the good, the bad, and the worst
again, i say, dear friends, if i'm seeing you in the next couple of hours/days, don't read this. let me wow you with the details IN PERSON. <3333
most of the girls who were there are probably gonna disagree on this score, especially people like m_i_a_s_m_a, liza1131, mersey04, her sister, and firah, who got to be in the VIP BOX!!!!! (colour me jealous over here) but yes, the concert was probably the aaaaaabsolute worst part of the trip for me.
i love you, boys, but the concert did not make up everything you put me through by HALF.
we woke up early that morning, intending, like the crazy fans we are, to queue for the tickets at 10am, which is when we heard that they'd be available. we were downstairs having breakfast by, like, 8.30ish. it was a pretty quick one, though, and then we trooped over to the boys' hotel to see if we could find out what their plans were (although if i admit it, i was a little boys-ed out by this time), but found out that none of them had come down yet. the doorman was all, "dude, don't you guys sleep?" when he saw us, which cracked me up. they got so used to us coming and going that when they saw us, they started singing backstreet songs as they pulled the doors open. BWAHA. even the local organizer/security people recognized us, and waved as we walked into the hotel.
anyhow, apart from jo and van, the rest of us decided that we should go back to our rooms to get ready for queueing and stuff, so we did. but the guys weren't there even then, so we hung around with our very conspicuous banners and goody bags. it was a little awkward for a while, though, because the local security people WERE HITTING ON bsb87angel and purajo which was just UGH. my skin crawled, man. so when brian FINALLY came down, golfing bags in tow, we were just standing at the opposite end of the lifts, and i COULD NOT HAVE BEEN HAPPIER. we kind of went, "hi brian!" and he turned, looked at us, and waved. "good afternoo--" checked his watch, "good morning, guys!" and flashed the hugest, most sheepish, most ADORABLE GRIN EVAH. oh BRIAN. be still, my heart! aj came out a little while later, carrying his adorable puppy golfing... thing, and waved and said good morning as well. he lingered in the lobby a while - as we realized he tends to do - but then they were gone.
the vans and security were gone, so we figured nick and howie were probably going to be upstairs nursing their hangover till late, and headed back to the hotel. i should probably make it clear that we checked out the venue before we went back to our hotel, but decided it was ridiculous to queue because nothing was set up yet and THERE WAS NO ONE THERE BUT US. malaysia fans. pah. so we went back to our hotel room and hung out for a while, when there was a sudden commotion because OMG! OMG NICK AND HOWIE WERE IN OUR HOTEL HAVING LUNCH! (... that was only SLIGHTLY sarcastic, i promise). the thing about our hotel room is the windows face the INSIDE, so they were sitting at the opposite end of our room, which meant we had a great view of everything they were doing. sid even got a photo of nick with his fingers in his mouth.... GUH.
so the rest started snapping photos like the paparazzi gone mad (*snort*) and i should probably mention at this point that i didn't bring a camera. i didn't even bring a notebook for them to sign on, that's how nonchalant i was at the beginning of the whole thing. so i was sitting on the bed further away, kind of laughing at all of them, WHEN TESH'S FLASH WENT OFF. oh. my. god. the reaction WAS HILARIOUS. THEY DIVED AWAY FROM THE WINDOW, ALL FIVE OF THEM, and just crouched down, snorting with laughter and caught between amusement and horror. OMG DID HE SEE?! DID HE SEE!? OMG TESH! NO FLASH! NO FLASH!!!!! it was so nuts. some of them went downstairs after that, to "casually" bump into the boys, but i was about done with the boys by then (plus it wasn't like it was brian and aj or anything, heh!), so i headed downstairs to liza1331's room.
it was like a sanctuary of sorts. jo and van are INTENSE, man. and i swear we wouldn't have gotten have the things we got done done without them, but it was nice to chill out for a little while, and laugh at myself and at the boys with m_i_a_s_m_a and the rest. they crack me up like no other, man. always have, always will. <333333 they were about to leave for lunch, though, so i headed back upstairs to freshen up. i was going to join them, but my room was being cleaned up and my roomies were all leaving, so i figured i should stay in case anyone decided to take vanessa's laptop while the rest of us were away. that's when sid and jo came back, and we all decided it was about time to go down to start queueing since it was about 2ish.
