In honor of our first birthday contest where fans are sending in their favorite Backstreet Boys memory, a few of us here at Boys on the Block are going to be sharing our own.
I count myself as lucky because my favorite BSB moment was caught on camera.
I’ve had a lot of really great BSB moments, actually. But the funny thing is that a lot of the best memories I have that concern them really don’t have the actual Boys in them, just their music. Their music was kind of a central point that my Mom and I rallied around and a lot of my best, recent, memories of her include their music….
Like the time we drove all over the state of New Hampshire to literally EVERY Burger King within a 200 mile radius trying to collect all of the For the Fans CDs and the BSB action figures.
Or the time that we found the Millennium Singles box set at Best Buy and we immediately went home and scraped up every penny and pawn-shopable item we could find in the house to pay the $120 to buy it because we BOTH wanted it so desperately there was no hope of sleeping that night without it being in our possession.
There was the time we found the Night Out DVD in Borders and didn’t have the extra $25 to buy it and then miraculously found a gift card on the ground in the parking lot that nobody claimed that had the exact amount we needed.
There was the time she helped me lick like 100 stamps to mail out letters to every radio station and concert venue on the Black & Blue tour leading up to the Boston show trying to get tickets and, when we were given the tickets AND backstage passes by the Boys themselves, how excited she was to go with me. Oh and how she hit Kevin right in the crotch with her purse that night while trying to run into Howie’s arms for the picture.
I remember singing “If You Want It To Be Good Girl” at the top of our lungs, windows down, at stop lights all over the town and laughing when people gave us funny looks for our epic car-seat dance moves (we called ourselves the “Cah Girls” because that’s how my Mom pronounced Car in her Boston accent).
I remember driving home with her with the Unbreakable CD the day it came out. Hell, I remember driving home on the release days of Millennium, Black & Blue, Never Gone, Now or Never, Welcome Home, AND Unbreakable with her.
When she got sick, I remember listening to BSB on my headphones, like they were the only thing that could carry me through the hardest times of my life.
I remember putting You Can Let Go on repeat because the bridge of that song were words that she spoke to me the day she went into a coma.
I remember the night that she died, driving to the hotel and listening to Satellite turned up as loud as my car stereo would go.
And every time I miss her, I find myself driving aimlessly around the city, looking at the lights listening to their music, listening to the lyrics that she and I used to sing together.
In a way, I guess all of that combined is the reason behind my favorite memory.
It was on cruise this past October when the Boys invited our group in to see a special 20-minute preview of the documentary. They showed us Kevin’s part, where he went home to Kentucky to the house he grew up in. When Kevin remembered his father’s strength in dying, I knew exactly the strength and pain he was feeling because that was exactly what I’d felt about my mother. When the lights came up for the Q&A portion of the night, I knew I had to tell him that. So I raised my hand and waited patiently for my turn to talk to the Boys.
I stood up, scared to death because I’m not one for public speaking, and all five of them were staring at me raptly along with all of the girls in that room. I don’t remember the words I said (thank God Karah took a video!) I just remember babbling out my thank you to Kevin for sharing his story and I told them what a huge fan my Mom was and how much it meant to me that we’d shared the Backstreet Boys music.
And here it is, my favorite BSB memory:
Every single person in that entire room, including all five of the Backstreet Boys, clapped for my Mom.
Shit, even typing that makes me tear up. Just the memory of that sound…
In that moment, I could seriously feel her in the room, like she was sitting right there, probably grinning all proud because the Boys (and all those fans!) were clapping because of her.
——-
What’s your favorite memory? Enter our contest and you could win an “IN A WORLD LIKE THIS” DVD of their Japan concert! Click here to send your memory and for more information.
