New Kids on the Block at the Alltate Arena 10/05/08
I went to see the New Kids on the Block in October, it was a lot of cheesy retro fun. Here's my report behind the cut.
New Kids on the Block at the Allstate Arena
10/05/08
When I was seven years old I went to my first non-classical, non-children’s music concert - New Kids on the Block with Tommy Page at Pine Valley outdoor theater in Wisconsin. I don’t remember a whole lot about it except for being extremely excited, being out on a hill with picnic food that my mom prepared for me and my friends, trying to see, Tommy Page telling the women in the audience that they were beautiful, and Donnie Walberg flying over the audience on a harness while singing “Cover Girl”. I also remember buying a t-shirt that just had Donnie on it and being thrilled about that. I was a NKOTB fanatic between the ages of about five-eight, and I had a huge crush on Donnie. I remember going to a vending machine that had assorted NKOTB pins In it at a Toys R Us. I randomly received one that said, “I’m Donnie’s Girl” and I was convinced that this was a sign. So when I heard that the New Kids were reuniting back in the Spring, I found myself getting excited about that, and upon telling my friend Kaisa (whom I’ve known since we were four) that they were going to tour again she said we had to go together. I got us tickets thanks to a presale sometime back in the Summer I think.
On the way to the Allstate Arena my dad asked me if I thought that there would be some older fans explaining NKOTB stuff to younger ones, and I replied, “there aren’t going to be any younger ones.” In fact, I went on to tell him that I thought that I would be on the younger end of the spectrum, but that it would mostly be (if not entirely be) girls between the ages of about 25-30. I was right.
Kaisa and I went to eat the IHOP nearby prior to the concert and noticed that the place was filled with girls around our age. When we got into the Allstate Arena, this became even more apparent. Another long time friend of mine, Michelle ran up and hugged me when I walked through the door. She was there with her little sister and so we went over and said hi to her.
We quickly scanned over the merchandise and I immediately spotted those ridiculously huge round buttons featuring the individual New Kids, and a group shot, that were such a big deal when the band was around the first time, and so I exclaimed, “they have those freakin huge buttons!” nothing that I really wanted to get one later. They also had a huge variety of t-shirts and other merchandise. The line was crazy long though, so we decided to wait until after the show to buy things - excepting that we did buy a program on the way to our seats.
I think there were only a few males in the audience, and I did spot a couple of babies of the women. But it was pretty incredible seeing all these twentysomething - early thirties aged women in their old New Kids t-shirts, holding home made sign, adorned with various other old school merchandise like a NKOTB comforter, one girl had a doll of Joey with her (I’m sure there were others with the dolls), some had the pins on. Everyone was acting like they were back in their pre-teens, myself included. It was like being back in time or something.
The first opening act was some hip hop/pop guy I hadn’t heard of before. My friend Kaisa said that she knew one of the songs that he played. Some of the time he had dancers out with him, and the at others he used an acoustic guitar. I think one of his songs was featured in an episode of 90210, the new one that is.
There was a few minute break before Natasha Benningfield came on stage. She was good. I knew her from her appearance on American Idol and so I knew one song, though I recognized another song she did from some commercial. She announced that she would be signing things in a part of the hallway of the Allstate Arena after her set, which was cool, though we didn’t want to go. Instead we spent a while continuing to try to remember what the steps were in “Step by Step”. Kaisa remembered more than I did. We worked out that four of the steps and we couldn’t remember if there were more than that.
As soon as the light went out everyone started screaming incredibly loud. Louder than the American Idol audience ever got. Maybe louder than any other concert I’ve been too. They played an opening movie that alternated shots of dramatic text talking about how long it had been since they had been together and so forth. And then they came out on stage and it was crazy! They’re all actually better dancers now than they were back then. They still sound good too.
