"life is short, and so am i"

a handful of my fellow fangirls and i were super excited when the new kids on the block announced a summer tour along with paula abdul and boyz II men that included a stop at the hollywood bowl.  we scrambled to get a group together, decided on a budget and managed to score some terrace box seats for the show.  i was super excited because i've always wanted to sit in one of those boxes, which offers comfier seating along with tables to eat a picnic dinner on.  so much nicer than those bench seats you get most everywhere else in the bowl.

i'd bought some ridiculous custom fabric to make myself something to wear for the occasion, and my friend lilcee was spot on when she said that it looked like a teen magazine had barfed on it.  heh.  and i actually procrastinated till almost the very last minute because i couldn't decide what to make with it.  because after all, she was totally right, and the fabric was crazy obnoxious.  i finally decided to just go for it and make a whole dress out of it, mostly to use up as much of it as i possibly could and not have much left over.

i met up with dailygluttony and trish at lilcee's house and we all hopped into her car to head out to hollywood for our super fun girls' night out.  taking a tip from the hub, we'd decided to split the cost of the valet parking, which is pretty pricey but totally worth it for the ease and convenience...especially for after the show was over.  on our way into the lot i tried to get a shot of the marquee, which would have turned out pretty well if not for the traffic cop i caught right in the middle of it.  oh well.

after getting through the security checkpoint (which was blessedly short because we'd gotten there fairly early), we hung out near the merchandise tent to wait for one other friend to arrive from south OC.  we were treated to some pretty great peoplewatching as the line for meet & greets with the artists was right next to us.  and off in the distance, if you squint at the second picture, you can see one of the boyz II men dressed all in black with a baseball hat on standing in front of that bus.

as much as i do love souvenir tees and merchandise, i couldn't stomach the prices for those shirts.  maybe if i were a superfan, but i'm really just a casual NKOTB fan.

however, i spotted a couple of familiar faces who i knew WERE huge new kids fans...can you see them?

 yup...that's "full house" besties candace cameron bure and andrea barber.  we really wanted to say hello and ask for a quick selfie but didn't want to bother them while in line.  of course, when a couple of other fans also saw them, they didn't hesitate to walk up and ask for pictures.  and so we decided to stand next to them to see if we could do the same.  of course, their security dude stopped us and told us "hey, they deserve to just have a fun evening too."  true enough.

when our group was finally complete, we headed to our seats.  half of us were in another box on the other side of the theater, which was kind of a bummer as we didn't get to hang out all together.  but i did get to see another one of my buddies on the way to our box, and she actually IS a megafan.  she goes to all of their local shows and has even done the NKOTB cruise once or twice.

view from our seats without zooming in:

and the girls in the box behind us were nice enough to take a group photo for us.

time to eat!  lilcee had coordinated picnic boxed dinners for us from a local restaurant, and we each got a sandwich, side dish, salad and dessert.  it was delicious.

as we started to eat, the show kicked off with boyz II men.  they still sound great, by the way, and sang all of their most popular songs.  love them.

i spotted another familiar face - this time, it was emily wilson, who i recognized as "ellie" from general hospital.  and again, instead of approaching her i just took a picture from afar like the creeper i am.

the boyz handed out armfuls of red roses to excited audience members as they sang "i'll make love to you," which is one of my most favorite songs of the 90s.  i'm sure plenty o'babies were made to that song.

and a quick selfie before paula abdul took the stage:

i guess i took more videos than pictures of paula, who was mostly singing along to prerecorded vocals and doing a watered-down version of her old dance moves.  she was still entertaining, and managed to throw in her "you can do it!" story about how it took her three auditions to finally make it as a laker girl back in the day.

and then it was time for the main event.  there was plenty of screaming and cheering in there as the new kids took the stage.

it was kind of cool that they spent most of the show not on the stage but on the platform that was between the pool circle and the terrace boxes.  of course, not near OUR boxes, but we still had a pretty good view of them throughout the whole show.  and they took turns making their way through the audience, starting with bad boy donnie.

joey brought up andrea and candace, and it was a total 90s rewind.

they performed songs from all of their albums, including a lot of obscure ones i'd never heard before. the megafans could still be heard singing along to every word.

and it was fun to see their old photos side by side with their current selves.  sorry, danny, i totally missed yours.

and they sang a happy birthday song to a 13-year-old, which was a little awkward and weird.

plus a track from their christmas album:

and the cougars went wild as jordan did a little bump and grind and floor humping.  muahahahahaha.

there were plenty of fireworks:

and this flashed onscreen as they started the final song of the night.

bye bye, new kids!  thanks for a fun evening!