Whoohoo we made it!!!
After going through hell and back trying to arrange this trip including having a grandparent rent a car for us we get ready to leave. Due to Thanksgiving Day activities with families everyone except I am tired. I insist that everyone naps at my house before leaving. We leave at 2am so techniqually it is November 24, 2000...
I start out driving...since everyone else is tired. 250 miles later its some else's turn. Has anybody else noticed that everything becomes funnier when you are lacking sleep? lol10:00 am
We made it...only took us 8 hours to get here. We have to drive down the strip, since none of us have been here before. We get into a music blaring contest with some G'd out guy in a crappy car. He played some crappy rap we never heard before. He looked at us funny when we played Nsync so we pulled out the big guns; Papa Roach. We won of course.
Whoohoo we made it!!!
We decide to park in the self parking at MGM Grand since we are going to be staying there tonight. Melissa isn't supposed to meet us until 12:30 so we have some time to kill.
We figure out how to get into the hotel and we wander aimlessly around for awhile. In the casino we took pics by a sign the advertised the concerts. A man came up to us with his wife and he pointed to Joey saying he was here last night. We asked a bunch of questions and we found out that Joey had come into the casino at around 2am (the same time we were leaving home...lol)and that he had played some craps, then slots and finally he proceeded to go to Studio 54. We thanked the guy and proceeded to wander around until we found Studio 54. Age limit of 21...Damn!! Since we are all under the age of 21 it sucks. Oh well we go to the lobby and wait for Melissa.
Our seats were very good considering the fact that we had no idea how large the venue was and our seats were one section from the back. We were right by the VIP section. Justin's mom and stepdad were there along with Bobbie, Kelly, Trace and Melinda. There were probably other people but we didn't recognize them. Bobbie was talking with fans and one girl wearing a JC shirt went up to her and asked for her autograph and a picture with her. It was cute. Everybody says that Bobbie is a bitch, but I didn't see it. Beverly Mitchell, the girl from 7th Heaven, was also there, but she had seats in the crowd like everyone else. It was kinda funny.
The show was the same as any other show on the No Strings Attached Tour. I saw the show in June so there were no big surprises. One difference was that they sang O' Holy Night instead of I Thought She Knew. Also Joey joked about losing money on the slots, which of course we thought was hilarious because of the conversation we had earlier in the casino. Carly was going nuts the whole concert. This lady behind us told Lindsay to sit down during the concert, and that it was a warning. Lindsay sat down, but I told her not to. I was obnixious and said very loudly to Lindsay, "We didn't drive 500 miles to sit." Then Lindsay got up. I think the lady gave me a dirty look but I don't care. We didn't stay until the end of the concert. We left during the end of Bye Bye Bye so we wouldn't have to deal with the crowd.
We go back up to the hotel room and we decide to call the box office to see if we can get tickets to the show on the next night, since we went there without tickets to the second show. Earlier that day they only had seats in an upper section so we decided to at least give it a try and hope some seats opened up. We were in luck, the box office said they had some floor seats and that they would be open for another half hour or they would be open the next day. We go right down.
We were in luck they had seats on the floor, but they were better than we imagined...8th and 9th row in section B, two pairs of aisle seats. Money was on the counter in like a split second. We go back up to our room satisfied. Melissa can't belive we got those seats from the box office. We decide to take a nap and get up at 2 am so we can go back out and see if Nsync is out.
I wake up to the alarm. I try and wake two other people, but they don't even stir. I give up and decide to just go back to sleep, because I have had the least amount of sleep of everyone.
We get up and get ready for checkout. We say goodbye to Melissa, she's going to miss the other Vegas show, but she will be seeing all the California shows so she isn't missing much. We check into Excalibur and go sight seeing. We only get down to Caesar's Palace and we are tired so we go back to the hotel to rest. We don't rest. We get ready to go, and we pack our bags with our cameras.Oh shit we leave late!!
We are inside of MGM but not in the arena. A lady stops us wanting to talk to Megan about possibly being a model. They talk a while and decide to meet up later.
We get inside...and we have a heart attack as the ushers keep telling us to go up. Our seats are so close that the first user was situated right by us.
Yeah, this is us...Carly, Megan, Lindsay and Me.
