Carin had emailed me over three months ago and asked me if I would go to the
'NSync concert with her. I think she knew that I wasn't really a big
fan but she also knew I was her only friend that would go with her. When I agreed to go with her she warned me that even though she is 27 she is absolutely
obsessed with
Justin Timberlake and she would probably be drooling over him like a fourteen year old the whole time.
Well, I love my friends, and there isn't too much I wouldn't do for them, and besides, I do like their music, I am a fan of good singing. I've heard them live before and thought they were good, so I agreed to go.
Well in the three months that passed between her asking me to go and the actual date of the
concert, this trip evolved from a simple four hour drive to
Cleveland for a Friday night show to staying in town Friday night and going to the concert again on Saturday. I didn't want to let her down so I agreed to the change in plans and besides, Cleveland has a pretty decent night life...
So we hopped into the car and headed for Cleveland. On the drive there she informed that she had specifically asked me to go with her because she knew that if anyone could find out information on where the band was staying and if anyone could find 'NSync, it would be me. Apparantly, not only do I have a knack for picking out outfits for my friends, but I also possess the gift of talking to strangers. She told me that she was dying to find out what
hotel they were staying in and she had been chatting and reading and researching on the 'net but no one would tell her anything important. And that's when the
challenge was issued.
I could see that it was really important to her that she find these guys and meet them, Justin in particular. It seemed a little silly to me but at the same time I could understand, I'll admit it, the idea of meeting anyone famous is extremely intriguing to me. And she had given this a lot of thought and knew that the only way should would be able to find anything out is if we talked to people and dug information out of them. I had no idea at the time how difficult this was going to be...but I soon found out.
Before every show 'NSync has something they call a
Meet and Greet, where a few fans get to ask a very few questions and get autographs. After checking into the hotel we headed for the arena to see what this was all about. I quickly found out through conversation with the kids in the crowd and the security guards that you had to know someone to get in the Meet and Greet. I'm not even that big of a fan but the challenge was there, I was so caught up in the game of it...
Suddenly I heard some girls standing just a few feet away from me screaming. It turned out they had just scored passes for the thing because it was one of the girl's birthday. But as it turned out they only scored six passes and there were eight of them. It was so sad to see those two girls left behind. But this sad story came in handy later.
About half an hour later a woman walked up to the security guard and showed her passes for the Meet n Greet. The guard told her that no one else could come in at the moment but to wait til the gate opened, and then take a right (instead of a left), take another right, go through the glass doors, get on the elevator and go to the second floor and that's where the meet n greet was. So when they opened the gate Carin and I took a right, another right, went through the glass doors, took the elevator to the second floor and started to walk right into the meet n greet area. But we were stopped by a security guard.
The
security guard was a woman and I think this might have been our best luck in the whole thing. She asked us if she could help us and I said so simply, as if I truly belonged there, that I was here for the Meet n Greet. She asked to see our passes and of course I didn't have any. I had no idea what I was going to say when I opened my mouth but suddenly I found myself relating the story of those poor girls upstairs that didn't make it in. I told the security guard that there was a group of ten of us, and that someone had given us passes but only six. And that the woman had told us that when the gate opened to take a right, another right, go throught the glass doors, take the elevator to the second floor and they would let us in. Of course she said that she couldn't let us in without the passes and I got this ultra sad look on my face and threw out the the most important phrase of the weekend, I drove all the way from Albany. She then told me she would see what she could do.
She ended up calling one of the concert promoters over and he asked me to re-tell my story. I couldn't believe that I had gotten this far and I didn't really think that I would get anything out of it, but I had to try, the challenge was on! He was going to turn me down. He said that they didn't have anymore passes but I once again whipped out the phrase that pays, "I drove all the way from Albany" and that I was in town for both concerts and could I get passes for tommorrow's Meet and Greet? He was impressed that I had driven about ten hours to see these concerts and he promised me tickets and Meet and Greet passes for the Buffalo concert on Sunday. That was perfect because
Buffalo was on the way home! So I made sure to get his name, which I cannot believe I had the wisdom to think of doing!, and I shook his hand. We then went in to the concert and had a really good time. The seats weren't the best seats in the world, they were on the floor but all the way in the back, row VV but we saw where our seats were for
Saturday's show and they were close to the best seats in the house - right on the end of the stage, fourth row. We couldn't believe we had scored free tickets for a third concert and Meet and Greets passes!! But at the same time, we wondered if they would be there. But if you care/wanna know, you gotta read my day log for
Saturday and
Sunday!!