| Blonde Boy Adventure Part 1 San Diego and Pasadena June 14-15, 2002 |
| I'll try to make this as short as possible, but knowing me I'll ramble on about unimportant things like I always do. The thing is, I have no one else to tell about my adventures but you guys. I haven't even told my family because they don't care, they don't even PRETEND to care. My dad even said, "Tell me about your trip, but I don't want to hear about the concert stuff." *sigh* It hurts, but I get to gush to you instead. You are the outlet for my excitement. Forgive me, but I need to get it out of my system and typing it out is the only way I can. So now on with the story about our vacation filled with beautiful blonde boys -- Aaron, Ashley, and Nick -- and a few brunette hotties thrown in too. SAN DIEGO -- FRIDAY JUNE 14TH -- CHANNEL 93.3 YOUR SHOW Debi and I arrived at the venue to find Aaron playing basketball shirtless behind the amphitheater gates. No further comment on that situation because the only things I can think of are incredibly inappropriate. *fanning myself* Let me just say that Aaron and Nick have VERY different body types and leave it at that. Our seats were in the 6th row on the right side of the stage (the Kevin/Ashley side) but we never went to them at all. Actually, we never went to our seats for ANY of the shows. lol We just bounced around trying to get the best view the entire time. Aaron came on second after Soluna, and we were in the 3rd row at that time. NO ONE in our section stood up for him except us, but at least that way we got some "personal" Aaron attention. He did a 5 song set -- Bounce, NTYNTO, IAAY, Aaron's Party, and Baby It's You. During BIY, Aaron saw us singing along and smiled at us. :) We're thinking he was impressed that we knew the words to a song that WASN'T a single. Yep, we're true fans. lol My pictures came out really well since it was still daylight and he was wearing white. I'll be scanning and posting them later. We got kicked back to the 4th row just as O-Town was coming out to perform. I lost track of how many songs/which songs they performed, but I know they did We Fit Together, Over Easy, From the Damage, Love Should Be A Crime, and All or Nothing. Ashley gave new meaning to the part in WFT that goes, "I-I-I am here with you." *fanning myself again* When did that man learn to move like that??? The new songs are AWESOME by the way, totally rock-oriented, I'm LOVING it. Debi and I left the show right after O-Town, skipping No Doubt and Ja Rule, because we wanted to get on the road for our drive to LA. It took us a while to get out to the parking lot, but as we were walking to our car, the gated performers' entrance in the parking lot opened up. (this is where we saw Aaron playing basketball earlier) Two white airport shuttle vans with tinted windows pulled out, and Debi recognized Dan and Jacob in the first one, and Ashley was on a light up cell phone in the second. As I was fixated on watching Ashley's silhouette, Debi saw a white convertible mustang pulling out behind the vans and we heard a voice say "Good night ladies" or something like that. It was Erik, not hiding at all, actually DRAWING attention to himself. lol Weird. Cool, but weird. We would have followed them, but we needed to be getting on our way to LA, regardless of how/when O-Town was getting there. PASADENA -- SATURDAY JUNE 15TH -- KIIS FM WANGO TANGO One word: HOT -- and I'm NOT talking about the performers, although they were pretty hot too. Debi and I sat/stood/wandered in the 90-something degree weather from 1:30 pm til sundown -- the sacrifices we make for our beautiful boys. lol First hottie of the day: Nick Lachey accompanying his fiancee, Jessica Simpson, who was a special guest. They didn't even announce that Nick L. was there, but I recognized those lovely arms of his. :D Nick and Jessica looked very happy together, and she was wearing a HUGE diamond on her engagement finger. Our seats were in the 6th row of floor section A1, which was in front but WAY off to the left side (the Nick/Jacob side), not even in front of the extensions of the stage. That was pretty disappointing. But again, we never even went to our seats. We moved around between empty seats in sections A1, A2, B2, and B3 all afternoon. The stage (which you've probably seen in pictures by now) had two long side extensions going toward the edge of the floor seats (which very few performers even used) and a ramp out into the middle of the crowd. There was also a second stage set up at the end of the ramp in the middle of the field elevated over the sound booth, but only Jessica Simpson (who sang the National Anthem) and Vanessa Carlton performed on the second stage. Second hotties of the day: O-Town. Surprisingly, they were like the 3rd or 4th act of the day, waaaaaaay earlier than I expected them. They only performed 3 songs -- We Fit Together, a new song (I can't remember which one), and All or Nothing. Ashley was the only one to venture to our outer edge of the stage, but all of the guys ran part way down the ramp at one time or another. A few acts later was the moment we had been waiting for, our ULTIMATE hotties: Nick and Aaron. At this point Debi and I were in the front row of section B3, farther back than our own seats