My Inner Teen Is Disgusted with Me

About a month ago, I did something that shocked my friends and family: I attended the NKOTBSB concert at the Verizon Center. My inner teenager has locked herself in her room and is refusing to come out lest she dies from embarrassment.

I sent an email to my wonderful friend AL (initials for anonymity – her name isn’t “Al”), because we hadn’t hung out in a while. She replied with an offer too good to resist: a totally free ticket to see NKOTBSB with her. It was an invitation to spend a Friday evening with one of my best friends people watching at a concert combining the goofiest boy band of the 80s with the goofiest boy band of the 90s.

How could I refuse?

I don’t exaggerate when I tell you it was one of the best experiences of my life. First of all, the Verizon Center clearly knew its audience that evening. It converted several men’s rooms into ladies’ rooms – with urinals.

After arriving (and lots of pre-gaming beers), I decided I needed a tee shirt with all the faces of the Backstreet Boys and the New Kids on it. I thought it would be hilarious. Well, $40 later, I think the joke was on me…

The show started the second we walked into the Verizon Center (and I am not talking about the concert). There were so many middle-aged women with homemade tee shirts professing love for one or another band member. Seriously, there was enough puffy paint to cover the floor of the Verizon Center!

I was really hoping to see a 40 year old with a bad perm cry as NKOTB or BSB sang some sappy song that repeated the word “girl” or “babe” so many times it lost all meaning. Much to my dismay, while there was a lot of screaming (especially during “Please Don’t Go, Girl”), there were no tears.

We finally left when NKOTB stopped singing to repeatedly reference how “hot” DC is. Of course the crowd ate it up… But before I end my post, a few observations from the concert.

1) Donnie Wahlberg looks like Mark Wahlberg plus 10 years of really, really hard living.

2) If one band member removes his jacket to give the ladies in the audience a (very) cheap thrill (Aaron Carter – and it was the jacket from a white suit), then the other band needs someone to remove his wife beater (Donnie Wahlberg – see previous observation for my opinion on that matter). Otherwise, all sense of order is lost in Boy Bandlandia.

3) The decade(ish) that separates the ages of the NKOTB and BSB really showed when it was time for a dance number (but NKOTB did do that pendulum leg thing during “The Right Stuff”).

4) At our core, us women are forever those teenage girls we used to be. Whether that means we are horribly insecure or that we have an incurable crush on some cute celebrity at 13, not much changes - even after 30. And that’s why my alternative-loving, moody teen self is still pouting and rolling her eyes over my decision to spend a Friday evening worshipping at the boy band alter.