"Can anyone direct me to the nearest backstreet?"

"If you want it to be good girl, get yourself a..." Backstreet Boy! (track 12, Backstreet Boys)

"It" is defined as.... a concert.

Cause HOLY COW. I went to the Backstreet Boys concert in Salt Lake last week. And simply stated, it was just about the most fun I have ever had.

Let me start at the beginning.

Picture a ten-year-old Audrey standing in Andrew's room, listening to the first, self-titled, Backstreet Boys album, reading the lyrics from the album sleeve, and trying to decipher whose voice is whose by looking at the pictures on the cover of the album. I tried so hard.

That CD was literally my first real exposure to modern music. Up until that point the only songs I knew were by the Beach Boys, TOTO, or Neil Diamond. I mean, I had heard songs on the radio while riding on the school bus (and was thoroughly annoyed with Savage Garden's "Truly, Madly, Deeply," might I add), but I never paid attention to any of it. I had best friends who loved the Spice Girls and *NSYNC, but I just didn't get it. Not until the Backstreet Boys.

The summer after 5th grade, when my family moved to Iowa, the Backstreet Boys fully entered my life-- in near-obsession form. I credit that to one of the best songs of the twentieth century, "I Want It That Way." That song- and the album that followed it, Millenium, changed my world. After that song, music became a hobby of mine. A major hobby (which continues today in the form of people like, um, Michael Jackson for example) that in its earliest stages included buying teeny-bopper magazines and cutting them up into collages, printing pictures off the internet to make into what eventually became my many "boy band" scrapbooks, buying concert VHS tapes and watching them, recording talk shows and specials onto VHS tapes when the handsome boy band boys were featured, and specifically in the case of the Backstreet Boys, the hobby included sleepovers with my best friend, Shellena, that were devoted solely to listening, dancing, and singing to the Backstreet Boys, and actually writing a book called, "My BSB Adventure." It is a compelling, coming of age story (haha) about Shellena and I meeting the Backstreet Boys and getting to go on tour with them. We rode in their tour bus. And they took us to the Mall of America and let us buy anything we wanted. (what more could a girl possibly want? oh wait... keep reading) AND, we made up a twin brother for Brian (because he was both me and Shellena's favorite Backstreet Boy) named Benny, who went on tour with them and took turns with Brian performing, so that we could BOTH fall in love with someone who looked and sounded like Brian. If I remember correctly, she ended up with the actual Brian, and I got fake Benny. I pretended not to be bitter.

Keep in mind that I'm still about 12 years old and this point. Well, the scrapbook of boy bands thing lasted until about 13... when the Harry Potter phase replaced it. But that's another story.

(best album in the history of the world)

So anyway. Me and the Backstreet Boys. We go way back. And in that original frenzy of "I can't live without listening to the entire Millenium album' at least twenty times a day," the only thing I wanted was to go to a Backstreet Boys concert. I wanted to. go. so. bad. But I couldn't go. I remember when they came to the Quad Cities (in Iowa). I counted down the days even though I wasn't going. I wanted to know when these 20-something year-old men were in my city. The day of the concert, when I was moping around the house, not at the concert, I remember my dad saying something about how he thought about getting tickets. I freaked out. "WHY DIDN'T YOU? I WOULD HAVE DIED TO BE IN THE SAME ROOM WITH THEM!" I really remember saying that. Clearly, he thought it was probably a good idea NOT to have gotten tickets. I wonder if he was worried about his little girl who was obviously going crazy.

It is safe to say that going to a Backstreet Boys concert was a dream of mine since the age of 11. I am now 22. That is HALF of my life. 

So, after the initial obsession, I waited from 2001 to 2005 for a Backstreet Boys album. One day, Moe came to my house with the fabulous news of a new BSB single. I heard it and immediately fell in love.

Now, 2010, three new (and virtually unheard of) CDs later, I actually still listen to them, and I own all of their stuff. I literally have 96 Backstreet Boys songs in my iTunes. I bet you didn't even know they had that many songs. Oh, they do.

And so, when they came to Salt Lake this year, there was only one decision to make, "When will we buy the tickets?" If wasn't really an "if." I knew that I had to go.

And I did.

I went with Stephanie and her friend Riley. We made shirts. Mine said, "You are my fire" and had a pink heart on it. Stephanie's said, "Get Another Boyfriend" (track 3 on Black and Blue), and Riley's said, "Backstreets Back ALRIGHT."

And seriously, I have never screamed so much in my entire life. I know it's crazy, and I know it's ridiculous. But that 2 hours of concert was unbelievable. The whole time I was like, "I can't believe this is happening. Is this really happening?!" It was.

Let's take a gander at some of my facial expressions during the concert:

This is me being REALLY excited before the concert even started.

This is us dancing to the boring DJ who kind of tried to open the show. We like to swing our hair around, and apparently I like to contort my face in weird ways. 

But anyway, nobody wanted to listen to the DJ guy. There were constant chants of "BACKSTREET BOYS! BACKSTREET BOYS!"

This is when the concert was about halfway over, and I was just shocked and overwhelmed by the amazingness. I couldn't handle it. Plus, I was feeling a little tired from screaming.

But no worries. This picture is about one minute later during "I Want It That Way," and any sort of fatigue quickly left. Pure happiness on that face. 

Yes, my face is contorted into a frown. I know I look funny. But let's just say that a tear actually almost escaped my eye when the concert was over. I didn't want those Backstreet Boys to leave.

 But then, the concert was over, and I was STILL excited. It was just way too much fun. 

So, they sang around 7 or 8 songs from their new album, which was super fun, because I know and love all of those songs, like "Bigger" and "Bye Bye Love." But the highlight of the show was BY FAR the old stuff. They did six songs from the first album (they show opened with "Everybody (Backstreets Back)," followed by, "We've Got It Goin' On" and "As Long As You Love Me." "Quit Playing Games With My Heart was also fantastic. They also played 4 songs from Millenium, the best album of the boy band era BY FAR. I nearly fainted when the music for "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely" started, lost my voice from screaming when the boys came out in robot outfits for "Larger Than Life," and knew my life was complete as I listened to the sweetness of "I Want It That Way." There were three songs from Black and Blue, the 2001 album, which isn't my fave, but still contains amazing songs like "The Call" and "Shape of My Heart" (okay, that might be my 2nd favorite BSB song ever). The last "old" song they performed was "Incomplete"- the first single from the 2005 album, and that might actually have been my favorite part of the concert. They just sounded so good, and that is just such a good song. 

So we all know I grew up with Brian as my fave. But after the concert- I mean, I'm still a #1 Brian fan- but I have to admit that AJ is the best live performer. His voice was AMAZING. And really, people screamed for him the most. 

Now, for more pictures:

 The beginning of the concert. They appeared out of that smoke.

Howie-Nick-AJ-Brian

Taken during "Shape of My Heart"

She the "Larger Than Life" robot costumes?

Us. And the BSB TOGETHER.

Just looking awesome. Look at AJ's checkered pants. 

Waving Goodbye. :(

All in all, I could not have made a better choice about going to that concert. It was something that I had to do. I spent way too much energy loving these guys as an eleven year old- I owned it to my pre-teen years to go to the concert and love it.

PS, I forgot to say that the one bittersweet thing was that Kevin wasn't there. He left the band in 2006. Good old Kevin. He's the star of the second verse in "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely" (you know, the "eyes of stone" part), and the bridge in "I Want It That Way." I missed him. Howie took all of his parts.

So there you have it. And in conclusion, I'm going to repeat AJ's parting words: "Remember everyone, BACKSTREET'S BACK!"