but closer to the center with a better view. Aaron started out with Bounce again, then he said he wanted to bring out "my best friend as well as my brother." Total cuteness. They were awesome of course. We got flashes of BOTH Carter tummies -- Nick's when his shirt flew up several times for "throw your hands up now" in NTYNTO and Aaron's when he pulled an AJ and lifted up his shirt for a not-14-year-old body roll on "your body activates me" during Baby It's You. *THUD* I'm not sure if I was feeling dizzy from the heat or from the Carters. lol Aaron's set was only 3 songs this time: Bounce, NTYNTO with Nick, and BIY -- short and sweet. They were off stage by 4 pm. Our next blonde boy excitement came several hours later right before Pink performed. Debi and I had moved back in the direction of our original seats and were talking with our new friends Angela and Ashley *waving* when we heard a commotion coming from the front of our section. Turns out Aaron wanted to watch Pink perform too, and on his way to the off stage viewing area, he came to the front of our section and started signing autographs. We bolted to the barricade with all the teenagers and got semi-crushed in the process. Since they didn't allow any bags in at all, I had nothing to be signed, but I was free to snap pictures like there was no tomorrow, hence the shots of Aaron that are a little *too* close. I really need to remember to ZOOM OUT! lol Angela had very very generously given Debi some of her own snapshots of the Carter brothers earlier in the afternoon, so Debi held out a picture of Aaron for him to sign. He walked past her but then turned back around when he saw that she had a picture. He took one look at it and make a quite sexy "oooooh" face as he was signing it. *thud* What a ham -- he likes seeing pictures of himself! lol After a minute or two he said he'd be back and hurried off to the wings of the stage to watch Pink. Taking Aaron at his word, Debi and I stayed put in the front row of section A1 and waited for him to come back. Pink's performance was AWESOME. I had seen her once before a couple years ago and I was impressed then, but this time was like WHOA. She's amazing. And Steven Tyler joined her on the last song, which was their duet "Misery" from Pink's album. Totally blew us away. There are no words to describe how great they were. Besides the blonde boys, definitely the highlight of Wango Tango for us. And for some lame reason, I think it's cool that Aaron was interested in their performance too. After Pink and Steven left the stage, the little one caused a commotion again by returning to our section just like he said he would. Debi heard one of Aaron's bodyguards (he has two) ask him if he wanted a pen to sign autographs again, but Aaron told him that he was just shaking hands this time. He went down the line of people smiling and saying "hi... hi... hi..." but when he got to Debi, his facial expression TOTALLY changed and he said, "HEY!" really loud as he shook her hand. It was like he knew her or recognized her or something. (That's what we choose to believe at least lol) Then I was next in line, and as Aaron kind of swiped my arm (not a hand shake) he said, "What's up?!" again kinda like he remembered us. It's difficult to explain, but when he walked away, Debi and I were both like, "Oh my god, did you see that? Did that mean what I think it meant?" It was probably nothing, but hey, it was special for us. If anything, maybe he remembered us being the only ones dancing and singing along with him the night before in San Diego. *shrug* Debi and I decided that we'd stay a couple more hours through Will Smith's performance and leave early, again missing No Doubt and Ja Rule, because we had a REALLY tiresome drive to Las Vegas ahead of us and we were already exhausted from two concerts and spending all day in the scorching sun. (BTW, we both got sunburned at WT, which you could probably tell from our pictures with Nick and Ashley) A couple songs into Will Smith's set, I spotted Aaron's dancer Matt (the one with the red hair) standing off stage next to the speakers on our side. Well if Matt is there, Aaron should be there too right? So I started scanning the rest of the people gathered off stage for blonde hair, and sure enough there was Aaron on the far side in the wings -- no blonde hair showing though because he had a towel over his head. I can spot those boys anywhere! lol Needless to say, we didn't pay any more attention to Will Smith and spent the last couple songs watching Aaron instead. He was getting all into it, smiling and clapping. It was cute to watch him watch someone else performing. After Will Smith, Debi and I were tempted to stay to see No Doubt and Ja Rule and to see if Aaron would hang around, but reason got the better of us and we stuck to our plan to leave early. With brief teeny moments in San Dimas (setting of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure) and Rancho Cucamunga (Trevor's home town, I don't know how to spell it), we were on our way through the desert to Las Vegas, our new favorite city in the world, site of our REAL blonde boy encounters. Aren't you on the edge of your seat? lol The best is yet to come... |
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