Reliving Our Youth

It is a hot, humid day in S'port, LA during the summer of 1990. NKOTB are going to be in concert tonight at Independence Stadium and Melissa and I don't have tickets, so we spend the entire day trying our best to win or track down tickets. The concert starts at 7 pm and at about 4:30 we go home depressed and sure that we have missed our only chance to see our favorite group perform live in our hometown. Uncle Johnny comes home from work at about 5, and we notice something in his shirt pocket. Could it be? He smiles that "I know something you don't know" smile as he pulls the tickets out of his pocket! He got 3 tickets to the concert!!! How awesome is that?? So, we head to Independence Stadium for what we think is the best concert of our lives! Uncle Johnny even admits that it is a great concert although he is deaf and yelling at everyone else for the next three days! What a great summer night filled with excitement!
Fast forward 18 years......Melissa and I notice that NKOTB will be in concert at Broomfield Event Center in Colorado which is where we both live now. We look for tickets and ticket prices and are excited to know that they aren't sold out, but since I just purchased a house and have been doing a lot of remodeling it is not something that I can really spend money on. This is a bit upsetting to me because I definitely don't want to miss the chance to see them in concert again after so many years with my same cousin/BFF. The Wednesday before the concert Melissa comes to my work place with an envelope and pulls out the tickets that she got for us to go to the concert!!! I am speechless and totally excited! Even though this means I have to miss an evening of working on the house I know that it will be totally worth it!! We decide to leave the house at 4 on Friday evening, stop at Cinzetti's for dinner, and head to the concert which starts at 8. Leaving at 4 was a good idea because the traffic was horrendous. We were on the road for over an hour when we decided to head toward the event center (instead of straight for the restaurant) and then backtrack to the restaurant. It is supposed to only be 15 min from the event center, and if we go that way there is no traffic.....so we head off of I-25 onto 36. We pass an exit ,and Melissa asks if we were supposed to exit there, but I say, "No, that road is not written on your directions." An hour or so later we will find out that we should have taken that exit, and we would have saved ourselves a lot of time and heartache, but we wouldn't have enjoyed all the laughs we had. We got to the event center and decided to try to follow the directions from Cinzetti's to the event center backwards because this should get us to Cinzetti's....only one problem....the street names change regularly, and we can't find the streets we are looking for. I call the ever resourceful Bubba who is undoubtedly in front of a computer and can get us there safely. He tells us which direction to go, and we head that way. After about 10 minutes Bubba calls back and says that he thinks we are going in the wrong direction....too far North...we need to turn around. What??? So, we turn around, cross several lanes of traffic while being honked at and flipped off, then we are headed the right way. Bubba stays on the phone with us through every intersection and turn until we are back at that road that we should have exited on an hour earlier!! It takes us about 45 min to get to Cinzetti's even though it was only supposed to be 15 min. We get to Cinzetti's and enjoy a delicious dinner before heading to the Event Center for the concert. When we leave Cinzetti's we have a better idea of what we are doing and we get to the Event Center in about 10 min. We get free parking (SA-WEET), and when we get in the elevator in the parking garage one girl busts out with, "I think I am going to pee my pants when they take the stage!!!" Melissa and I burst out laughing, and we are both thinking that maybe she should hit the restroom before the concert starts! The opening acts are Lady Gaga and Natasha Bedingfield, but the crowd isn't really into either one. There are women in the audience with side ponytails, mini skirts, and their NKOTB shirts from the late 80's. We laugh alot and can't wait for them to take the stage. Once the room goes dark and the music starts the crowd goes crazy!! It is like everyone is 15 again! They sing all their old hits and a few new ones....still doing all the dance moves and getting the crowd all revved up. About halfway through the concert we notice that the security guards are putting up a barrier about 10 feet from us, but we really don't know what's going on....then they come through the crowd and get on a revolving stage about 20 feet from us!!! It is soo cool to be that close! We take pics, scream at the top of our lungs and enjoy ourselves!! The concert is definitely worth it, and we drive home at close to midnight....our ears ringing, our throats dry, and NKOTB music resonating in our heads.....we relived our youth and it was AWESOME!!!