age. However, I think I personally enjoyed watching Thomas more than the Backstreet Boys. Thomas knew every word to every song they sang that night. I think he knew more songs than any girl there. It was fun to see how excited he was to see them and how much fun he had finally being able to live out one of his fantasies of seeing a boy band live!
Now the true backstreet boy fan speaks out: In an age of Corporate corruption and leftist agendas, murder on our streets and toxins in our air, it is truly breathtaking to realize that their is still pure entertainment, sheer joy and magic, left for America to hold onto. August 23rd was a great day for me, one I had waited for for almost 10 years. And as I stood to cheer those "boys" who had grown up right in front of me for the past decade, I reflected upon what they had meant to me. I could still remember driving down the road in July of 1999, listening to "I want it that way" and deciding that I would purchase their album, even though I would likely be ridiculed for being a 17 year-old male boy-band fan. And I was. I endured criticisms and persecution that only made my resolve stronger to allow the boy-band phenomenon to envelop me. Soon after followed purchases of 98 degrees, NSYNC, and later controversial purchases such as LFO (2 CDs) and O-Town (one CD). So why did it hit me so hard? When my friends were listening to potheads like Dave Matthews and Cake, I was sporting around in a 1991 Ford Taurus banging peppy hip-hop beats. It hit me hard because it was my music. I had made a choice not to follow what my friends and siblings were listening to, I made a choice to be different. Those boy-bands taught me choreography and a sense of empowerment that still imbibes their music to this day. And that's really the point: their music lives on as they never will. Those first albums are recorded history of my youth. I can still turn on that music from high school and remember those days. When we listen to "our" music (the music that spoke to us and that we chose on our own), we are, in a sense, listening to ourselves of past days. Perhaps we are attempting to recapture youth, perhaps we are seeking a simpler time when pressures were less and life seemed more loose, or perhaps we simply like the same melodies and chord progressions that we always have. A good pop song is like a shot of happiness that you fills you instantly with momentous happiness. And when we look back upon moments in our life, we'll notice that there was always a soundtrack. So the Backstreet Boys concert for me was simply an opportunity to look upon 4 people who's music has become part of the musical score of my life. For better or worse, that's the truth.

Firework Show after the Concert!