Wow. That's all we can say before we begin. The whole day was awesome!! Anyway, the day was long and hectic, but fun, as always. April arrived at my house around noon, closely followed by Julie, a good friend and fellow Hanson fan!! We finished up our totally awesome posters, called a few friends, and were on our way out the door. We hopped in the car and made our way to Stroudsburg to pick up my cousin. This is about 15 min outside of where we live. Now, keep in mind that from Hick country where we live, it takes about 2 1/2 hours to get to Philly. Anyway, we got to the daycare, where the stupid people inside asked my mom for ID to pick up my little cousin who obviously recognized her. Oh well. We made a seat switch, and were off for Hope, NJ, where my aunt works. While in Hope, my brother and cousin decided to ride with my aunt down to Philly, we took a bathroom break, (which, might I add, had really nifty soap dispensers) AND explored the men's bathroom. Ugh. Then it was back on the road. BUT before we could get any real milage, of couse, my thirsty family had to stop at a gas station for drinks and gas. Julie couldn't stand the smell of the gas so she stuck popcorn up her nose. Within the 10 minutes we were there, the following things managed to happen: My little brother got mad at my cousin "'cause he wasn't sharin his toys" and decided to ride with us and my mom, we bought Sprite and gum, and April managed to exchange her iced tea about 10 times before she finally found her addiction, Lipton. Ugh again. We were driving again. The ride was majorly uneventful, save for the fact that we totally pigged out on chips, jellybeans, twizzler, popcorn, and soda. We listened to MON about 4 time straight before arriving at my Grandma's, where we would be staying. She lives about 20 min outside of Philly. When we got there, we farmiliarized ourselves with the house, shovled down some pizza, got changed, and left. April, Julie, and I could hardly contain ourselves. April even screamed to the women at the tollbooth "We're going to see Hanson! Can you belive it?" The women screamed with us and flipped her head around a little. When we got to Corestates, there was Cleopatra music blaring, TT+MON was playing on every montior, and we were all hyped. Then we got in line for programs. There was a bunch of girls in back of us going "Oh, Taylor, I want to have your child!!" And they explained exactly how they were going to do that. Needless to say, we were not all that thrilled to be standing where we were. Oh well. When we got our programs, t shirts and other crap, we made our way to the section we were to sit in. By this time, we were totally not excited, if you can belive that! We watied, chatted, waited, watched two girls talk about having to "share" Ike, waited, looked at the clock, waited some more. During this waiting period, we watched a bunch of people hold up thier MOE cards, and saw no one in our area get picked. When the event staff came around and told us that they had already picked the people, this one girl ran out crying. NOTE: The event staff was carrying around smelling salts in case anyone felt the need to faint. Anyway, so, soon after this, the lights dimmed. Of course, everyone SCREAMED!! And out walked.............Admiral Twin. Okay, not to be downers or anything, but we were not all that impressed by them. They were talented, but they were just........there. There was really nothing special about them. So, they played a half hour set. Then we waited HALF AN HOUR for Hanson. While we waited, we met Lynne and Stephanie, who were sitting behind us. This was their third Hanson concert. So they told us what to expect at first, and all that good stuff. So after we chatted with them for a while, the lights went down again. All of the sudden you hear the bass in the beginning of "Gimme Some Lovin'" and someone go "test". The crowd ERUPTED. The curtain dropped and there they were. We were just stunned. Like, mouths hanging open. Lynne and Stephanie told us to shake our butts and Hanson when they say "Lemme see ya shake a tailfeather." We did not, I was just to embarassed. Next Hanson did "Thinking of you" which sounded great. Then they talked a little, about how happy they were to be in Philly, blah, blah, blah. Then Zac goes "We have just have one question....Where's the Love?" When they played this song, the whole place was shaking. It was awesome. Did anyone else notice that Zac just grew up all of the sudden? We have to note here that all three Hansons were wearing SHINY PANTS!! Aghhhhhhh, the humanity. No matter how hard we try, we just can't make ourselves like those pants. Anyway, they played "River", "Weird", and an oldie called "Sunshine of your Love" after that. Then they did a little set change. Now we could actually see Zac! At this point, Hanson got abusive! They started throwing water bottles at us!! NOTE: Sitting to the side of us, there was , what appeared to be, a nice, quiet girl. Welllll..as soon as Hanson came out, she screamed "I Love You Isaac!!" in a deep, chesty voice the whole time. It was a little more than annoying! Anyway, they did "Madaline" ( when they introduced this song, April and I screamed cuz this is like our fav song!!) "Stories", "With you in your dreams", ( We swear that Ike wiped tears out of his eyes when they were finished!!) and "Money (That's what I want)" . Then Ike kicked his brothers off the stage and did a little solo called "More than Anything". SET CHANGE!! Now they played "Speechless", "Ever Lonely" (very cool song), and this song-that-wasn't-really-a-song, in which Taylor kicked Zac out from behind the drums and played them for about 30 seconds while Zac squirted us with Super Soakers. This was a really cool part of the concert. Next they played "I will Come To You", "A Minute Without You", and "Good Lovin'". Okay, now after this, they played.........".MMMBOP!!!". During this song, the whole place was singing and totally rocking out. then came "Man from Milwaukee". Now, this song was especially awesome cuz at the end, Ike did this little jump-onto-Zac's-drumset-and-bounce-off-of-it-while-kicking-his-legs-in-the-air-and-landing-on-his-knees type thing. It was so cool!! Obviously rehersed, but ever awesome. Um, then they said the usual dialouge: TAYLOR:"Thank you, guys!! You're awesome!!" IKE: "You're an incredible audience!" Blah, blah........then.........they left. Ugh. But........we screamed for them and from out of nowhere, you hear (from either Tay or Zac, not sure) "Do you really want us back?" Of course we were like "YES!!" So they did an encore. They played "Look at you", ( I like this song soooo much better live. It's more electric..or maybe it's cuz there are no one eyed goose comments at the end when it's live!!), "Summertime Blues" (they got the whole crowed involved with this). Taylor came out from behind the keyboards and ponted his mic into the audience and encoureged us to sing along. Then they did "Weird" again, a cappella. They threw more stuff at us (drumsticks, guitar picks, water,) and then they were gone for real!! We had such a good time!! When we were finally outta there, our hearing was fuzzy for a while. That was a little scary. We brought earplugs, but do you think we actually wore them, besides when Admiral Twin was on? Of course not. We want the whole experience!! On the way back to the car, I bought a t shirt off some guy in the parking lot for 10 bucks. It was just as nice as the ones inside and 15 bucks cheeper!! Actually I think some were actually official tour shirts, cuz there were a lot of guys out there selling them. Well, I beleive that concludes our review. Sorry so late!! If you attended the second Philly show ( or any other show for that matter) email us and tell us about it!! If we get enough entries, we'll make up a special page for them and post them all up!!
-Joy and April