It was the year Iraq invaded Kuwait, Margaret Thatcher resigned, the Cincinnati Reds swept the Oakland A's in the World Series, Beverly Hills 90210 debuted, and in my little piece of the world, I was an eleven year old girl with a crush on a pop star.
The New Kids On The Block were a teen phenomenon, having mastered the boy band recipe and winning hearts the world over with synchronized dance moves and co-ordinated outfits. I had the dolls, the posters, the t-shirts, the cassettes... an entire empire of merchandise, but living in a small town on the east coast of Canada meant I did not have the one thing I coveted most: a concert ticket.
Fast foward to October 13, 2012, where I find myself in line at the Casino Nova Scotia with a couple hundred other soccer-mom types and a sparse few of their husbands and boyfriends to finally see my very favorite of the Kids on his solo tour, Jordan Knight.
"I waited twenty years for this," the girl ahead of me says to her impatient boyfriend. "You can wait with me for another 20 minutes."
He looks to me for help, but I nod in agreement.
Now in his forties, Jordan is shorter than he was in my eleven-year-old dreams, but he still looks remarkably the same. His music hasn't changed much, which I can appreciate: if nostalgia is your appeal, why fix what's not broken?
He still sings that incredible falsetto: no small feat for a grown man. He also played keyboard for a few songs, and showed he could still work some of those dance moves that had helped make him famous.
At one point, he called for volunteers so go up on stage. I pointed out the girl in front of me. I confess, she was the only thing between me and the very front row. I wasn't just being unselfish. Okay, I wasn't being unselfish at all.
Damn, did eleven-year-old me envy those girls!
It was actually an incredible experience to find myself 25 feet from my teen idol. It was a rush twenty years in the making and for two short hours, I was that pre-teen girl again with no worries about any of the stresses that adult life had brought on.
And that was definitely worth waiting for.
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