Hangin’ Tough

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When I was about 10 I had a sleeping bag that was brightly color-blocked and adorned with the faces of Danny, Donnie, Joey, Jordan and Jonathan. 15 years later, I no longer have that sleeping bag and I have outgrown my love for the New Kids on the Block…or so I thought. Traci and I were given tickets to go see NKOTB at the Verizon Center last night, and it was quite a show. The demographic was clearly skewed to those of us who were in love with the boys from Boston when we were little, and that provided for some interesting observations. There was apparently a dress code and both Traci and I missed that memo. There were three clear clothing options:

1) Rock your NKOTB t-shirt from 15 years ago. (Which begs the larger question of ‘How the hell are these women wearing something they could fit into 15 years ago, and why do they still have it’).

2) Make or buy new NKOTB t-shirts. (This option seems a little more sane, but does anyone really need a shirt that says ‘The Block is Back’?)

3) Pretend it’s the 80’s and wear neon colors (hypercolor is preferred, but really hard to find), scrunched socks, side ponytails, and some form of shirt that refused to make contact with one or both shoulders.

There was a girl in front of us who decided that one of the above options was not enough. She wore a new t-shirt, made a sign (see below) and brought her NKOTB sheets from when she was little. It was a whole bunch of crazy.

Overachieving NKOTB fan

Besides the people watching, the concert was unintentionally hilarious. These guys are 40 and doing the same dance moves they did in 1989. I’m not going to lie, it made me feel like a kid again – but they looked kind of stupid.

The entire experience left me with a couple of observations about the timelessness of NKOTB:

1) I still can’t tell you which one is Danny and which one is Jonathan. (We actually had to wikipedia it at the concert to come up with the names of the ones who aren’t Joey, Jordan and Donnie).

2) I still prefer Marky Mark (sans Funky Bunch) over Donnie. Which kind of makes me feel bad. Donnie Wahlberg is like Alfred Einstein or Tito and Jermaine Jackson. No matter how good he is, he’ll never live up to the awesomeness that is his brother.

3) The Right Stuff dance is still fun…or at least for me.

It was nice to get to feel like a little kid again, even though I was surrounded by a bunch of older women screaming like a 7 year old at a Hannah Montana/Jonas Brothers concert.

Here’s a little video we took from our seats, so you can all feel like a preteen again too.

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