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Chapter 2
As it was getting closer to show time Anne's nerves were getting to her, Nicole knocked on the dressing room door. "Rose, it's time to go." They walked out into the waiting area under the stage. "Have a good show, break a leg," Nicole said before she left.
Anne's knees began to shake, she could not remember having stage fright this bad in years. She began to give herself a little pep talk. "You'll be fine... you've done stuff like this before... you know your stuff... you'll be fine." Someone tapped her on the shoulder, she jumped. She turned around to see Howie with Kevin standing behind him.
"I didn't mean to scare you," said Howie. "We just wanted to wish you good luck."
Kevin and Howie each gave Anne a hug.
"Are you guys going to be listening through the monitors?"
"Of course," Kevin said.
Anne took a deep breath and got ready to go on stage, she adjusted her headset microphone, and climbed the stairs to the completely dark stage. She picked up her Les Paul Custom and signaled to Bubba to start counting off the music, the band started playing. When she hit the first 'power chord,' a good solid A, the lights immediately came up on the stage, she began to sing. "Please take me home, to the place I used to love, the place I used to know..." After she finished the song she began to talk to the crowd.
"How's everybody doing tonight?" she asked, the crowd roared back. They did not seem to care that she was speaking English and that they did not understand it.
"Well I'm the Rose and I'm going to be hanging out with you for the next forty minutes or so." The crowd cheered some more.
"So do you guys want to hear a little rock music?" The crowd cheered. "Did you guys say something?" The crowd cheered even louder. "What was that?" The crowd was now standing on their feet. "Well all right then, let's rock!" Anne strummed the first few chords of One Soul, it was one of her older songs, and one of her favorites, she was surprised to see a girl in the front singing along. She walked around the pentagonal stage as she played, her guitar was rigged up to be wireless, and she wore a headset mike so she could play to as much of the audience as possible.
Back in the dressing room the Boys were just hanging out, relaxing. Nick was drawing, Brian and A.J. were playing a video game, and Kevin and Howie were playing cards. The concert was playing over the system of audio monitors.
"Did you hear that?" asked Howie.
"What D?" asked A.J.
"Listen," Howie replied. Everyone's ears perked up as they listened in on the guitar.
"Is that her?" asked Nick.
"It's gotta be," Brian said. "Guy doesn't play like that, that's the wrong kind of distortion to be him."
"That girl can rock," A.J. said. "Take that! HA HA!" He just managed to kill the bad guy he was fighting.
Anne played two more rock songs, Why, and Fire, then she played Back To Before, and Stars, at the piano. Anne took a drink from her water bottle and changed clothes, it was time to start dancing. When she and the female dancers had assembled on the stage Anne signaled to Bubba again and he started counting off These Days Are Mine. The lights came up on the stage, the adrenalin was pumping through her veins, she started belting out the lyrics, and moving in perfect time with the dancers. Days, was a peppy dance song Jake had her record, originally Anne wanted to record it as a rock song, but in the end Jake won out. The crowd loved it. She got the crowd up by clapping her hands and stomping her feet. Hope, was next, it was one of her favorite dance songs, she moved a little more aggressively than she had in Days, she was finally getting back into performing like that. After the song was over, Anne heard a voice cut in over her in-ear monitors, "You have time for one more song." She looked at the stairs at the front of the stage and saw the guys getting ready to go on, they were praying. Anne adjusted her headset and began to speak to the audience.
"Well, this is my last song, it was nice hanging with you, I hope you like it. It's called Fight for Your Life."
Guy started with the power rifts, Bubba pounded on the drums. Anne started to sing, "In this day and life, who knows what is right..." throughout the song she and the girls danced. During one line she happened to catch a look at the stairs, all five guys were together, but most of them were not paying attention to what was happening on stage. Howie smiled at her and she managed to smile back. For the end she was going to do one of her favorite moves, she had shown it to Fatima earlier, and they put it into the routine. Anne would kick up over her head and on the way back down slide her foot under her and sort of end up in the splits. Anne would put her hands up and sing the last line, "Fight for your life." She did it and the crowd loved it, they were cheering.
"Did you guys see that?" asked Howie.
"What?" asked A.J., who saw Anne sitting on the stage.
"Did she slip?" asked Nick who was now aware of what they were talking about.
"No, she did this really cool high kick thing. Like she would have easily made it over your head, Kev, and then she did this slide thing and ended up down there," Howie said.
"Cool," Kevin said. He noticed Anne getting up off the stage, she adjusted her headset a little, "Thank you," she said. The crew came out and did a line check, this was the only opportunity for the band to take a breather, Anne got off stage and quickly took out her in-ear monitors and handed them off to a sound tech guy. She noticed the guys and most of the band standing in a circle, they looked to be praying again.
"Hey, Anne join us." Kevin said. Anne joined the circle, sandwiched between Kevin and Nick, she felt really short next to these two. They did one last quick prayer, and then the infamous 'Backstreet Chant,' this time Brian was the leader. Brian: "What time is it?" Everyone: "It's time to go to work now." Brian: "What kind of work?" Everyone: "Hard Work!"