so we went down in our concert gear, ready to wait (AGAIN), WHEN WHO SHOULD WE SEE IN THE HOTEL RESTAURANT... BUT BRYANT! or really, HE SAW US. AND HE CAME UP TO US. TO TALK. TO ASK HOW WE WERE AND IF HE'D SEE US AT SOUNDCHECK. AND HE SAID IT WOULD PROBABLY BE NO PROBLEM AND TOLD US TO COME EARLY. OMG BRYANT. BRYANT, I LOVE YOU. and since we were all ready to queue, we had the goody bags with us, but it was only AFTER he started walking away that we were like OMG WE SHOULD GIVE IT TO HIM. so we chased after him and we gave it to him, and THIS JUST COMPOUNDED MY LOVE FOR HIM:
us: bryant! this is for the band! *hands over the goody bag*
bryant: oh, for the backstreet boys?
us: no, the band! you guys!
bryant: *TOTALLY UTTERLY COMPLETELY TAKEN ABACK, AND IT IS WRITTEN ALL OVER HIS FACE* us? for us?
us: yeah! this is for YOU GUYS! THE BAND GUYS!
bryant: *STILL TOTALLY UTTERLY COMPLETELY SURPRISED* oh, wow. thank you, guys. that's so sweet. thank you. *HUGS JO* thank you. we really appreciate it. *HUGS SID* thanks, so much.
AND THAT LED TO THE MOMENT WHICH, OMG, HIGHLIGHT OF MY FUCKING YEAR: BRYANT HUGGED ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111111ONE!!!!!11111111111
and then he was all, i'll make sure the other guys get this, thank you, thanks so much, we appreciate it. and started walking off. i swear i just burst into giggles right then and there because oh my GOD how much i HEART that man!
but the good stuff pretty much ended about there for me. we headed down to wait at the sunway lagoon theme park entrance after that, but no one was around. so sid, akbar and i went to grab a quick lunch (at kfc, for the second time in as many days), and just as we came back, one of the galaxy quest guys (aka the asshole organizers) came up to us and pretty much told us to haul ass and get out of there because we weren't supposed to be there. there was a mini showdown between him and jo, wherein she basically said we were told to wait there for the soundcheck before the concert, but we hauled ass in the end anyway. and then of course we had the satisfaction of laughing in their faces when they checked the list and found out that, yes, our names WERE on it. we still weren't allowed to hang around there, though, so we were shooed back upstairs to the main entrance. i think it was about 4ish by that time, and there was still no queue. so akbar, sid and i headed indoors to wait, while the rest went to the poolside to see if they could spot the guys. unfortunately, we got nothing, so at about 4.30 we met up again, and hung around till 5 before going to see if we could get in for soundcheck yet, since we'd been asked to show up at about 5, 5.30.
it was A MESS. it was awful. the media booth wasn't up yet, so there was no way to check where the list was. we had no idea if we should just join the queue for the concert, either, because one of the galaxy people said they were gonna flush everyone out of the queue at 6.30 and make them RE-queue again, which made no sense, but nothing about the way the concert was being organized made any sense to us, so hey. so we hung around, waiting for the media list to be released, AND THEN, AT 6PM, IT BEGAN TO RAIN. it was on-off, on-off for a while, but i was in fucking white pants, dude. SERIOUSLY. i kept thinking, could this GET any worse?
and of course, IT DID. AS IF IT WASN'T BAD ENOUGH, IT STARTED POURING. POURING. LIGHTING. THUNDER. MAYHEM POURING. i was running around trying to find some form of shelter the whole time, but the rain just kept on coming. in the end i got so drenched that i had to run back to the hotel to change into jeans and a new shirt. thank god i was quick, though, because i almost missed the rest of them being led inside for soundcheck. and, check this out, we were on THE PERSONAL LIST. not the media list, or the sony bmg list, or the winners list, no. THE PERSONAL LIST. how obnoxious do i sound right now? but man, i was so thrilled when i heard that i didn't even really care that my hair was dripping and i was wet and sweaty and stinky and gross.
