August 5, 2024

Friday night I headed up to Hartford to see the New Kids on the Block Magic Summer tour.  It was humid as all get out and there was danger of there being thunderstorms that might affect the show.  I ended up getting in the VIP line to get in the accessible entrance and then my ticket wouldn’t scan, so after we tried it about 10 different ways, the guy at the door was like “you’re fine go ahead in.” I picked up my event specific merch – which was a pin because the shirt was black and I don’t particularly like black shirts and then because of the extreme heat, I decided to also get a rally towel and a little folded fan with the guys on it, that was really cool and will come in handy until I inevitably break it.  I got to my seats and they were the front row of the second section in the ADA section and they were really, really good and I was super excited about all the great pictures that I was going to take!

DJ Jazzy Jeff, opened the show  and I’m really not into D j’s as opening acts, even if it is one as famous as DJ Jazzy Jeff. Then it was time for Paula Abdul so I pulled my camera out only for it to read ‘battery exhausted’, except that I had grabbed the extra battery and put it in my bag when I switched it out, that one ALSO said ‘battery exhausted’! I ended up sneaking like one picture of Paula and 1 picture of the new kids that I don’t even think came out any good.   I had to resort to my phone to take the photos which I didn’t want to do, but had no other choice! Paula did about a 30 minute set, which was actually more her talking than singing.  A lot of dancing though and she kind of like talked through the process of like, putting on a good show and what’s important. After the first song, she had to stop and get a tank of oxygen because she is 62 years old.  Now, I’m not sure if she was actually singing live but she was talking a lot which was live.

Then it was time for the New Kids!  This set was a lot different than what I had gotten used to in their past tours, they had released new music that I wasn’t super familiar with but the show was a ton of fun as usual! I could see security kind of like trying to figure out logistics for something so I was hoping that one of the guys might end up near me when they inevitably would go out in the crowd.   It turns out I was right, there was a like cage thing, just a couple of people over from me that lit up green, which meant that it was Danny. To my left was Donnie. Danny shot us with confetti and then went up into the crowd so I really didn’t get to see him all that much.  A couple of girls jumped on top of me to try and get Donnie to shake their hands and he did. There’s a special place in hell for people who jump over disabled people to get closer to Donnie…    At the end of this song, when they’re making their way back to the stage, Jon came by and ended up shaking my hand and asking me how I was. It was like he knew me which was weird because like I feel like I know him because I watched him on TV but he doesn’t know I’m watching him run TV or does he?!

I guess it did rain, but nothing with thunder/lightning that would disrupt the show – and I was inside so I didn’t get wet even though I brought my poncho just in case! I then waited half an hour in the parking lot for things to clear out – the AC on ended up fogging my passenger side window and I didn’t realize until I was getting on the highway that someone bumped my side view mirror and knocked it forward – fortunately I carefully made it home and nothing was broken, I was able to move it back into place. Phew! (Wasn’t the first time I’ve driven home from that venue with a side mirror that couldn’t be used!)