At Least I Can Say I've Done It. Can You?

My Backstreet Exploits.

Before I start, I know that most of you know that I took off my hijab for the weekend. And I also know that you've given me some serious flack about it, maybe not to my face, but definitely in your hearts. Can I just, for the record, state that I don't actually care? Cause I do know what's right and what's wrong and I'll pay penance for it but don't you dare assume, judge or criticize me based on the reasons YOU think I did them for.

There, with that done, on to the exploits.



Friday (25/09/09)

It started out early in the day, when I met Liza for lunch at Raffles City. We ended up buying some friend...er...stuff...at Old Chang Kee and made our way to the hotel lobby where the guys were staying. Ok, fine, we're fans that have to stalk hotel lobbies. I mean, if you wanna meet them, where else should you wait, right?

Anyways, we were just talking away on the couch about everything under the sun with Liza looking to the front and me keeping an eye on the back of the couch when suddenly, a group of people came out of the bar behind us. My first reaction? "Ooh..nice blue shirt!" My second reaction? "OMGTHAT'SBRIAN!"

Yeah, pending!Firah stage-whispered to Liza and we jumped off the couch only to find Nick and Brian (and supposedly Howie cause some scary fan shouted, "See you later, Howie!) already going into the lift with Q (their bodyguard) going, "Not now guys..not now!"

We were...yeah...not our finest moment.

Liza had to go back to work and I had nothing to do so I went round for Starbucks (where I bumped into JM and Mars and I finally got to know her in person) and took a short trip to Bugis before heading back to Raffles City to park my car because I had heard through a grapevine that supposedly, there's a flat rate of $2.50 there after 5pm. Snort.

Fast forward to my picking up news from different hotel staff members who did NOT know how to whisper gently and I planted my arse down in front of where the Boys were supposed to be coming from. Yana and Siti joined me at around 5 plus and together we waited. And waited. Until Q came down and started scoping the lobby. Nonchalant was the key and eventually he went to the back of our couch and we reckon he called up to a room (Nick's wethinks) to say...something. *shrugs*

Sure enough though, eventually, a dude wearing a white t-shirt and cap strolled out of the lift and the Backstreet radars went off. The crowd surged forward (as usual) and people started rushing in. (Let me take this chance to explain to you just how ELUSIVE Nick is. My friends and I have been very very lucky in a sense that we've met/seen/encountered the Boys many many times between 2006 - 2009 but Nick has always been the Impossible Dream. Almost untouchable. At this point, I thought I was going to be seriously rebuffed by him but I wanted to take a shot anyways. What-ifs drive me crazy)

He actually stopped to take pictures and sign autographs and that's when I decided to try my luck and swooped in to ask for a picture. "Nick, can I take a picture with you?" I was given the Carter nod but before I could go near him, Q pushed him forward and his back was suddenly to me because another girl had begun talking to him again.

But, come on, all bets are off, baby, when it comes to The Carter, so I decided to try and ask again and Nick stopped talking to the girl and turned back. Ok, I'm aware that he's sort of a, well, difficult character sometimes, so when he turned around and took a few steps back to me, that totally took me off guard a little. My brain was screaming, "DO NOT COMPUTE! DO NOT COMPUTE!"

Next thing I knew his arm was around me but there was no one to take the picture so I just stretched my arm as far as I could, muttered, "Ah never mind..." and got the picture.

So yeah. Got to finally violate The Carter. And bragging rights to say that I had his arm around me.

A 13 year dream was finally realized. And the reality of it didn't actually hit me until two days ago. How LAME am I, may I ask?

I accompanied the girls at the lobby that evening but sadly, they Boys were rushing. But we did get to see No Doubt and seriously? Gwen Stefani? I HEART you. She's freaking gorgeous in real life. And nice. You can see the niceness in her. It's insane.

And Liza got her moment with Bryan Tanaka. Like HELLO GORGEOUS!!!!! LOL! It was cute watching the both of them interact...It was like they were old friends (bb, I ain't kidding!).

We wrapped up for the night soon after and when I was heading out of Raffles City with Liza, I'd pushed my Autopass card into the card reader to pay for my parking fees, thinking that even if there's no flat rate, my $26 in the card would cut it. Nope. My fees were $43. LIKE RM 150. *sighs* I don't want to relieve that moment, not with us walking to 7-11 in heels...sighs...



Sunday (27/09/09)

Yes, we were at the stage by 4.30pm. Yes, the concert started at 10pm. Yes, we were lying on the grass, watching the F1 race on the big screen. And yes, we were in the front freaking row.


I'm gonna cut to the chase. Being in the front row with the Unbreakable set list? Felt a LOT like Sunway all over again. But to be honest, the Sunway concert was much much much better in terms of well...a lot of things. It's hard to put my finger on it but, no matter what, this concert was awesome too. Hey, it's the Boys. They know how to put on a show! You're kidding if you didn't think it was a lot of fun.

1) Us girls got blessed with Lord Carter's Water. LOL! It was funny when the water came spraying down on us after Nick threw the contents of his water bottle towards our direction. Not sanitary, Mr Carter. And in some cultures, that is considered rude. But in Carter's world, that's the cue for girls to start screaming on top of their lungs while trying to get under the spraying water with the rights to say, "I WAS BLESSED WITH NICK'S SPIT!"

2) This girl behind us kept sticking her camera phone in between Liza's head and mine, knocking us non-stop. There was another girl who kept screaming, "OMGNICKILOVEYOUUUUU!!" and "FUCCCCCCCCKKKKKK!! ILOVEYOUNICKKKKKKKKK!!" throughout the whole concert. It's actually in my videos so..yeah...have a ball with that one peeps. The girl next to me kept on flailing her arms all over the place.

3) At one point, we saw one of the bodyguards taking a picture of the crowd, which we KNEW was going to go on Twitter. The girl next to me started blowing air kisses at it and just shaking her body all over the place towards him. All this because we saw Mr Nickolas whisper to him something and eventually we figured the Twitter deal. Hey dude! My girls and I were on the Backstreet Boys official Twitter page! How many people can actually say that? WOOT!

4) From our side of the stage, we could totally see Brian imitating Howie during Howie's solo set. IT.WAS.HILARIOUS. Sorry Howie! We couldn't pay attention cause Brian was totally hamming it up backstage.

5) See, the thing about the front row was that about 70% of us knew each other. Oddly enough, the AJ crowd was on the right side and the Nick girls were on the left. Before the concert, Yana made a joke about how we should have signs that say, "AJ go there!" and "Nick, go there!" with arrows directing them to their significant crowds. Guess what? AJ kept on coming on our side of the stage and Nickolas decided to ram his body up the crowd on the AJ girls. The irony of this is not lost on us at all. And it's not funny.

6) Brian kept fanning himself with his hand. Poor guy even mouthed, "It's hot! It's hot!" to our side of the crowd while one of the other Boys were singing.

7) My Quit Playing Games With My Heart video has Brian interaction. Doesn't beat my Nick interaction from the Sunway video (cause to be fair, I AM a Nick girl) but this comes really really close.

It was awesome, really. And I shouldn't bitch much cause I do realize that there are a lot of people (closet or open fans) who'd kill to get to go through the experiences that I've gone thorough with the Boys. And I won't. =) Especially since the company was awesome as well.