Never Gone. . .

Last night, I escaped from the office at 7:30 and met up with BF for a very quick dinner of street meat (the Kwik Meal cart on the SE corner of W 45th St and Avenue of the Americas) followed by half price pastries at the Au Bon Pain on W 50th St, just west of Avenue of the Americas. Why the rushed dining? Because we had to be at Radio City Music Hall for the 8:00 pm performance of. . . the BACKSTREET BOYS!!

With the exception of the BU campus on the first "warm" day of the season, I have never seen so many scantily clad girls/women in one place. I definitely felt out of place, especially since I was coming straight from work--but not as out of place as BF. There were at least 20 girls for every guy there. BF and I could not agree on the reasons why there were any men at all in the audience. I thought that most were dragged there by their girlfriends (although BF needed very little prodding before agreeing to accompany me to last night's performance). He thought that most of the men in the audience were gay. In either case, it was a GREAT concert.

BSB were certainly back, although looking a bit long in the tooth. The "cute" one (Nick) was a bit pudgy and was sweating profusely during their highly aerobic and intricate dance sequences. AJ can still belt out the tunes, Kevin (who used to be my favorite, yes I had a favorite backstreet boy) looked silly in cut off cargo pants with doc martens--time to turn in the skater punk look, Kev, you are over 30 and are an old man now. Brian was almost pulled off the stage by an over-eager fan.

Compared to the jingle ball concert we went to back in 1996, the boys were doing more snapping of fingers and gesticulating wildly while singing, and not nearly enough choreographed dance moves. But when they danced, oh could they dance. I found myself singing along to their classics such as As Long as You Love Me and Quit Playing Games with My Heart. BF even liked their remix of All I Have to Give with the Human League song Human. BF even thanked me for buying the tickets and said that he had a good time. When I asked him who his favorite Backstreet Boy was, he said that he had to plead the fifth. When pressed, he admitted that he liked Howie because he is the most normal. Overall, it was a highly entertaining event, if not for the boys, then for BF's attempt to suppress evidence of enjoying the show.