Alright, here it is, the unedited story of what happened to me on this Saturday, 13 December when I went to New York. So, you're dying to hear details? Well, you're going to get them here!! I decided not to post this story on the message board as it's way too long and it would flood the whole board. I call this story "Touched by a Hanson" because that's exactly what happened to me, in every sense of the expression. I call it a story, but it would be more accurate to call it an account as it is completely true, and I couldn't have made up better fiction if I wanted to. What you are about to read is 100% of the truth, and it happened to me. I just have to warn you all that it may get a bit intense, and I don't want anyone to feel badly about what happened to me in New York. Some of you may feel a bit... uncomfortable and sad by what I'm going to say, so if it is too much for you to handle, please don't torture yourself. This story is only for those who really want to know every last detail.
There must be something about the number 13 that is really lucky for me, for as some of you may remember it was on 13 June that my life as I know it first changed and I became the Hanson fanatic that you all know today. Well, 13 December, exactly 6 months later, my life would change again. When I awoke at 1:00AM that Saturday morning, I thought the most exciting thing that could possibly happen to me would be getting mugged on the streets of Manhattan, a definite possibility. I was certainly apprehensive about travelling to a strange city in the middle of the night all by myself. But, I pushed aside my fears, and I decided to make the trip anyway, having faith in God that He would not let me die in some back ally of New York. I awoke so early because I had to board a bus departing from Hartford's Union Station at 2:15AM in order to get to New York early enough to get tickets for the show. My grandfather was kind enough to get up in the middle of the night and drive me to the bus terminal. I slept the 2.5 hours on the bus to New York, arriving at 4:45AM. I was still quite tired, and it was bitterly cold, but I walked the 2 blocks east down 42nd street (through Times Square), five blocks up 6th Avenue, until I got to 49th street -- Rockefeller Centre and home of NBC Studios. On the way, I was sorely tempted to stop into a McDonald's for a hot chocolate, but I wanted to check out the line for the show first. So, arriving at NBC's GE Building at 5:00AM, I was surprised to see 8 people already camped out outsidet the doors. Keep in mind that it's still dark out and freezing cold. Apparently, a group of zealous fans (not Hanson fans, though) had been camped out since 6:00PM FRIDAY NIGHT, waiting to be the first to receive tickets for the show. Well, I got in line right away, being the 9th person to arrive. Two minutes later, two teenage girls arrived and got in line right behind me, followed by another group, and another group, and then two more. The Hanson fans had arrived!! I was the first, though, and I spent the four hours in line talking with and making friends with other people who like Hanson. They had come from Queens, Long Island, and even New Jersey to see Hanson perform that evening. At 7:00AM, right down the street, we got to see the "Today Show" being performed, which was kind of neat (no Hanson this time). Finally, at 9:30AM, after 4.5 hours of waiting in line, the NBC pages came out to tell us that the live show was over-booked, meaning no standby tickets would be given out. However, at 8:00PM there was to be a Dress Rehersal identical to the live show at 11:30PM, but that it wouldn't be aired; tickets were available for this show, however. So, accordingly, I got ticket number 9 to see the Dress Rehersal at 8:00PM. However, this was not a guaranteed seat, as the Dress Rehersal also had the potential to be over booked as well, should everyone decide to show up. We wouldn't know for sure until just minutes before the show began at 8:00PM, so I had to hang around New York the whole day, hoping to get in to see the show.
Luckily, I had met some new friends: a group of 8 girls, typical Hanson fans all, and two of their mothers. I got along quite well with them, so they invited me to join them as they romped around New York. Their mission: to find Hanson, of course! Don't laugh, we almost did! We first went to the arcade known as "X-S" that Hanson have been known to frequent when in New York, and we even went down to the Laser Quest hall. Hanson were not there, of course, but I got a big kick watching all the girls kiss every single Laser Quest gun in the place, believing that Hanson must have used three of them. And I thought I was obsessed!! Let me tell you, I was way out of my league with these girls. They had each been to like 6 or 7 Hanson events around the country, and some of them were even in the Arthur Ashe and TT&MON videos. I recognised them right away. They thought it was cool that I liked Hanson, but they kept asking me how many times I had seen Hanson. (Answer=0!)