The band went back out on the stage, and the guys got set to go on moved to another area under the stage and got set to go on. They were dressed all in blue, and were wearing what looked to Anne like bullet proof vests. Anne started slowly walking back toward her dressing room. The crowd was going absolutely wild, Anne could hear them chanting "Backstreet Boys! Backstreet Boys!" over and over again. She got to the doors and heard a loud boom, she turned around to look at one of the monitors under the stage and saw all five guys shoot up into the air. They were in fountains of sparks on what looked like lighted boogie boards, to the strains of Star Wars music. She panicked for a split second until she saw that each singer was supported by two cables from the track above them, they surfed in mid air for a few moments, were towed to the stage then landed.
Anne went back to her dressing room and all but collapsed into the chair at the back of the room. She relaxed, and then grabbed her bag that had her jeans and a T-shirt in it and went to get a shower. The hot water felt good, she dried her hair and went back to her dressing room and relaxed, she dozed for a few minutes. She decided to go watch the concert, and ended up in 'the green room' on tv in the corner she could see the same images projected giant tv monitors above the stage. The guys were followed by dozens of cameras especially when they were close to the edge. And they were there a lot, to be closer to the fans. The guys came trotting back out on the stage, after what Anne assumed was a costume change. They were all wearing nice suits and dress shirts. A.J., had the suit pants on, and the button down shirt with the tie, but he had since taken off his suit coat, he always was a little 'different.' The color disturbed Anne a little, they were pink, a color that did not rank very high on her list of colors. The girls were going wild anyway, they did not seem to care what they guys wore just as long as they were singing. She found herself watching Howie more closely than any of the other guys, while he was dancing, she all of a sudden realized how nice of shape he really was in. Anne could understand the words, it was easy despite the screaming, which thankfully did not bleed through the monitors very much. After about one minute she realized they were singing I'll Never Break Your Heart, when they got to the chorus. She quietly tried to sing along and watched the rest of the concert, she faked it along as best she could to the few songs she sort of knew, but was drowned out by the music and thousands of screaming and singing fans coming through the monitors. They were wrapping up, they started Everybody, the dancers came out and did a little dancing from the video, the guys came out a few seconds later, they had taken a quick water break and changed after the last song. Pyrotechnics were going off all over the place, they began to sing and dance, it was a great song to put near the end. The guys left the stage, and Anne still had the one of the last songs the guys sang, Show Me The Meaning, going through her head, she tried to remember the lyrics enough to get it out of her head, but it was no use. Howie walked by the door, and gave her a little mocking smile when he heard her singing one of their songs. "What?" she called back. The Boys went back out on stage and closed with I Want It That Way, it took Anne about three seconds to realize what song it was. She fought the urge to sing along, but eventually gave in, and quietly sang the lyrics along with the fans, this time she knew the words because of the song's heavy air play. After the song was over the house lights came up and the Boys wished the people good night and a safe trip home. They came back under the stage.
"Hi Anne," Brian said. "Did you enjoy the show?"
"It was amazing, it was so much cooler than I imagined, I really liked all the pyro and the flying."
"We're all going to get quick showers and head back to the hotel, you can ride back with us if you want," Kevin said.
"Okay, I'll see you guys in a few."
The guys took very speedy showers, considering there were five of them. Kevin and Howie were ready first so Anne took a cab back to the hotel with them.
"You mean they always eat at McDonalds?" she asked as they were driving back to the hotel.
"Yep. They find one the first day we get into any town," Kevin said.
"That's horrible, they can get that stuff anywhere. They aren't helping the American stereotype any. I ran into this all the time in Paris, when people found out that I was an American they would ask me if I wanted directions to the nearest McDonalds. The French, especially, think all us Americans do is eat fast food and watch sports on tv, it's sad, really."
"That is sad," Howie replied.
"I know lots of great places in Paris and London, maybe we could drag them out to get some 'real food.' There's this place in London, Kelly's, where I'm sure they could get some pretty 'American food' there."
"You can try, but it won't be easy," said Kevin.
"You know the only part of show I didn't like was those suits, I'm not a big fan of pink," Anne said.
"You and me both, I wasn't too thrilled when Kiki unveiled them," Howie replied.
"Why didn't you guys just say, 'NOOO!'?" Anne asked.
"We tried, believe me, we tried," Kevin said. "Especially Nick, he was like, 'No, there's no way...no, I'm not going to...it's pink...but it's pink, it's not going to happen.' I don't think I've ever laughed so hard in my life, no matter how hard he protested, Kiki refused to change them."
"Yes, this is a lot like theatre, you wear what they tell you, and get over it. What did the rest of you think?" she asked.
"I didn't care, we only wear them for a few songs anyway. Kev, I don't think you cared too much either, right?" Howie asked.
"No, it's just a costume, neither did Brian, he was just like 'whatever,'. A.J. was totally fine with it, you have to hear his little fashion philosophy sometime. 'I want to wear either something nobody's got, or something no one would be caught dead wearing."
"That explains a lot," Anne replied dryly.
"The funny thing is Nick is determined to burn those suits when the tour is over," Kevin said.
"Well you know, I have a fire pit on my backyard at my house back in Michigan, I'd let him use it if he wanted," Anne replied.
"Oh no, don't tell Nick that, he'll take you up on it," said Howie.
"Oh like you'd stop him," she said.
"You've got a point, I wouldn't go out of my way to take the lighter fluid away from him," he replied.
"I bet after this whole tour is over, there will be about 500,000 fans who would gladly throw on the first match," Anne said. "And I think I'm one of them."
"Well they'll have to fight Nick for it," Kevin said.
"Like they'd mind," she added. The three of them started laughing.
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