Kelly and I did a lot of wandering. We had, after all, about 3 hours until the show would start (and who knew how long until *NSync themselves would be on). We were highly amused by the looks of Great Confusion our Duran Attire prompted. You could just SEE the young 'uns trying to process it. "Five guys- wait, THAT isn't *NSync!" or "Um, do they know this isn't a Duran Duran concert?" *snicker*

(Kelly:)
Especially the really little ones who couldn't read yet. My shirt totally flummoxed them.

(Dwanollah:)
The carnival itself was too crowded to be much fun, so we parked it on a shady patch of grass. I called my mom, since I'd barely talked to her in a week. We looked at more cars. We braved the crowds to try some Kettle Corn and get Cokes (my first caffeinated drink since January and my first soda in 6 weeks. I couldn't finish it! Too bubbly! What's happened to me?!). We watched groups of kids crowd around news cameras. We wandered some more. We interacted with a few older fans who dug our Duran gear. We listened to some more craptastic KIIS DJ babble. We wandered even more.

By this time, we saw the gates were open, and people were streaming in. Amusingly, the entrances were crowded with huge plastic trash cans proclaiming "SIGNS AND POSTERS ARE NOT ALLOWED INSIDE THE ROSE BOWL! PLEASE DEPOSIT ALL SIGNS AND GIFTS HERE! THEY WILL BE DELIVERED TO *NSYNC'S DRESSING ROOM!" As if. So yeah, all those carefully-made, glittered, decoupaged, colored, love-laden signs ended up crammed in glorified garbage cans...along with ten million stuffed animals, flowers, toys, t-shirts and what-not. NO BUNNYCHUCKERS ALLOWED! Hee hee hee.

Kel and I, renegades to the core, carefully hid our cameras before lining up at the gates. "How're you guys doing?" asked the guy taking tickets. "Just fine!" I burbled like a loon. He looked at our tickets...our tickets that said ROW 1, and grinned. "I'll bet you are!" he said. Oh yeah! Me and Kelly doinged and shrieked once inside the gates. Heck, we doinged and shrieked all over the place.

From that point on, it was a veritable gauntlet of security wanting to see our tickets (well, except when we stopped in at the bathrooms). We had to show them to people to tell us which gate to go to. Then we had to show them to the people at the gate. Then they made us go show them to people at a table to get green wristbands. ("I mean, gimme a wristband!"[—Dureference]) Appropriately, this is where we had the Ultimate Appreciation of our Durangear. The woman giving us our wristbands - and admiring our front-row tickets - looked at us in confusion. "They aren't playing here tonight, you know.... "They're NOT?!" I gasped, all pretend-shocked, before grinning. "Honey, we've been doing this for 15 years, we're old pros at this shit. We wore our Duran stuff to show the little girls we've been screaming at shows since before they were born!"

(Kelly:)
You Go GIRLFREN'!! Give it up for my girl Dwanollah, ladies and gentlemen.

(Dwanollah:)
Hee! "Right on!" the girl hooted, clapping her hands in delight, and about a half-dozen of the Bracelet People joined in, also admiring our Duranieness.("We RULE!" was the operative phrase of the day.) Of course, "Would you like to see our tickets?" (said very gleefully) became the operative phrase of the next ten minutes—

(Kelly:)
Bwa!

(Dwanollah:)
—as we flashed wristbands and tix and descended through the tunnel that led to the field of the Rose Bowl. The Gauntlet continued, with people checking our tickets literally every few steps. Entryway to the field: check ticket. Entryway to the seats: check ticket. First 5 seats: check ticket. Next 5 seats: check ticket.

(Kelly:)
And she is NOT exaggerating.

(Dwanollah:)
After about a dozen repetitions of this routine, we were FINALLY escorted to our FRONT FUCKING ROW SEATS!, upon which time we turned around, gazed at the 60,000 or so people behind us, looked at each other, and started screaming and hugging dementedly! The front was lined with security people, and, while it was still light and empty (the front-row VIPs don't show up until five minutes before the show, unlike us two dorks—

(Kelly:)
—OLD dorks—

(Dwanollah:)
—okay, OLD dorks!…who didn't have Preferred Parking!), we wanted to take some pictures. We weren't sure about the camera rules, but to my surprise, there were LOTS of other folk with cameras. Apparently now you CAN bring cameras, recorders and video thingies to concerts as long as they aren't high-powered. So we were total doofs, taking pictures of each other (and asking the least-surly guard to take pictures of us) in FRONT FUCKING ROW!