when we got into the shelter, though, they finally told us that there was no time for a soundcheck, so we'd be doing a meet and greet. OMG HOW EXCITED WERE WE!!!!!!! i must've been grinning like a fool, i swear to god. so we were all herded into this restaurant and made to sit down in our groups (winners at a table, media at a couple of tables, etc). it was really intimate, and personal, cos there weren't that many of us. so after maybe 15 minutes, the boys finally come in. we're all really quiet, since we were pretty much ordered by management to be, until the boys started waving their hands like, omg why is the crowd so dead? it was hilarious. i got butterflies, man. our table was the closest to where the boys were standing, though, so vanessa managed to get brian's attention, and she was like, "brian, we're the ones who are wet now!" and he thought she was joking at first, cos he was all kind of, "yeah, haha!" and put his hand on her shoulder. of course, once he realized she was SOAKING, he jumped back and went, "oh my god!" and then started fanning her shirt and BLOWING AT HER LIKE SOME KIND OF DRY CLEANER.
after the whole thing was over, jo was like, OMG NAT! WHY DID YOU CHANGE OUT OF THOSE WHITE PANTS! AND I WAS ALL OH MY FUCKING GOD I KNOW! i want the aj dry cleaning service, dammit. but anyway, we were pretty much moved around like cattle. "okay people, you're going to do this in groups of four! WE'LL TAKE THE PHOTOS. you don't get any! no photos! no videos! we have camera people! you just wait till we upload the pictures to the official website! comprende?!" basically, that was the gist of it. luckily for me, my group was made up of a brian!girl, a howie!girl, a nick!girl, and me. so we all made a beeline for our boy.
WHICH BRINGS US TO HISTORICAL MOMENT OF MY LIFE NUMBER 2. as jo said, i lost my aj virginity (and man do i wish that was as dirty as it sounds) BUT AJ SHOOK MY HAND. HE SMILED. HE SAID, "HEY, HOW ARE YOU?" AND I ACTUALLY SAID "I'M GOOD. HOW ARE YOU?" MY VOCAL CHORDS DIDN'T FREEZE. I DIDN'T STAND THERE LIKE AN IDIOT. AND I PASSED HIM THE PRESENT. after which we had to turn around for the photo, and he was all sing-songing, "i got a present! i got a present!" oh, AJ. YOU DOOFUS. <333333333333333333333333333333333333 the rest of the boys got their goody bags, too, and tesh gave howie both the banner AND THE KEVIN FAN. which seemed to amuse him very much. though really, can you blame him? that thing cracked us up every time we looked at it.
then we were pretty much shoved aside, and given a photo of the boys with all their autographs on it, and at the back of my mind i'm thinking, 'someone planned this for me. no camera, no book to sign, and i STILL get a photo with all of them AND all their autographs!' so we go back to our seats, and wait for the rest of the people to get their turns. but that was supposed to be the end of things, apparently, because the boys were being herded off too, until one of the fangirls managed to talk to aj and tell him how much she wanted to hear them do a song. SO HE STOPPED THE REST OF THEM. HE SAID, "WAIT, THIS GIRL ASKED FOR A SONG". SO THEY DID ONE. THEY WALKED UP TO OUR TABLE - OUR TABLE - AND DID HWSS. FUCKING GUH. they sounded SO good. SO, SO GOOD I DON'T EVEN HAVE THE WORDS. i got CHILLS man. goosebumps up and down and EVERYTHING. and all i could hear was aj doing the low parts and making my stomach do flip-flops. of course brian goofed it up at the end a little bit, the crazy boy, BUT OMG SO MUCH LOVE.
i thought i'd be able to wrap things up in this post, but i'm gonna split this up into one more, because everything went downhill from there, AND THIS POST IS GOING TO GIVE ME TINGLES FOR A VERY LONG TIME.