After getting kicked out of "X-S" (we really were), we marched on down to Planet Hollywood where we learned that Hanson had been there just minutes before while we were fooling around at that other place. They had come to eat lunch, and the girls were so upset they had missed them, some were even crying. I felt badly, but I was OK about it. At least the girls didn't ask to go through Hanson's rubbish!
Our Hanson-stalking crusade continued back at NBC studios at Rockefeller Centre where we effectively wasted the afternoon waiting for Hanson to arrive in their white van. One of the girls had the brilliant idea to sneak up to the 8th floor to see Hanson, and I'm afraid I wasn't much help in stopping them. Actually, I showed them where the emergency stairway was that led up to the 8th floor (where the studio and dressing rooms for SNL are). OK, so it was actually my idea to sneak up there in the first place -- sometimes Papa is one crazy guy!! We had to sneak up the stairs as the elevators were all being guarded by the nasty NBC pages. We got up to the 8th floor and started walking around. Imagine the 9 of us sneaking around illicitly in a restricted area looking for Hanson! Well, just as some guy started walking around the corner, we all rushed into the ladies room (me included!) and there was someone in there! She was really nice, though, and she asked if we had come to see SNL. We said yes, and she casually remarked that Hanson would be the musical guest that evening. Our response: Oh really?? Ha! Anyway, she told us that the dressing rooms were right around the corner, so we rushed out of the bathroom and into the hall just in time to see -- a security guard! Yikes!! Luckily for us, he was a really nice guy, so he just took us back down to the lobby, but we could have gotten into a lot of trouble!! So, we decided to abandon the Watergate style antics and instead we returned to stalking Hanson openly at the entrance to the building.
OK, still with me so far? This is where the story starts getting good! At 3:00PM a limo pulled up and out of it stepped this rather familiar looking guy. It was Robbie, the backup guitarist for Hanson! (He's the dark skinned one with the greasy hair). He was immediately rushed into the building, but not before I had the chance to take some pictures!! Not five minutes later, another limo pulled up, and this time it was Scott, the fair skinned backup guitarist for Hanson. Some Hanson fans mobbed him trying to get an autograph from him, but I just settled for a picture. The backup guys don't thrill me that much.
Around 5:00PM, while we were still waiting for Hanson to arrive, I met this tall, well dressed man standing in the lobby. I struck up a conversation with him, and as it turned out he was an extra on the show (he was one of the partying basketball players)! Anyway, he was a really nice guy, and he told me he would try to sneak me up to meet Hanson sometime after the show. I was really psyched about that!
At 7:30PM, the NBC pages started lining up the standby audience while those with regular or VIP tickets just strolled right in. The whole lobby was just packed with young girls screaming for Hanson -- it was unbelievable. One of the NBC pages told me that NBC had to send out for extra security just for Hanson, and that no other host or musical guest had ever caused such a reaction. People had completely mobbed Rockefeller Plaza trying to get in to see Hanson, even if they didn't have tickets. Finally, at 7:50PM, a man came down and told us that all seats were full and that no standby seating would be needed. Just at the last minute, however, a page rushed down and said that they had found 10 empty seats; accordingly, those people with tickets numbered 1 to 10 were allowed in. I WAS #9!! If I had arrived just 2 minutes later, if I had stopped to get that cup of hot chocolate at McDonald's, I would have missed one of the greatest events of my life. As it was, only one of the other 8 girls I had met got in with me, and the rest were all crying. I felt so badly at first, but then I got over it, rather quickly!! I also realised that all of the girls had seen Hanson perform multiple times, and I had really sacrificed to see Hanson this first time, so it was my turn. We were rushed up to the studio just as the show was about to begin.