The stage...the stage was HUGE; it was set up with two rounded bump-outs on either end, and with five smaller platforms (including one RIGHT IN FRONT OF US) intermittently, as well as the huge ramp leading from the middle of the stage out to a tower of metal and things in the middle of the field. There were mile-high towers of high-tech speakers everywhere. And there was a small sign in front of our seats: "WARNING: Pyrotechnic Area. No Smoking." Uh, okay! And natch, there was a huge, mongo video screen that showed glorified commercials during the interim. Lance Bass's new movie On the Line. Verizon stuff (guess who the show's sponsor was?). The new album. *Everything* was met with screams and cheers.

I myself was looking forward to Eden's Chush. You know, being the Connoisseur Of Cheese that I am, and everything. But to our dismay, Eden's Chush wasn't the first band to perform. Or the second, or the third!

(Kelly:)
(...or the sixth, or seventh, or eighth...)

(Dwanollah:)
But we's getting ahead of ourselves….

The first band was The Not-So-Boy Band (their actual name—we shit you not): four beefy dudes, featuring, um, Joseph Fatone Senior. Yeah. Joey's dad.

(Kelly:)
I can't tell y'all how sorry I am that she's not making this up.

(Dwanollah:)
They were BAD. Not even good-bad—just bad. Boring. Stale. Thankfully, they only did four songs.

(Kelly:)
Seriously? It seemed so much longer!

(Dwanollah:)
Grim, wasn't it? Ugh! Then there was interminable babble by a KIIS DJ before the next opening act, some Janet Jackson wannabe with a troupe of dancers. And THEN it was some c(o)untry singing chick from down-home-Mississippi-way whom Lance had discovered and signed to his (c[o]untry!! ack!!) label. (FreeLance Records. How cute. Free him from what, pray?) and what a coincidence—she's appearing on the soundtrack to that movie he's in! Isn't that uncanny?! Onerous. And THEN it was some white guy (with a troupe of dancers) making like a soulful black singer. He was joined by some "famous" (read: who?) rap guy who contributed mostly "Yeah, yeah"s and "Oh yeah, oh yeah"s and "yo, yo"s to the songs. *snicker* And THEN, finally, it was Eden's Chush.

(Kelly:)
WOO-HOO EDEN'S CHUSH!! I LOVE YOU!!! MARRY ME!!!

(Dwanollah:)
"KELLY'S PANTS ARE BUSTIN' FOR EDEN'S CHUSH!" *snicker*

They were craptastic.

Typical Taut Brown LA Girls (or approximating LA Girls) to the nth degree, with their hip-hugger pants (acid-washed denim is IN again, guys!) and boots and midriff-revealing tees and Pop Star moves and everything. I'm particularly fond of the hip-spanking move (where you pat the front part of your hip, like, at your pelvic bone, while you sing. With your French-manicure-nailed hand, natch). And after Eden's Chush, there was ANOTHER opening act (!!): another Taut, Brown LA Girl with a hit song on KIIS (can't remember her name *or* the song, right now), with a troupe of dancers, and her very own MC: Lil' Bow Wow, who must exist just to, like, introduce chick singers or something.

(Kelly:)
*howl* :))

(Dwanollah:)
But finally, FINALLY, Rick "You Give Cheese a Bad Name" Dees, in all his plastic-surgeried horror, came out to tell us that the Boyz were on next: "I'm not into guys...but I just saw the guys backstage...and they are LOOKIN' FINE!" Um, SHUT UP, you moron!

So, since it was now dark, and since there had only been about 10 minutes (if that) between opening acts, we must be mere minutes away from *NSync, right?

Wrong.

As soon as Rick Dees left the stage, there appeared on the giant video screen...a...countdown clock. For *thirty minutes*.

That time was packed with more commercials and footage of the Boyz and all that as the stands continued to fill up. Could not BELIEVE the masses of people...and all of them BEHIND us!! "FRONT FUCKING ROW, BABY!" Many high-fives were had and given. We are Lame... AND PROUD!

As we waited, every so often we'd see people grouping around someone on the floor to take pictures. Kelly saw David Hasselhoff.

(Kelly:)
WAY behind us, or you *know* I'd've run to get my picture taken with him.

(Dwanollah:)
Becuz you're a TOOL! And you ROOL! :) Some KIIS DJ was there. And (we're pretty sure) Daisy Fuentes. And directly behind us, in Row 2, was Kevin Farley (brother of the late Chris Farley) - The Bald, Fat, Old Guy in MTV's fictional boy band, 2+Gether, from the MTV show of same name [THAT STOLE MY IDEAS FROM MY 90210 BOY BAND PARODY ALMOST TWO YEARS EARLIER!!!! *fume*]. WE had better seats than he did! Ha! Ha! Ha!

|:BACK:|:NEXT PAGE: