Friday I made my way back to the Ridgefield Playhouse, this time for the Pop 2000 tour. Since the show was so close to my birthday I went all out and ended up doing both BBMak and Chris Kirkpatrick VIP since one was preshow and one was postshow.
I got there at 5:45 for my BBMak VIP and promptly at 5:45 someone from the venue came out and said they were ready for us, which was weird because when is anything ever on time? (And O-Town VIP set to begin at 4:15 had just gone in at 5:30) Turns out they weren’t actually ready for us so we just hung out for a bit (and I was able to hear some of O-Town’s acoustic set and BBMak’s soundcheck while waiting) and then went into the room. The night before, Ste and Mark had not been at the show as they had visa issues – but they came in to the room and told us that they almost didn’t make it to our show either as they had some delays from Manchester to Dublin and had to run through the airport to catch the flight in Dublin to the US. The poor guys must have been exhausted, but you couldn’t tell. They sang “Back Here” for us, did a little Q&A and then did photos and autographs. I had never met them before and they were sweeter than I could have even imagined.
My friends were doing merch for BBMak and Chris, so I sat with them for a bit, answered a couple of questions and then when the theater doors opened I went into get settled and realized my 3 shows at the playhouse this week I had been in the same seat. B 107.
Ryan Cabrera came out first, and I feel like he does the same set every time and I am just kind of over him. Sorry. (Not sorry?) I’d be pretty pumped if he added MMMBop back in to his medley again though…
BBMak was up next and I was sooooo excited for their set and they did not disappoint. I was also surprised how many lyrics I still knew (aka pretty much all of them) when I couldn’t even tell you the last time I had listened to their CD. Back Here was on our tour playlist for Hanson last year but other than that… their set included: Still On Your Side, Next Time, Unpredictable, Ghost of You and Me, More Than Words, Out of My Heart.
Then it was time for O-Town! They did a few of their own songs, then did a few LFO songs with Brad to Honor Rich and Devin, then a couple more songs (which included These Are the Days which had everyone bum rush the stage to get their camera taken and security made no effort to send them back after) and then they went into *NSYNC songs and Chris came out and joined them. They had expanded on the number of *NSYNC songs that they had done, which was perfectly fine by me! They ended their set with All Or Nothing and the guy in front of me – who was facing me and not the stage? ended up giving me a fist bump when I was done singing lol
After it was PURE CHAOS with all the options going on post show. I ended up just hiding in a corner until it was time to go in for Chris’ VIP. They did his photo ops first and then it was time for the VIP Q&A, it was a small group and there weren’t too many questions and then we did photos and autographs. Chris was fantastic, as always.
When we left there was a shaved ice truck outside but it was also raining and we had an early day for our afternoon show the next day so we passed on that.
