Even though we got to the stadium over three hours before the concert,
there were already people there. Not that I
could really blame them since, heck, we were there as well. But we
had an excuse! We would try to go to the ticket
window and see if we could pick up tomorrow's tickets (for which I
had foolishly chosen will call) today and thus have
more time to sell them. See??
When we got there, NSync was in the middle of what I assumed to be soundcheck.
How awesome is that? Well, kinda
awesome, right? But we only heard one song, "Pop", and nothing more.
So then I went up to the ticket window with G-N, or some range of letters
that included M, and asked if I could pick up
tomorrow's tickets. He said sure, and told me to go to two windows
down. Apparently when he said two windows
down, he actually meant one. As I stared stupidly at the closed window
two doors down, Jessica pointed out that the
guy was waiting for me at the window next to it. Well, fine. I told
him my last name and waited for my tickets, relieved
that we'd have all of tomorrow to get rid of them.
The guy behind the counter couldn't find my tickets. If I could do Rosie
O'Donnell's patented perturbed, puckered-lip
look, I would be doing so right now. Actually, I wasn't really annoyed.
I was panicked, frightened, alarmed, worried,
but not annoyed. Then he asked for my confirmation number. Thank God
I wrote that down, eh? Yeah. Too bad I
couldn't find it.
I specifically remember writing it down, in two different, distinct
places that I wouldn't forget, and placing them both in
my wallet. But I've also placed two billion other things in my wallet
as well. It took pulling out every single one of
those two billion pieces of paper before I finally found one of the
locations. But phew anyway.
Turns out he couldn't find the tickets because they hadn't been printed yet.
We still had hours to kill before the concert, so Jessica and I walked
around the stadium at least twice. We saw many a
camera crew, but Jessica didn't want to try to be on the news because
no one we knew would be in Cleveland to watch
it. I pointed out to her that Drew Carey might be in town and may spot
us and decide to put us on his show. And
wouldn't you know, she just laughed that off. So thank you, Jessy,
for ruining my big break.
Around 5 or 5:30, we decided to get in line at the gates. Soon, the
lines had grown out so far that we couldn't even see
where they ended. Fortunately, during our wait, we had entertainment.
Some guy started running and dancing about
while his friend held up a video camera. "Wooo! I'm at an NSync concert!
Look at me!" he shouted as he bounced
around. Actually I don't really remember what he was saying, but it
was crazy stuff. He claimed he was going to send
the tape to TRL. Jessica also heard him say he was with the band. A
little girl behind us thought he sounded like Eddie
Murphy (and she was right). The little girl's mother seemed pretty
irritated at the fellow, muttering "just shut up"
several times. But even she laughed at some of his antics.
Finally, they opened the gates up at the perfectly logical time of 6:13.
Yeah. Not 6:00, not 6:30, but 6:13. My only guess
is that they wanted to curse us with unlucky timing. Going through
the gates was a somewhat slow process, since
everyone was scanned for weapons. "These young girls all look dangerous,
don't they?" Jessica remarked. "Toting
weapons underneath their NSync shirts."
When we reached the entrance, Jessica had to open up her bag, which
carried an expensive camera, complete with
zoom lenses. The guy told him those weren't allowed, only "regular
35mm cameras"...but then he let her through. I
don't know about Jessica, but I know I panicked. Walking all the way
back to the hotel did not seem very appealing. So
yay him, for letting it go.
We had to walk almost halfway around the stadium before we found the
entrance to the field level. There, they gave us
nifty, neon orange bracelets, signalling us out from the stands crowd.
We were the special ones. Woo!
Down the steps we clamored, until we reached the traffic jam featuring
several dozen people trying to get to the field
through a single person staircase. It also didn't help that many of
these people didn't get their orange wristbands up at
the top like they were supposed to, and so held all of us up. Criminy!
But we did finally reach our seats, which turned out to be three seats
down from the inner end (meaning center of the
stage end) as well as three seats down from the first row that lined
up with the fenced off, VIP section. According to
the guard, friends and family of NSync were to sit in that section,
seperated from us by a mere gate. We could be
sitting next to almost-royalty!
Not only that, but a runway leading all the way from the stage ended
just a mere row ahead of us. So, even though we
were in row 39, it looked as if we would be seeing the group up close
and personal! I was *psyched*.