Now, I realise that this is a very long letter, but there is so much more to tell. I'll try to skim over the actual show and just focus on Hanson. The Dress Rehersal for the show was actually 2 hours long, from 8:00PM to 10:00PM, and included 4 extra skits that were never aired (one was a funny skit with Bill Clinton in Arlington Cemetary). The studio itself is a lot smaller than it looks on television, and you can see everything going on at once, including people preparing the next skits. Anyway, after they shouted "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!" the band started playing the theme song and the whole audience jumped back because it was so incredibly loud! Not painfully loud, but still much stronger in person than on television.
Now just a comment about the audience. For the Rehersal show, I would have to say that almost half of the entire audience was comprised of young teenage girls, all with signs and banners for Hanson. When Helen Hunt announced Hanson as the musical guest, the screams were deafening. Appropriately enough, I was sitting in the Hanson section, and I was screaming along with the rest of them. When Hanson finally came on to perform, we were still in commercial, but people were going hysterical, climbing over chairs, screaming their brains out, shouting "I love you Tay" or whatever. Hanson came out during a commercial break and got into position, and the crowd was alll psyched up. When Helen Hunt finally came out to announce Hanson the first time, the noise level was ear shattering. Taylor was trying to get them to keep quiet, but Zac was just egging us on by raising his hands. The camera cut to Hanson, they were cued, and they began "Merry Christmas Baby" (which was the first song during the rehearsal, they switched it later). Everyone in the crowd started getting up, dancing, clapping along, and the ushers were going bananas trying to keep them seated and quiet. We were all singing and clapping along, and Hanson really fed off of our positive energy and performed incredibly well. The song was so much better live than what you see and hear on the television. They all looked really great, and they nailed the song. People were screaming all throughout the commercial break until the next skit began. It was so great, I could see all of them so well; they were only like 50 feet away from me, I wanted to reach out and touch them all...
The show continued, and finally, the very last skit that was done was the elevator skit, and that was incredible too. Hanson did such a great job acting, and they didn't even have any cue cards (the cue cards were facing Helen Hunt, who was looking at Hanson the whole time). The only problem was that everyone in the audience (again, a very pro-Hanson audience) was was screaming at Hanson to not give in to the terrorists, and they were shouting, "No, Ike, don't give in!!!" and stuff. They were screaming throughout the whole skit that I couldn't even hear what Hanson were saying most of the time. But when Taylor was uneffective and eventually came to his brothers' rescue, and when Will Ferrel started dancing to "MMMBop", the whole audience just went nuts. It was crazy!! Finally, right after that skit, Hanson came out again wearing different clothing (Zac with his dayglow orange prison outfit) and Taylor with that funky shirt (which I actually liked, so don't knock it!), and once again Zac started getting the crowd all worked up (an easy thing to do), so when they finally came back to sing "MMMBop", the audience practically drowned out Hanson. Still, everyone was on key and there was a much better balance on whole. Of course, the whole audience was rocking in the aisles with Hanson, singing and clapping along, myself included. It was such a wonderful experience.
Now, some of you may be wondering if you saw the same show. Well, you didn't. The show I saw had a much younger, pro-Hanson audience, and Hanson was really psyched up for the performance. I didn't get to see the live show from the audience, as they were all booked up, but I did get to see it from a monitor backstage (the extra guy I met let me into the green room to watch the live show there). And I could tell right away that things were different. This new audience was older and more male than ours was, and I can only speculate that Hanson had been tired out from the first performance. These two factours combined may have led been why some people have said Hanson was not at their best. Also, it is such a different experience when you are right there and Hanson's sweet music is filling your ears. Whatever the reason, I also got the sense that Hanson's second performance was not as good as the first, for understandable reasons. They should have let the pro-Hanson audience stay for the second show as well -- it would have been so much better! Anyway, I forgot to mention that photographs were not allowed at all in the studio, due to copyright laws. But you know Papa, being the rebel (and the shutterbug) that he is, I snuck my camera out and got of a few shots of Hanson while they were performing. I doubt they will come out, though, as it was really dark and I couldn't use my flash. At the very end I was bolder and I got a great shot of Hanson standing right in front of me on the stage as they were waving goodbye, but one of the ushers caught me and took my camera away!! I just played dumb and got a lecture, but she let me keep the film so that should be an awesome shot! What a stupid rule anyway; I didn't want their stupid show, I wanted my boys, and they certainly aren't copyrighted!