I think that the first song they did was “Single”, and then that was followed by “My Favorite Girl” Sometime in the first few songs they played “The Right Stuff” which was cool - and they did the weird leg swinging dance that they did in the video back in the day. On the Today show they claimed that they wouldn’t be doing that, but I was glad that they did. I don’t remember the order of the songs they did, but they played “Please Don’t Go Girl” pretty early on, and they did one called “Grown Man” which is new. It had a background movie featuring one of the Pussycat Dolls, which was weird.
Donnie gave a speech about the state of the world and something about politics, and about positivity. It was a nice speech. That was before “Games”. During that song Joey took the left side of the crowd which is where we were seated (we had pretty good seats by the way, they were on the main flourish, in the far back but left-center) and we were supposed to sing one part while Donnie’s side sang another. I think we did the “Games, games, games, games, games” part and the other half of the audience did the “oh-we-oh-ohhh-oh” thought it might have been the other way around.
It was funny how whenever Donnie would appear on the scream I found myself being more screamy than normal, lol. I guess some tiny part of me still feels like Donnie’s girl.
Moving on, they did one number all in suits with Fedora’s. I can’t remember which song that was.
There was a song they did which was followed by a memorial tribute video to a bunch of musicians who have died since 1993 when the band broke up. The video ended with a few people that are close to the band members, with Donnie’s dad and Danny’s mom being the last two.
While this video played they walked out to a smaller circular stage that was closer to where we were seated. They hopped up on there and had a female dancer hop up on top of a piano in the center of it and start dancing up there while they sang “Dirty Dawg”. The stage spun around while they sang. After that song Danny pointed out that the woman was wearing a special NKOTB shirt that the proceeds were being used to fight breast cancer, which is what his mother died from. That was thoughtful of them to have a shirt like that to raise money for such a good cause.
They stayed on that stage a little while longer to do the song “Tonight” for which they started out with, I think it was Joey, but it may have been Jordan, playing the opening piano bit.
When they got back on stage they had a couple of non-NKOTB songs. Jordan did I think one or two of his solo career songs, and Joey did at least one. Danny did some break dancing to an instrumental song.
Before “I’ll Be Loving You Forever” they were all off stage and they had the big screens in the back of the stage showing different languages words for forever, and then Jordan appeared on stage with his shirt open and blowing in the wind with smoke covering the stage. The rest of the guys then joined him on stage, all dressed in white.
Donnie was on stage by himself after that song and he told us about how good he was feeling adding, “I feel like I could fly!” Which got me really exited thinking that he was going to fly with the harness again while singing “Cover Girl”, and he did sing “Cover Girl”. I was part right, he did sing “Cover Girl” next which was awesome; though I was a little upset he didn’t fly. There were a couple of female dancers out there with him, and they strapped a guitar on him, but he didn’t play it, which was kinda random. Donnie changed some of the lyrics to be things like “I only want to be with you - Chi-town” instead of “I only want to be with you girl”.
At some point Donnie said that everyone always comes up to them and tells them thank you, but they’re the ones that really should be thanking us, “thank you for making us feel young again, thank you for making life fun again”. Joey agreed with this sentiment later on, I think, and talked about how great it was to hear their song on the radio again. He told us that before they played “Click, Click, Click”
They also played that song “Summertime”, one of their new singles.
I think they may have done two encores. The first one was definitely “Step By Step” and that was so awesome. They had big numbers behind them before they said each of the steps, and then they got to “Step Five” and Kaisa and I look at each other and we’re like “oh no! There was a five!” and then we started laughing.
Before the final encore there was a video featuring someone from the Boston Celtics, and then it ended up with NKOTB being written out using only Boston sports teams logos, that was pretty cool. Then they came back on stage wearing Celtic uniforms and sang “Hangin’ Tough”.
The concert was so much fun, and it made me feel happy and like a little kid again. I’m so glad that I got to share it with a friend who knew me back then and who I have fun memories of listening to the New Kids with when we were little.
After the show ended, we got in line for merchandise and I bought a tour shirt with an old school picture of them on the front, a Donnie t-shirt, and one of those freakin huge buttons. Unfortunately they were sold out of the ones with just Donnie on them, but I got one of the group ones. Then we went home.
