My Celebrity 2002 Concert, 3/8

Unfortunately, and yes this was my one biggest regret of the night, I didn't get a chance to bring in a camera and take any pics of the night, and now I really regret it. Ah well...anyway, on with the review!

Oh my God, you cannot even imagine. Or...maybe you can, but only if you've seen it.

I swear to Almighty Buffy, it was phenomenal.

I keep forgetting how tall Joey and Justin look in person.

You what the worst part is? The fact that the audience was cheering so loudly(and of course I didn't exactly help the situation much myself in that regard;))that you really have to strain to hear how absolutely, absolutely beautiful and flawless they sound. And I would like to take the moment to point out that from this point on anyone who wants to accuse them of *scoff* lipsynching or not using live music can kiss my soggy bottom 'cause you know what...I made a point during every song to just stand still, close my eyes, and just listen, and it was undescribable. I recommend everyone do this at least once during their concerts.

Yeah, I probably annoyed the people I was sitting around:p. Whenever there was some remotely more silent moment in the show I'd take the chance to shout things like "JOEY I WANT YOUR INTERCOURSE!!!!!!!" or "$#*&ING LOOK OVER HERE YOU TURDS!!!!!!!!!!!!"

My seats were nothing to brag about. Oh I saw the show effortlessly but average seats are average seats no matter how you slice it lol. I'm so glad they took the effort to move the show towards the back though, you get a great view when that big stage thing rolls down.

Again though...the screaming does tend to drown stuff out. During the opening B&W clip I couldn't understand a single word they were sayin' 'cause of all the noise, which is part of the reason I want a tape of this.

I missed all the opening acts 'cause I got to the venue really late(I had to get from Santa Cruz to San Jose and like a tool, I underestimated California traffic. Yeah yeah I know:p...living here for more than a decade has taught me nothing). But then I wasn't really looking forward to Ginuwine and wanted to save voice for *NSYNC so maybe it was a good thing. Unforunately I also missed Not So Boyband and I was really looking forward to shouting at Papa Joe to let me adopt his son. Oh well.

Here's the stuff, not necessarily in order, and if I missed anything trust me it wasn't intentional 'cause I loved every single second of this:

Bye Bye Bye...OMDearG, they changed up the choreography and the sound there was one particular change they made...I can't remember it very clearly but I remember it drove me off the wall! The dancing is a bit more smooth and groovy now to fit in with the changed remix...I think it was the Fox Christmas remix.

IGBM...some changes here too, the breakdown at the end was awesome, and again with the choreography mixes.

TUMH...my God, the arena was pumped. Love the song. Even after all this time...the song that first made me notice *NSYNC, the song that I've liked even the first time I heard it on TRL.

For the Girl Who Has Everything...lol...if there's one *NSYNC song that I will freely admit not feeling, it would be this(This and...Riddle and...I Need Love and...some others...yeah yeah I know:p). But hearing it live...hearing how great they sound...as I feared would happen from the second I heard that they were gonna perform this song, I actually liked it. Yeah yeah I know:p.

Celebrity...Joey and Lance did the chanting.
Joey and Lance did the chanting. I know 'cause I made very certain to point my binoculars at them during the chants and it was them for dead sure.
Yes. As it should be. As it should be, everyone. *moment of reverence* As. It. Should. Be.
They do this song with the mic stands a la God Must Have Spent and did some awesome choreography with those things too.

UATW...sounded awesome, I'd say this was one of their best performances of the night in terms of both energy and sound.

God Must Have Spent: Another classic, timeless and priceless. Sounded great. At the end of this they had a message dedicated to the victims of the WTC bombing...I thought that was very nice of them to acknowledge that.

Tell Me Tell Me...Baby...I was worried about this one. I don't like this song, I think it's the one track off of Celebrity that sounds like BSB, and really it does sound like the Call you gotta admit.
I shouldn't have worried. Seeing this live and seeing the guys put their own flare and sound into it is a [b]whole[/b] new vibe, seriously. There's even an added dance part I think that was completely *NSYNC.

Oldies Medley...alright I'll admit lol, there's two or three songs here that I didn't recognize very well and that kinda put a damper on things, but what was flat-out awesome is that Joey(and...yeah lol, those other two, but Joey mostly)had countless solo moments in there. Countless. And they sounded great, as usual. They have this cool hanging stage thing and got a lot closer to the back, which was of course a great treat for us who only have *sigh* fair seats.

