I've been wanting to write this blog for a long time, finally sitting down to do it! So here goes...
It was the summer of 1989, August 4th to be exact. My friend Michelle asked me if I wanted to go with her to see this group that she liked at The Ohio State Fair-New Kids On The Block. I had heard of them, heard their song "Please Don't Go Girl" on the radio but had yet to be shown the ways of a "fangirl". I agreed to go of course, I was 12 & this was my first concert ever! The concert was general admission which ment we had to get there early & sit in the stands all day waiting for the show to start. Michelle brought a stack of "teen mags" & I spent ALL DAY reading about these 5 Boston Boys...Donnie, Danny, Jon, Jordan, Joe...falling more & more in love with the turn of every page.
The excitement continued to build all day...we could see tour buses parked behind the stage & everytime a door opened the entire stadium came alive with the sounds of preeteen squeals & screams! By the time they hit the stage....I WAS A BLOCKHEAD!!! Thank you Michelle!!!!
When school began that year I met a few more friends-a grade younger than me who were also "Blockheads"...Jenny, Jamie & Lindsey and The Dew Crew was born. We spent nearly every weekend having sleepovers so we could watch videos of their constant TV appearances, swap posters of our "Fave New Kid" & share dreams of meeting them. My "fave" was Donnie Wahlberg...the bad boy, the wild one...there was just "something" about him! His initials D.E.W..thus began my obsession w/ Mt.DEW.
I once drank 23 cans of it at a sleepover on a dare...I couldn't eat for several days my stomach hurt so bad! LOL Back then our only sources of info was tv appearances, teen mags & PEN PALS! OMG I had SO MANY!!! Remember friendship books?! I often wonder how many of the fans/friends I meet now I may have already known through those? No internet, no twitter etc....so instead we watched every tv show they appeared on over & over & over...Oprah, Arsenio, GMA, DPUSA, MTV and don't forget the PPV concerts too!....you name it, they were probably on it & yes I still have all those tapes! When they announced The Magic Summer Tour we were SO EXCITED to get to see them in concert even if it was from the very top of Reds Stadium-we didn't care....we were finally gonna be breathing the same air as them!!! After parking, we were walking to cross the street to go into the stadium when all of a sudden a group od scooters went flying past us on the street...O...M...G...It was Donnie, Danny & Joe!!!! We were beyond hysterical!!! It was the closest I would ever get to them...for a while anyway ;) At the show were sang along, screamed and cried as if we were in the front row! We stayed up most of the night from all the excitement & Mt DEW! In the morning Jenny & I made a home video of me telling all about the concert! LOL
We saw them again on the No More Games Tour, Jamie's Mom drove us to Cleveland & this time we got there early hoping to get a glimpse of them coming into the arena! We didn't get to see the guys but we did meet Yasko Kubota..their keyboard player...we were ecstatic just to meet anyone close to them!
After the show we ran into a girl we had met before the show while on "bus watch"
her name was Sheri and she was lucky enough to have caught Joe's sweat towel at the concert!!! She was generous enough to to give each of us a small piece of it...*sigh*.
Sheri became an extended member of The Dew Crew, she lived 2 hrs away so we stayed in touch via letters & was also able to come visit on school breaks-like for the bday party for Joe on NYE that year! We even went w/ Sheri & her parents to Philly one weekend to be on DPUSA! NKOTB wasn't on the show that day, but it was just so exciting to stand on the set right where Donnie had once stood! I also met a fellow NKOTB fan at volleyball camp one summer-she heard me mention NewKids & we became fast friends! And another fan at a marching band competition...her Jordan hairstyle including a "rat tail" was a dead giveaway! There's something about being a Blockhead that made us instant friends...something that still holds true today. Probably in part because we spent most of our days in school defending them. Of course the boys hated them-they were just "jealous" & the "cool kids" were just too cool for a pop group I suppose? Most kids preferred BonJovi, Def Leppard & Motley Crue. So meeting a fellow fan was like a magnetic connection-someone else we could talk to about our loves that "got it" and didn't make fun. Around 1992 the guys took a break but I was able to go see Marky Mark & The Funky Bunch a couple of times...even got to meet Mark at his hotel after a show because he announced what hotel he was at & Mom took us there! LOL I had to wait until the spring of 1994 to see NKOTB again. My mom took Sheri & I to see them in Cleveland-it was at a theater type venue so every seat was awesome! I had never been so close! I loved getting to see them "one last time" even if Jon wasn't there due to a "horse riding incident" lol I was so excited to get some awesome concert pix only to be crushed when the security guy came up & snatched my camera & removed my film at the very end of the show! :( And that was it for NKOTB...so I thought.
I graduated high school, got married had 2 daughters...ya know life just goes on. Each of the guys went their seperate way. I tried to follow each of their solo careers but the media wasn't giving them much attention-so I'm sure I missed some things, but there really wasn't anyway to REALLY know what they were up to.
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