New Kids on the Block at the Allstate Arena
10/05/08
When I was seven years old I went to my first non-classical, non-children’s music concert - New Kids on the Block with Tommy Page at Pine Valley outdoor theater in Wisconsin. I don’t remember a whole lot about it except for being extremely excited, being out on a hill with picnic food that my mom prepared for me and my friends, trying to see, Tommy Page telling the women in the audience that they were beautiful, and Donnie Walberg flying over the audience on a harness while singing “Cover Girl”. I also remember buying a t-shirt that just had Donnie on it and being thrilled about that. I was a NKOTB fanatic between the ages of about five-eight, and I had a huge crush on Donnie. I remember going to a vending machine that had assorted NKOTB pins In it at a Toys R Us. I randomly received one that said, “I’m Donnie’s Girl” and I was convinced that this was a sign. So when I heard that the New Kids were reuniting back in the Spring, I found myself getting excited about that, and upon telling my friend Kaisa (whom I’ve known since we were four) that they were going to tour again she said we had to go together. I got us tickets thanks to a presale sometime back in the Summer I think.
On the way to the Allstate Arena my dad asked me if I thought that there would be some older fans explaining NKOTB stuff to younger ones, and I replied, “there aren’t going to be any younger ones.” In fact, I went on to tell him that I thought that I would be on the younger end of the spectrum, but that it would mostly be (if not entirely be) girls between the ages of about 25-30. I was right.
Kaisa and I went to eat the IHOP nearby prior to the concert and noticed that the place was filled with girls around our age. When we got into the Allstate Arena, this became even more apparent. Another long time friend of mine, Michelle ran up and hugged me when I walked through the door. She was there with her little sister and so we went over and said hi to her.
We quickly scanned over the merchandise and I immediately spotted those ridiculously huge round buttons featuring the individual New Kids, and a group shot, that were such a big deal when the band was around the first time, and so I exclaimed, “they have those freakin huge buttons!” nothing that I really wanted to get one later. They also had a huge variety of t-shirts and other merchandise. The line was crazy long though, so we decided to wait until after the show to buy things - excepting that we did buy a program on the way to our seats.
I think there were only a few males in the audience, and I did spot a couple of babies of the women. But it was pretty incredible seeing all these twentysomething - early thirties aged women in their old New Kids t-shirts, holding home made sign, adorned with various other old school merchandise like a NKOTB comforter, one girl had a doll of Joey with her (I’m sure there were others with the dolls), some had the pins on. Everyone was acting like they were back in their pre-teens, myself included. It was like being back in time or something.
The first opening act was some hip hop/pop guy I hadn’t heard of before. My friend Kaisa said that she knew one of the songs that he played. Some of the time he had dancers out with him, and the at others he used an acoustic guitar. I think one of his songs was featured in an episode of 90210, the new one that is.
There was a few minute break before Natasha Benningfield came on stage. She was good. I knew her from her appearance on American Idol and so I knew one song, though I recognized another song she did from some commercial. She announced that she would be signing things in a part of the hallway of the Allstate Arena after her set, which was cool, though we didn’t want to go. Instead we spent a while continuing to try to remember what the steps were in “Step by Step”. Kaisa remembered more than I did. We worked out that four of the steps and we couldn’t remember if there were more than that.
As soon as the light went out everyone started screaming incredibly loud. Louder than the American Idol audience ever got. Maybe louder than any other concert I’ve been too. They played an opening movie that alternated shots of dramatic text talking about how long it had been since they had been together and so forth. And then they came out on stage and it was crazy! They’re all actually better dancers now than they were back then. They still sound good too.
I think that the first song they did was “Single”, and then that was followed by “My Favorite Girl” Sometime in the first few songs they played “The Right Stuff” which was cool - and they did the weird leg swinging dance that they did in the video back in the day. On the Today show they claimed that they wouldn’t be doing that, but I was glad that they did. I don’t remember the order of the songs they did, but they played “Please Don’t Go Girl” pretty early on, and they did one called “Grown Man” which is new. It had a background movie featuring one of the Pussycat Dolls, which was weird.
