Do you remember when we first met...them

(aken from my Block Nation blog.)

Now that the guys are wrapping another tour and head back to their "regular lives" (as in 4 of them get back into their regular routine, one will HOPEFULLY take a few days off before heading back into his "side job" of being an actor),  I was reading through a lot of blogs of people who FINALLY got to meet them for the first time.  How some were overwhelmed, some could not say one word in any language, some were too tired just getting there to care, etc.  It got me to thinking about my first experience which is now close to 4 years ago. At a time when not a lot of people knew about the packages and thus a lot easier to get.  Back when the pictures were in short craptacular (be thankful Dove Shore is with us for the tour, y'all.)  Back when the guys actually MINGLED with the fans w/ after the photo ops (which stopped after Sacremento on the first tour.)  So I went digging through the ning (for the relative newbies, the old message board on NKOTB.com before the fan club was opened) and had to wade through the threads before I found what I posted back then.  Date September 20, 2008.


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Alright, so here is my Montreal VIP report (some of you may have seen it already)

So to preface....as some of you know (at this point several times! lol) I was on vacation from August 30th until September 20th. Meaning I missed out on all of the promotion, only saw one or two video blogs and managed to listen to the album ONCE. The trip itself was a mixed bag. Good since Vietnam and Singapore are beautiful, bad because I didn't buy anything, I was facing major jetlag due to being in the air for close to 24 hours and it turns out that my sister and I aren't the most ideal travel companions (though the way we fought sometimes, we're Amazing Race catnip!) and to top it all off, our luggage is either still in New York or somewhere in Peru. At least the final flight home got in on time, which meant I had 40 minutes to change, shower, do something with my hair, print out emails and go.

I arrived at the Mise O Jeu restaurant with my brother just after 5:30, since we had to figure out where we had to park and then make it in since our names were not on the parking list. Went in, got our laminates with "O" marked on the back. Headed upstairs and most of my friends. Because they arrived early, they were in group "F" and hence we wouldn't be able to take our pictures as we planned. Dissapointing, but hey, what can you do?

So I ate a bit. Chatted with my friends. A few minutes passed and the boys entered the roped off area and we were allowed to take pics while they said hello and Donnie entered round 1 of hugging/kissing people. We took pictures of our friends getting their pictures taken. Eventually it was our turn.

First guy was Joey. I said hello and told him that I loved his solo show in 2002. He said thanks and said he enjoyed playing at the Hard Rock. I told him it was the wrong venue, and we were both struggling to remember the name of the place lol. Donnie was next in line, but he was hugging someone else, so skipped ahead to Jonathan who was at the other end. We hugged hello and I asked if he was ok, doing alright, etc. Danny turned to him and said "How ARE you doing, Jon?" Jon laughed and said he was doing good. Hugged Danny and Jordan hello quickly as we had to line up for the photo. Since the boys were already surrounded, my brother and I stuck ourselves in the back.

As the other people were leaving the area, we approached Donnie. My brother told him he loved his movies (true) and his brother's (mostly true...he hated the Happening lol) and told him that I just arrived home and I was too scared and exhausted to talk. Of course, that's just an open invitation to grab me and hug me and we rocked back and forth. (Didn't get a kiss, but my lips were a bit chapped so it's just as well.) At that point, I managed to find my voice and said that was I was scared that the jetlag was going to hit me fast. He said that I should take a 30 minute power nap now because I had to be ready because the show was going to a "f&*!@# blast." I then said that if you see me fall asleep at my seat, I give him full permission to throw a shoe at my head. He pulls out a bottled water from his jeans pocket, gives it to me and said to drink this to keep from getting dehydrated. He said he was coming out to hang with the crowd and he'll see me in a bit. We hugged one last time and my brother and I went back to the tables. I did take a sip from the bottle before it dawned me that I should be keeping it (because you know....it WAS pretty close to hip bone area!), so I closed it off and stuck it in my bag. (The bottle is currently in my closet. Yes, I am that lame!) [b](2012 update: that bottle is long gone....instead I have his sock. Decent upgrade.)[/b]


True to his word, Donnie did come back out a few minutes later. Joey was around for a good bit (my brother got a picture with him, and I...somehow didn't!), missed Jordan and saw Jonathan a while later. We hung back for a bit as Donnie worked the crowd like he normally does. My brother was taking a picture for a friend and the camera didn't want to work which made him say "What kind of piece of (beep) camera are you using?!" I stayed back a bit, letting other people have their time. Eventually he saw me, made the "come here" hand motion and hugged me again for a good 20 seconds. Then we had a good 30 second conversation which consisted of "Are you ready?" "Are you ready for this crowd?" "No, are you ready for ME?" "Yeah, I'm ready, but are you ready for US? Because we're so much better than Toronto, eh ladies?" which got a "Oh yeah" from the people next to us. (It IS Montreal, after all!) My brother got to make clink beer glassed with Donnie as well.

And that was it. I had fun, the ILAA people were great, I just wished I ate more!
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The pictures from that show are here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/yikes-mtlchickie/sets/72157607415193412/

And my first ever picture w/ what's his name is....
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yikes-mtlchickie/2876347135/" title="&quot;Are you ready?!&quot; by Maria Sakhrani, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3097/2876347135_cffd98e585.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="&quot;Are you ready?!&quot;"></a>



Since then I've done my fair share of these M/Gs. I try to remember my other ones.  A lot are a blur.  Some were sweet.  One was "wait that entire 'meet and greet' was 63 seconds." (yes I had timed it.)  One was down right bad.  One was epic for all the wrong reasongs (read: 6 hour panic attack before the M/G which that alone is for another blog.)  Most were fun.  But in the end, you never forget your first.

So time to post yours.  If you want to simply reply to this one, fine.  But it's probably in your best interest to post as your own blog.  Everyone willl have a different experience but no matter when it was, you will always remember it.