more tingles to be found in the first post, but not so much in the last one.
most of the girls who were there are probably gonna disagree on this score, especially people like m_i_a_s_m_a, liza1131, mersey04, her sister, and firah, who got to be in the VIP BOX!!!!! (colour me jealous over here) but yes, the concert was probably the aaaaaabsolute worst part of the trip for me.
i love you, boys, but the concert did not make up everything you put me through by HALF.
we woke up early that morning, intending, like the crazy fans we are, to queue for the tickets at 10am, which is when we heard that they'd be available. we were downstairs having breakfast by, like, 8.30ish. it was a pretty quick one, though, and then we trooped over to the boys' hotel to see if we could find out what their plans were (although if i admit it, i was a little boys-ed out by this time), but found out that none of them had come down yet. the doorman was all, "dude, don't you guys sleep?" when he saw us, which cracked me up. they got so used to us coming and going that when they saw us, they started singing backstreet songs as they pulled the doors open. BWAHA. even the local organizer/security people recognized us, and waved as we walked into the hotel.
anyhow, apart from jo and van, the rest of us decided that we should go back to our rooms to get ready for queueing and stuff, so we did. but the guys weren't there even then, so we hung around with our very conspicuous banners and goody bags. it was a little awkward for a while, though, because the local security people WERE HITTING ON bsb87angel and purajo which was just UGH. my skin crawled, man. so when brian FINALLY came down, golfing bags in tow, we were just standing at the opposite end of the lifts, and i COULD NOT HAVE BEEN HAPPIER. we kind of went, "hi brian!" and he turned, looked at us, and waved. "good afternoo--" checked his watch, "good morning, guys!" and flashed the hugest, most sheepish, most ADORABLE GRIN EVAH. oh BRIAN. be still, my heart! aj came out a little while later, carrying his adorable puppy golfing... thing, and waved and said good morning as well. he lingered in the lobby a while - as we realized he tends to do - but then they were gone.
the vans and security were gone, so we figured nick and howie were probably going to be upstairs nursing their hangover till late, and headed back to the hotel. i should probably make it clear that we checked out the venue before we went back to our hotel, but decided it was ridiculous to queue because nothing was set up yet and THERE WAS NO ONE THERE BUT US. malaysia fans. pah. so we went back to our hotel room and hung out for a while, when there was a sudden commotion because OMG! OMG NICK AND HOWIE WERE IN OUR HOTEL HAVING LUNCH! (... that was only SLIGHTLY sarcastic, i promise). the thing about our hotel room is the windows face the INSIDE, so they were sitting at the opposite end of our room, which meant we had a great view of everything they were doing. sid even got a photo of nick with his fingers in his mouth.... GUH.
so the rest started snapping photos like the paparazzi gone mad (*snort*) and i should probably mention at this point that i didn't bring a camera. i didn't even bring a notebook for them to sign on, that's how nonchalant i was at the beginning of the whole thing. so i was sitting on the bed further away, kind of laughing at all of them, WHEN TESH'S FLASH WENT OFF. oh. my. god. the reaction WAS HILARIOUS. THEY DIVED AWAY FROM THE WINDOW, ALL FIVE OF THEM, and just crouched down, snorting with laughter and caught between amusement and horror. OMG DID HE SEE?! DID HE SEE!? OMG TESH! NO FLASH! NO FLASH!!!!! it was so nuts. some of them went downstairs after that, to "casually" bump into the boys, but i was about done with the boys by then (plus it wasn't like it was brian and aj or anything, heh!), so i headed downstairs to liza1331's room.
it was like a sanctuary of sorts. jo and van are INTENSE, man. and i swear we wouldn't have gotten have the things we got done done without them, but it was nice to chill out for a little while, and laugh at myself and at the boys with m_i_a_s_m_a and the rest. they crack me up like no other, man. always have, always will. <333333 they were about to leave for lunch, though, so i headed back upstairs to freshen up. i was going to join them, but my room was being cleaned up and my roomies were all leaving, so i figured i should stay in case anyone decided to take vanessa's laptop while the rest of us were away. that's when sid and jo came back, and we all decided it was about time to go down to start queueing since it was about 2ish.