Donnie gave a speech about the state of the world and something about politics, and about positivity. It was a nice speech. That was before “Games”. During that song Joey took the left side of the crowd which is where we were seated (we had pretty good seats by the way, they were on the main flourish, in the far back but left-center) and we were supposed to sing one part while Donnie’s side sang another. I think we did the “Games, games, games, games, games” part and the other half of the audience did the “oh-we-oh-ohhh-oh” thought it might have been the other way around.
It was funny how whenever Donnie would appear on the scream I found myself being more screamy than normal, lol. I guess some tiny part of me still feels like Donnie’s girl.
Moving on, they did one number all in suits with Fedora’s. I can’t remember which song that was.
There was a song they did which was followed by a memorial tribute video to a bunch of musicians who have died since 1993 when the band broke up. The video ended with a few people that are close to the band members, with Donnie’s dad and Danny’s mom being the last two.
While this video played they walked out to a smaller circular stage that was closer to where we were seated. They hopped up on there and had a female dancer hop up on top of a piano in the center of it and start dancing up there while they sang “Dirty Dawg”. The stage spun around while they sang. After that song Danny pointed out that the woman was wearing a special NKOTB shirt that the proceeds were being used to fight breast cancer, which is what his mother died from. That was thoughtful of them to have a shirt like that to raise money for such a good cause.
They stayed on that stage a little while longer to do the song “Tonight” for which they started out with, I think it was Joey, but it may have been Jordan, playing the opening piano bit.
When they got back on stage they had a couple of non-NKOTB songs. Jordan did I think one or two of his solo career songs, and Joey did at least one. Danny did some break dancing to an instrumental song.
Before “I’ll Be Loving You Forever” they were all off stage and they had the big screens in the back of the stage showing different languages words for forever, and then Jordan appeared on stage with his shirt open and blowing in the wind with smoke covering the stage. The rest of the guys then joined him on stage, all dressed in white.
Donnie was on stage by himself after that song and he told us about how good he was feeling adding, “I feel like I could fly!” Which got me really exited thinking that he was going to fly with the harness again while singing “Cover Girl”, and he did sing “Cover Girl”. I was part right, he did sing “Cover Girl” next which was awesome; though I was a little upset he didn’t fly. There were a couple of female dancers out there with him, and they strapped a guitar on him, but he didn’t play it, which was kinda random. Donnie changed some of the lyrics to be things like “I only want to be with you - Chi-town” instead of “I only want to be with you girl”.
At some point Donnie said that everyone always comes up to them and tells them thank you, but they’re the ones that really should be thanking us, “thank you for making us feel young again, thank you for making life fun again”. Joey agreed with this sentiment later on, I think, and talked about how great it was to hear their song on the radio again. He told us that before they played “Click, Click, Click”
They also played that song “Summertime”, one of their new singles.
I think they may have done two encores. The first one was definitely “Step By Step” and that was so awesome. They had big numbers behind them before they said each of the steps, and then they got to “Step Five” and Kaisa and I look at each other and we’re like “oh no! There was a five!” and then we started laughing.
Before the final encore there was a video featuring someone from the Boston Celtics, and then it ended up with NKOTB being written out using only Boston sports teams logos, that was pretty cool. Then they came back on stage wearing Celtic uniforms and sang “Hangin’ Tough”.
The concert was so much fun, and it made me feel happy and like a little kid again. I’m so glad that I got to share it with a friend who knew me back then and who I have fun memories of listening to the New Kids with when we were little.
After the show ended, we got in line for merchandise and I bought a tour shirt with an old school picture of them on the front, a Donnie t-shirt, and one of those freakin huge buttons. Unfortunately they were sold out of the ones with just Donnie on them, but I got one of the group ones. Then we went home.