Concert starts. I accidentally left Megan's camera in the hotel . I felt kinda bad for a few minutes. Steve does MC like usual. We yell things like get a real job, just the usual. Nobody seems to notice. Dream comes on....They were we better than they were the night before. We are the only people on the floor dancing already. Steve comes back. He talks about Fumanskeeto making its debut in Nordstrom on Friday. He then throws out a shirt. Lindsay is able to catch it. Lil' Bow Wow come out of a dog house in the beginning of his show. Lindsay and I the go to buy soveniours. We come back and so does Steve. Baha Men were awesome. They can really work a crowd. After Baha Men go off, there is a long break like usual. We all go up to see our friend who moved to vegas. He's a DJ for KLUC, the Las Vegas radio station. We go back to our seats and prepare for the concert to start. As we are waiting I turn around and see Beverly Mitchell. She is two rows behind us talking to some girl. She looks like a skank. She then goes and takes her seats a couple more rows back. Finally the lights go down...
They appear...
The first part was pretty much a blur. Joey keeps winking at me, because we are the first people in the front actually dancing. When we started to do the dance for No Strings Attached he laughed at us. Lance spends a lot of time on our side as does Joey. JC is over here a bunch too.
Nothing out of the ordinary. Joey almost dropped JC during the flip.
Same as on Live From MSG. They go up on the mini-platforms. The angle from which I am sitting makes it hard to get good pictures of the group. Joey continues that annoying winking thing.
Nothing really memorable.
Both nights he changed it a bit, It was still good though.
Good as usual, nothin really special.
Same version they do on Live From MSG. JC and those hands, I was afraid he was gonna knock somebody out.
They did 'O Holy Night instead of "I Thought She Knew" because it was so close to the Christmas Season. They took away Joey's solo, but either way Lance still didnt have a solo.
The "Just groovin to the beat" part was right in front of where we were, so we did it at the same time. The guys saw us and smiled and laughed.
Joey was thrusting right by where we were. It didnt make the winking thing any better. Other than that it was nothing really special.
Absolutely nothing special. Lance did a whole spoof with some fake dog poop, to take away from the fact that Justin was gone for so long before This I Promise You. When Justin came out he said he had to pull some extra slots. Then he said nevermind, I'm just kidding I'm not old enough.
Chris was making fun of the fact that the audience knew what was going on. When the rolling stage was coming back Carly was trying to get Chris' attention, and when yelling his name didnt work, she just yelled "BLAH!!!". He saw her, did a little wave and had a look on his face that said "what a lunatic". Somebody messed up pretty bad, the stage wasnt back in place when the song ended, so they ended it facing us. woohoo!
Woohoo, we got to see the floor freaking again. Justin did what Carly calls the "Crab Dance", right before he did the "Duck Dance". Anybody know what im talking about? lol
This was only the second time I ever seen the complete show. The first time I saw this song , I left after the first chorus; that in itself is a long story. The song was great. At the end I heard the words I was regretting..."Las Vegas, we love you and BYE BYE BYE!!"
We went to the Rainforest Cafe to eat and then went back to the hotel. We thought about going out again, but nobody had the motivation, plus I figured that Nsync left already. Finally a decent night's sleep.
Megan went and took her poloids for the modeling agency and then we got ourselves some Krispy Kreme donuts, because there is not a Krispy Kreme near us and we had never had them before. We checked out and went over to Mandalay Bay where we found Joey's favorite hangout, The Rum Jungle. We also visited House of Blues before deciding to head home. As a little goodbye we cruised down the strip again, this time playing a really fitting song; Bye Bye Bye. We got stuck in major traffic right off the bat.
The ride home was fun at first. Lindsay was driving out of Vegas and we got a lot of funny looks because everyone thought Lindsay looked a little young to be driving. We put up a sign in the window behind Lindsay saying "She looks like she's 12, but she's 18 I promise." We got a lot of laughs. A little while later a bunch of guys and a girl were driving next to us and they heald up a sign that said, "Show us your tits." We laughed and held up a sign saying, "Show us your dicks". They laughed and one guy started to undo his pants before the other guys stopped him. They held up, "You first" and then we held up "You first"; then they held up their sign again. We lost them for a while but when we did Megan and Carly flashed them. Not a full flash cause they were still wearing their bras. We then held up, "Your turn", but we lost them. When we found them again they were just about to turn off. During one of those weird boredom moments we all wore the little Krispy Kreme hats. It got old after awhile. We joked about going to the Los Angeles show that night, because the were driving pretty close to LA. Thats when the traffic got bad. It took us 14 hours to get home and since we left at noon, we got into town around 2am, so technically it was November 27, 2000.
I took everybody home. The biggest trip of my life was over, but I will always remember it. If you actually made it this far and you have any questions drop me a line here.My pics are up and you can see them here.