Yesterday Kim and I celebrated our "Blogiversary" together. One year ago we had been sitting by my pool plotting our plan of attack for the Mall of America appearance and decided to start a blog. There may have been some vodka involved. Yesterday we celebrated with Kim from ReturnofNKOTB.com and Melissa from NKOTBNEWS.com planning a party. There might have been some vodka involved. To celebrate the one year anniversary of NKOTB performing at the Mall of America and in conjunction with the Let's Get This Foundation you are all invited to a PARTY OF EPIC PROPORTIONS hosted by ProjectNKOTB.com, ReturnofNKOTB.com and NKOTBNews.com It promises to be a wonderful time celebrating the friendships that were made over the past year and a chance for us to give back and raise books and funds for the Let's Get This Foundation.
This comes to us from Lisa R. Lisa, did you transcribe this?? Anyway, it's another shot of the awesome moments after IBLYF, this time with the full speech intact. You can see the signage that people had brought as well.
“Houston! Over a year and a half ago, me and Jordan were in the car, listening to a song… we called Joe and played it for him and sent it to Danny and Jon, and suddenly we were on a trip and we didn’t know where we were going….
And we showed up a few months later, in the freezing rain, on the Today Show. I figured it was too cold and rainy for anybody to come outside and give a damn about us.
But instead, a couple thousand crazy girls who hadn’t seen us in 15 years were sitting out there screaming for us. Then we came back a few months later to that same New York street television studio – this time we had to sing and dance for the first time in 15 years. There were puddles all over the stage, it was raining and freezing cold again, only this time there weren’t two thousand of you…….there was about twenty thousand of you!
And I think we all understood at that moment, and I think the world understood at that moment. It didn’t matter if you were freezing cold, it didn’t matter if we were slipping and busting our asses on the stage in front of 20 million people all around the world…you all were the engine that made us go!
I said earlier today to somebody – we put a lot of time and energy, invested a lot of not knowing what was going to happen, and we built a ship, a sailboat. It was a beautiful boat and we put it in the water, but the boat ain’t gonna go nowhere without the wind. You all’s voices, you all’s hearts, you all’s love, is the wind that makes this ship sail.
We saw most of you as little girls all those years ago… you carried us then, when everyone thought you were crazy, prepubescent girls who didn’t know what they was talking about. And now we get to see you, all these years later, as women, with jobs and careers, and beautiful children and husbands and families. And you came back, and you’re carrying us again!
Let me just say, for the whole world to know - and I know that every guy on this stage feels the same way – we didn’t prove anybody wrong this time around – YOU proved them wrong! You proved them wrong! ‘Cause nobody in this world can tell me that the fine, amazing, brilliant, sophisticated, beautiful women that come to see us every single night don’t know what they’re talking about!
Y’all know me, I’ll talk forever if you let me, so I’m gonna shut up…
On that note, we’re coming to the end of a journey, and today’s the day that we can look at in two ways:we can look at it as the end of a wonderful year, an incredible year, where we all helped each other…and made each other feel good during some terrible, terrible times we all [garbled]… or we can look at tonight at the start of our next year!
And now that we’ve reunited and now that we’ve solidified our bond… Houston, I am happy to say that the state of this union is STRONG!Can we start next year’s party right now???”
I just felt the need to share this with you. Our friend Tiff, with whom we traveled to Omaha, Champaign, and Des Moines - and who wrote the awesome cruise recap for us, was at the Dallas and Houston shows (with Lisa and Peggy, two more of our "sisters"). She had this to say about the clip that we posted yesterday of the guys after I'll Be Loving You Forever. Big thanks to the person who caught that moment on camera.
*****
Much of the show up to this point had included a lot of fun and pranks. The guys were on fire, and the crowd was on fire (lol. I sound like DW…) We shed some tears during some of the other ballads and during "5 brothers" (Joe was incredible), but mostly it was a hell of a fun show.
This clip, however, was right after IBLYF. The crowd was prepared with LED candles that we "lit" at the beginning (at one point I turned around – it was a marvelous sight.) Jordan sang his heart out. Back in the day IBLYF was a love song, but today the lyrics are just so appropriate…
In the video that Melissa found (right after the song ended), the guys look like they're smiling in the video, but tears were streaming down their faces. I don't know if she got many shots of the guys' faces contorting, but they did – every one of them was crying. A couple of them were crying hard enough to be purple in the face (Jon in particular)… We were all sobbing messes in the crowd. I couldn't even cheer – no noise would come out of my throat… All I could do was hold a candle in one hand, and my friends in the other! It was a long break in the show; long enough to really think about how much all of our lives have changed in the past year. It was a moment of shared appreciation and love for the incredible journey we've all been on.
I just really felt the need to put that into context. That song is my favorite part of every show, and on Saturday night it was poignant. For all of you who couldn't be there, I just want you to know that I thought of each of you. I am really not doing a great job of putting this experience into words, but I'll never forget that moment as long as I live.
For many of us, 8/8/08 was a magical day in the Twin Cities.
It was the day that NKOTB came to the Mall of America to celebrate the grand opening of Best Buy.
So many of us waited for hours upon hours, sitting on the floor, standing in lines, scoping each other out, waiting to see our boys for the first time in years! The last time either of us had seen them, it was 1990.
It was the day that so many friendships were formed. That line about Five Brothers and a Million Sisters? It couldn't be more true.
It was an amazing, amazing day.
It needs to be commemorated.
At first we contemplated camping at the Mall of America all night, followed by sitting on a concrete floor for 16 hours, then listening to Summertime on repeat for 7 hours to celebrate.
But then, along with our friends at Return of NKOTB and NKOTB News we came up with something much better.
Details are still being ironed out but if you are anywhere in the vicinity of the Twin Cities Metro Area, please save the afternoon of 8/8/09 so that we can all get together again and celebrate what an amazing year this has been!
On the surface, you get savvy, smart, master's degree holding professionals who excel at their jobs and have loving families. Underneath all that impressiveness lie two raging fangirls willing to endure discomfort, inconvenience and the possibility of humiliation to prove that they are NKOTB's biggest fans (and hopefully, to score some backstage access).
About Project NKOTB
It all started about 20 years ago, when NKOTB really were new on the block. Kim and Alexis were fans then, and the love never faded. When the reunion was announced, Kim and Alexis knew that they had to make the most of the opportunity and see NKOTB as many times as possible, without totally abandoning those aforementioned careers and families.
Here, at Project NKOTB, they have chronicled their journeys to concerts at the Mall of America, Boston, Chicago, Saint Paul, Milwaukee, Omaha, San Diego, Los Angeles, Champaign, Des Moines, and Green Bay. They've trotted out memorabilia guaranteed to make women (and men) of their age group wistful and nostalgic. When it comes down to it, they generally party like it's 1988 (but with more drinks).
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