so we went down in our concert gear, ready to wait (AGAIN), WHEN WHO SHOULD WE SEE IN THE HOTEL RESTAURANT... BUT BRYANT! or really, HE SAW US. AND HE CAME UP TO US. TO TALK. TO ASK HOW WE WERE AND IF HE'D SEE US AT SOUNDCHECK. AND HE SAID IT WOULD PROBABLY BE NO PROBLEM AND TOLD US TO COME EARLY. OMG BRYANT. BRYANT, I LOVE YOU. and since we were all ready to queue, we had the goody bags with us, but it was only AFTER he started walking away that we were like OMG WE SHOULD GIVE IT TO HIM. so we chased after him and we gave it to him, and THIS JUST COMPOUNDED MY LOVE FOR HIM:
us: bryant! this is for the band! *hands over the goody bag*
bryant: oh, for the backstreet boys?
us: no, the band! you guys!
bryant: *TOTALLY UTTERLY COMPLETELY TAKEN ABACK, AND IT IS WRITTEN ALL OVER HIS FACE* us? for us?
us: yeah! this is for YOU GUYS! THE BAND GUYS!
bryant: *STILL TOTALLY UTTERLY COMPLETELY SURPRISED* oh, wow. thank you, guys. that's so sweet. thank you. *HUGS JO* thank you. we really appreciate it. *HUGS SID* thanks, so much.
AND THAT LED TO THE MOMENT WHICH, OMG, HIGHLIGHT OF MY FUCKING YEAR: BRYANT HUGGED ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111111ONE!!!!!11111111111
and then he was all, i'll make sure the other guys get this, thank you, thanks so much, we appreciate it. and started walking off. i swear i just burst into giggles right then and there because oh my GOD how much i HEART that man!
but the good stuff pretty much ended about there for me. we headed down to wait at the sunway lagoon theme park entrance after that, but no one was around. so sid, akbar and i went to grab a quick lunch (at kfc, for the second time in as many days), and just as we came back, one of the galaxy quest guys (aka the asshole organizers) came up to us and pretty much told us to haul ass and get out of there because we weren't supposed to be there. there was a mini showdown between him and jo, wherein she basically said we were told to wait there for the soundcheck before the concert, but we hauled ass in the end anyway. and then of course we had the satisfaction of laughing in their faces when they checked the list and found out that, yes, our names WERE on it. we still weren't allowed to hang around there, though, so we were shooed back upstairs to the main entrance. i think it was about 4ish by that time, and there was still no queue. so akbar, sid and i headed indoors to wait, while the rest went to the poolside to see if they could spot the guys. unfortunately, we got nothing, so at about 4.30 we met up again, and hung around till 5 before going to see if we could get in for soundcheck yet, since we'd been asked to show up at about 5, 5.30.
it was A MESS. it was awful. the media booth wasn't up yet, so there was no way to check where the list was. we had no idea if we should just join the queue for the concert, either, because one of the galaxy people said they were gonna flush everyone out of the queue at 6.30 and make them RE-queue again, which made no sense, but nothing about the way the concert was being organized made any sense to us, so hey. so we hung around, waiting for the media list to be released, AND THEN, AT 6PM, IT BEGAN TO RAIN. it was on-off, on-off for a while, but i was in fucking white pants, dude. SERIOUSLY. i kept thinking, could this GET any worse?
and of course, IT DID. AS IF IT WASN'T BAD ENOUGH, IT STARTED POURING. POURING. LIGHTING. THUNDER. MAYHEM POURING. i was running around trying to find some form of shelter the whole time, but the rain just kept on coming. in the end i got so drenched that i had to run back to the hotel to change into jeans and a new shirt. thank god i was quick, though, because i almost missed the rest of them being led inside for soundcheck. and, check this out, we were on THE PERSONAL LIST. not the media list, or the sony bmg list, or the winners list, no. THE PERSONAL LIST. how obnoxious do i sound right now? but man, i was so thrilled when i heard that i didn't even really care that my hair was dripping and i was wet and sweaty and stinky and gross.