Anyway, I considered myself quite lucky as I left the Green Room after the live show ended at 1:00AM. My "extra" friend told me he couldn't take me backstage to meet Hanson, so I counted my blessings and started to head back to the elevators. Just as I did, this wave of screaming girls practically swept me over on its way back to the studio. Those girls must have super Hanson radar, because standing at the door to the studio, surrounded by the NBC guards, were Hanson. I followed of course, camera at the ready.
The wave of screaming girls pushed right passed the guards like they were butter, but the guards didn't seem to care. Fortunately, this crowd of girls was relatively mild, and they only wanted to shake Hanson's hands and get an autograph. I rushed up and stood off to the right where I had the best angle to get pictures -- at 6 feet I towered over the girls and could see Ike and Tay at eye level. They weren't signing autographs but only shaking hands and telling people they had to go. I took advantage and started snapping pictures like crazy, until someone grabbed my hand. I thought it was a girl trying to climb me like a tree to see Hanson, but then I heard some one say "Hey, Mr. Camera Man!" I looked up, and right in front of me grabbing my hand was ZAC!!!!!!!!! I almost passed out from surprise! He was smiling that way he always does, looking right at me. Apparantly, I was quite a novelty for him to see. All I could say was "Zac, you're awesome!" while shaking his hand (not very eloquent, I know). Zac just said "thanks" and went on to other fans. Then I noticed Taylor had moved right next to Zac and was looking right at me, so I reached over all the girls (it's nice to be tall) and grabbed his hand. I just called his name and he gave me one of those macho hand clasp things (I guess because I'm a guy) and he said "Thanks for being here, man!" And I said "No, thank YOU Taylor!". He smiled and then turned to the others. Ike was on the other side so I really didn't have much contact with him, but I did reach over and grabbed his hand to shake it for just a second before all three of them were whisked away by the staff. The whole thing couldn't have lasted more than 30 seconds, but those 30 seconds will stay with me for a lifetime. Oh, I love that Zac so much -- he is such a kind hearted kid. HE reached out to ME, of all people. I guess that being a boy and standing out in a crowd of screaming girls drew his attention to me. I don't know, but I will never forget him for it. FlanelChic, I'm sure Ike would have done the same thing, but he was too far away from me. Anyway, I was kind of hoping they would want to talk to me and invite me back with them for a second, but they had to go I guess. Still, it makes me feel so good to know that I made a real connection with them, even if just for a second. It certainly meant a lot to me. Those kids are the apple of my eye, and I will never forget them for their kindness and heart they showed me.
Oh, one last thing I have to mention. Right behind Hanson the whole time was this really tall man holding a video camera, and he was videotaping US, not Hanson. I really didn't get a good look at him, nor did I want to with Hanson there, but I really think it was Walker Hanson, filming the fan reaction at SNL. At one point he pointed the camera right at me (once again, I stood out in the crowd) and filmed me for a couple of seconds. So, don't be surprised if you see a very goofy looking Papa in the next Hanson video!!
After Hanson left, not much else happened. I got to shake hands with the cast of SNL, Jack Nicholson, and Dan Ackroyd (who was in the audience), which was nice, but I didn't really care. Some of you may be going what?? How could you down play that? Well, I'm really not the kind of person who gets star-struck; none of them has touched me on a personal level like Hanson has, so I don't really care. They're just ordinary people to me. Besides, it was a bit anti-climactic after having met Hanson in person. Still, it was kind of a thrill and I did take more pictures of them.
OK, that's my story. There's actually more to tell that I left out, but I included all the juicy Hanson details that you all wanted. Sorry to rush off like this, but now I am late for work. Yikes! But I just had to stay and finish the story. I hope you all liked it. My heart still races everytime I relive those last few moments in my mind, and I feel like I am still there, being touched by a Hanson...