OOOOoooOOooh!! If you guys haven't yet you need to get an audio of their Beatles Medley lol, there are some floating around online but I'm not sure where...anyway Joey has this hardcore rocker thing he does at the end of "Hey Jude" and OMG I love it, and he does almost all of "Twist and Shout"(lol I can't remember the actual name of the song...or maybe that's it?)with that tone...Joey rocks.

Sailing...Holy. ****ing. ****. The remix is off the hook...y'all have no idea. Seriously off the hook. I want an mp3 of it. Right now. With me. On my comp. Where I can play it over and over and over again. And if you know me you know that I didn't particularly enjoy the original version at all but good God this was just gkjfhraijslk off the wall.

No Strings Attached...H**l yeah with the swinging ropes!! I don't particularly like the sound for this one because I've noticed that consistently, like during NSA and in PO and now for this tour, they don't have a lead voice during the chorus and it sounds empty. But I still did like it.

TIPY...Awww they didn't do the Grammy remix and they didn't finish...but it was still good, of course.

IDMC...What can I say? Just sitting there and listening to the song performed so beautifully is so underrated these days. They guys kinda...uh, not really sure how to describe this, they kinda formed a train and went around the crowd lol. It was cool.

I Want You Back "Blues"...AAAAAAAAAAHHHH I love them. This is "priceless" defined, boys and girls. I swear to the Lord I heard Joey do some that high piercing thing he does a la "Crazy for You" somewhere in this but can't be sure(need...tape...). And Justin rocks my world, he did great with this song. At the end after doing that thing that he's been doing for a few years now, where he riffs for eons before coming to a close, he actually hands the song off to JC...and there's this cute exchange between all five of them and finally JC "gives in" and sings out this note that was so high and powerful and so, so ****ing masterful, it was hands down my favorite moment of the night.

Gone...AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!! ROCK! Hardcore! I love this version and I love what Justin does with it, as far as ballads go this one takes the cake 'cause it sounded amazing. Honestly it was smooth, and hard, and the guys started to headbang, and it was just everything that a performance should be, as was the rest of the concert of course.

Girlfriend...Hey baby hey baby hey. I love this, you love this, we all love this. They didn't change it up but it's all good. They play Nelly's video rap part in between, which was also really cool.

Pop...The most energetic, most raved performance. Sounded great, looked great, what a way to close the night. I swear the entire arena went stark-raving-insane.

People who have yet to go to the concert, watch for...

*Chris' one-liners. Priceless.

*Justin changing up a lot of the songs in his way and adding some things here and there, geezus some of the vocal stuff he pulled just knocked me off my feet.

*Sailing, just because...yes.

And you know...going to the concert today and watching and listening to them at their best, all this bull and b!tching the last few weeks and months about "Oh no Justin's going to leave them!" and "They're planning to break up after this" and "*NSYNC have changed so much. I don't like them anymore" just all went away. I can't explain it, but I know that my confidence in them today skyrocketted and nothing could bring it down.

So which do I like better, PopOdyssey or Celebrity? Well that's hard to answer...really if you gave me the chance I'd eat just as many live insects as necessary to see either of them over again(same with NSA). Celebrity had far fewer "WHOA!!!" moments than PO(When they busted into the VMAs IGBM breakdown I swear I started to choke on my own blood, I was screaming so loudly), but on the other hand they had more "Wow...!" moments(The start and end of IWYB "blues"...I'm still recovering).

I see PO as more an experiment, testing the limits of what even they can do. On a philosophical notation, it's like every man and his constant life question, "Just how strong am I?" and the need to test that very occasionally. And Celebrity delves back into what they're comfortable with and are good at. The reviewers are saying that they're taking a big risk with Celebrity by cutting and sizing it down in terms of spectacle and production but in reality I think PO was by far the "risk." A risk well worth taking, of course.

But it just seems that Celebrity surpasses PO on so many different levels while PO surpasses Celebrity mostly in size, production, and imagery. On that basis alone I'd say that yes Celebrity is a much better show than PO.

Congratulations to *NSYNC, because they just never seem to stop impressing.