A show for the aged

Most of us probably have a few select tours we'd like see before we set sail for that great mosh pit in the sky. 

A Wham! reunion tour.  Miami Sound Machine.  DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince "Grandparents Just Don't Understand Tour."  (What?  I have mine.  You have your own.)

We sit around whiling away the hours in our workaday lives, just hoping for the day when we hear the news that our favorite band has gotten back together.

But then sometimes a tour comes along that is so amazing, so completely out of left field, that you didn't even know to wish for it.  It is truly beyond your wildest concert dreams.

That tour has arrived.

That's right, boys and girls... mostly girls.  Motownphilly, back again!  Turns out it's not so hard to say hello to yesterday.  You just thought it was the end of the road.  The nineties called, they want their boomsauce back!  

I've a mind to pull out my Batman t-shirt (a la Jordan Knight in the "I'll Be Loving You Forever" video).  And if I had enough hair, I'd totally rock a 1992 Boys II Men fade!  (As opposed to the slightly-modified Brandon Walsh "James Dean" 'do I unfortunately attempted to rock from 1991 until 1999.)

Boys II Men.  A band that needs no introduction.  And that's a good thing because I don't think I ever knew any of their names anyway.

But I did have their first tape.  Cooleyhighharmony.  The name says it all, really.  

When asked what the band had been up to, lo, these many years, one nameless band member said matter-of-factly, "Well... growing into men, as the name would suggest."

He continued, saying the guys were glad to be back to being Boys II Men after a couple of failed name changes.  "Men Reliving Their Past just didn't work for us.  The only people who showed up at our concerts were forty-year-old guys in football and softball uniforms.  And they didn't know the words to any of our songs."

When asked about their touring partners, this nameless member was only complimentary.  "We are honored to be touring with five middle-aged white guys from Boston.  It's not every day we get a chance to tour with someone whose last #1 hit was longer ago than ours."

Speaking of those "kids" from Beantown, I don't think I have to tell you my feelings about NKOTB.  I mean, my Where Are They Now post may very well have been the impetus for their first reunion tour in 2008.  (Dear World, You're welcome.  Signed, Bone.)

Unable or willing to reach any of the New Kids for comment, we imagine Donnie Wahlberg might have said, "Well, you know, no one really has any idea what movies I've been in.  To be honest, I can't even remember them myself.  But when I tell people I'm Donnie D, well, first they look kinda confused.  But after a couple of minutes of gentle coercion, eventually they're like, 'Oh!  You're one of the New Kids who hardly ever sang lead!'  I mean, you can't put a price on that.  When I'm dead and gone, that's something I can put on my tombstone.  By the way, speaking of tombstones, I now have a tombstone engraving business on the side -- I call it, Donnie D's Famous Last Words -- and I CAN put a price on all your grave marker needs."

And then there's 98 Degrees.  

Look, I gotta be honest.  I always get them mixed up with N'Sync and Backstreet Boys.  

On SongPop, I mean.

When some girl I'm playing against picks the Boy Bands category, I mean...

I always questioned why they didn't just use the degree symbol in their name?  Did they not have character map back then?  98°.  How cool would that have been!  Heck, they'd probably still be popular if I'd been in charge of their logo.

So if you're like me and have no clue what 98 Degrees sang, well there's only one way to find out -- besides the internet.  And asking someone.  And that way is, going to see them in concert.

Actually, I was kinda hoping they'd be the opening act and I could skip their part of the show.  But now I'm thinking what if Nick Lachey is doing a meet-and-greet, I'll probably want to get there early to get a place in line.

This is just the kind of tour that keeps that tiny, glimmering shard of hope alive that somehow, someday, Wham! might slip on the ol' "Choose Life" t-shirts one more time.  (Andrew?  George?  Come on, guys, none of us are getting any younger.)

And without hope, life would be... well, I shudder to think.

(Disclaimer: All interviews in the preceding post are fake.  The interviewees are real, in that they are real people.  But they are not real, in that they were not really interviewed by the real interviewer, who is me.  Those who were fake interviewed for this post did not necessarily say the quotes attributed to them, although that's not to say they couldn't have, had they actually been posed these very questions for real, which they were not.)

"Back in school we used to dream about this every day / Could it really happen / Or do dreams just fade away..."