when we got into the shelter, though, they finally told us that there was no time for a soundcheck, so we'd be doing a meet and greet. OMG HOW EXCITED WERE WE!!!!!!! i must've been grinning like a fool, i swear to god. so we were all herded into this restaurant and made to sit down in our groups (winners at a table, media at a couple of tables, etc). it was really intimate, and personal, cos there weren't that many of us. so after maybe 15 minutes, the boys finally come in. we're all really quiet, since we were pretty much ordered by management to be, until the boys started waving their hands like, omg why is the crowd so dead? it was hilarious. i got butterflies, man. our table was the closest to where the boys were standing, though, so vanessa managed to get brian's attention, and she was like, "brian, we're the ones who are wet now!" and he thought she was joking at first, cos he was all kind of, "yeah, haha!" and put his hand on her shoulder. of course, once he realized she was SOAKING, he jumped back and went, "oh my god!" and then started fanning her shirt and BLOWING AT HER LIKE SOME KIND OF DRY CLEANER.
after the whole thing was over, jo was like, OMG NAT! WHY DID YOU CHANGE OUT OF THOSE WHITE PANTS! AND I WAS ALL OH MY FUCKING GOD I KNOW! i want the aj dry cleaning service, dammit. but anyway, we were pretty much moved around like cattle. "okay people, you're going to do this in groups of four! WE'LL TAKE THE PHOTOS. you don't get any! no photos! no videos! we have camera people! you just wait till we upload the pictures to the official website! comprende?!" basically, that was the gist of it. luckily for me, my group was made up of a brian!girl, a howie!girl, a nick!girl, and me. so we all made a beeline for our boy.
WHICH BRINGS US TO HISTORICAL MOMENT OF MY LIFE NUMBER 2. as jo said, i lost my aj virginity (and man do i wish that was as dirty as it sounds) BUT AJ SHOOK MY HAND. HE SMILED. HE SAID, "HEY, HOW ARE YOU?" AND I ACTUALLY SAID "I'M GOOD. HOW ARE YOU?" MY VOCAL CHORDS DIDN'T FREEZE. I DIDN'T STAND THERE LIKE AN IDIOT. AND I PASSED HIM THE PRESENT. after which we had to turn around for the photo, and he was all sing-songing, "i got a present! i got a present!" oh, AJ. YOU DOOFUS. <333333333333333333333333333333333333 the rest of the boys got their goody bags, too, and tesh gave howie both the banner AND THE KEVIN FAN. which seemed to amuse him very much. though really, can you blame him? that thing cracked us up every time we looked at it.
then we were pretty much shoved aside, and given a photo of the boys with all their autographs on it, and at the back of my mind i'm thinking, 'someone planned this for me. no camera, no book to sign, and i STILL get a photo with all of them AND all their autographs!' so we go back to our seats, and wait for the rest of the people to get their turns. but that was supposed to be the end of things, apparently, because the boys were being herded off too, until one of the fangirls managed to talk to aj and tell him how much she wanted to hear them do a song. SO HE STOPPED THE REST OF THEM. HE SAID, "WAIT, THIS GIRL ASKED FOR A SONG". SO THEY DID ONE. THEY WALKED UP TO OUR TABLE - OUR TABLE - AND DID HWSS. FUCKING GUH. they sounded SO good. SO, SO GOOD I DON'T EVEN HAVE THE WORDS. i got CHILLS man. goosebumps up and down and EVERYTHING. and all i could hear was aj doing the low parts and making my stomach do flip-flops. of course brian goofed it up at the end a little bit, the crazy boy, BUT OMG SO MUCH LOVE.
i thought i'd be able to wrap things up in this post, but i'm gonna split this up into one more, because everything went downhill from there, AND THIS POST IS GOING TO GIVE ME TINGLES FOR A VERY LONG TIME.
more tingles to be found in the first post, but not so much in the last one.