Once upon a time there lived a girl called Jennifer. Back in those care free days of kittens and ponies and I-never-asked-to-be-born tantrums she found a boy band to adore: New Kids on the Block.

Time passed and Jennifer grew. NKOTB’s stardom faded and eventually they
called it a day and moved on – be that to other projects in the entertainment
business or to collecting shopping carts at Albertson’s. Jennifer’s taste in
music also moved on and she found other, more adult, acts to follow and
admire – although maybe not as hysterically as her earlier days.

Now Jennifer has grown up and is a married woman with responsibilities (me).
However, the child in us all cannot be suppressed as easily as we’d like to
think. Back in 2008 when NKOTB announced a reunion tour, Jennifer reverted
back to her 12 year old self in an instant. Nothing was going to stop her
getting tickets. She got those tickets but there was a problem; she had
nobody to go with. Her friends who would have gone were 5500 miles away.
Oh dear. This meant that good old reliable yours truly would have to
accompany her unless a substitute could be found.

There then followed a frantic (yet ultimately fruitless) search for somebody
to accompany Jennifer on her nostalgic romp. I soon exhausted my not very
extensive list of female friends who all had more important things to do on that
night (washing hair, root canal surgery, watching Coronation Street etc).

All of the above therefore explains why I found myself walking toward
Newcastle upon Tyne’s Metro Radio Arena on a cold damp January evening
to see NKOTB.

As we approached, it was easy to spot others also heading to the show.
There were pairs and groups of women chattering excitedly with a spring in
their step. Mostly they were women. When I say mostly I mean they were all
women. About 600 metres from the arena there were no men in sight.
Nervously I gripped Jennifer’s hand. I was a supportive heterosexual man-
husband and everyone was going to know it. I held my head up high and
confidently strolled onwards.

Suddenly Jennifer spotted that rarest of things: a man. He was at the bottom
of the steps leading to the arena. My heart leapt. He looked quite normal and
was obviously showing interest in the show. Was he waiting for a bunch of his
man-mates to show up so they could go in and relive years gone by? Fearless
men confident in who they were and unashamed of their musical tastes? As
we neared, it soon became clear he was no such thing and his mates weren’t ever
going to show up.

“Tickets! Get your tickets here. Best prices!”

Oh crap.

Taking a deep breath we took the plunge and entered the lions’ (cougars’?)
den. I glanced around and assessed the situation. There were lots of women
milling around. Nearly all were with other women, who in turn were chatting to
yet more women. Some of these women were chatting on their phones.
Probably to other women.

I spotted a few men – security and event staff mostly. However, there were
men there for the show. Some were with groups of women and may or may
not have been gay (very probably they were gay). A few were with partners
and I saw one chap with his lady locked in his arms, clearly showing that he
was a man just there for her. Grrr.

I waited patiently for Jennifer while she entered the t-shirt scrum. Coming
back with her booty, we entered the arena and searched for our seats.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Newcastle arena, it is a not very
impressive multi-purpose type affair with banked seating surrounding a central
floor area. It’s variously used for ice hockey, basketball, exhibitions and of
course live shows. At shows, the stage is at one end and normally the floor
area is free-for-all standing. For this and other shows that are for the *ahem*
older crowds, they put seating on the floor to give the fans somewhere to rest
their weary bones.

Our tickets were for C block on the floor which was, as you may guess, three
blocks from the stage. Only about two thirds of the arena was being used so
we were in the rearmost middle seating block. I was pleased that our seats
were the very last row and on the end of the row. Behind us was an exit
walkway and the sound desk. We still had a good view of the stage and the
back/row end location meant that I could keep my head down (as much as
one can in the middle of an arena). To top it off, the two seats in front of us
were empty so it felt even more spacious. In the circumstances I was sorted. I just had to sit back, be strong and I’d get through this and out the other side with a
minimum of trauma.

Or so I thought.

The show started, and sure enough the crowd went ape. Before the boys
came on, the big screen showed an intro montage with captions telling us
about how 15 years ago they’d walked away but now they were back. I was
expecting the caption that said “(because we need the money)” but it never
appeared.

Everyone in front of us stood up so we did likewise. It would have been rude
of me not to stand up and at least take a look. Being over 6′ tall and the tallest
person in the arena, I had an excellent view all the way to the stage.

The Block came on and did some numbers. Everyone sang along and was
having a great time. I stopped short of waving my hands in the air and my only
concession was a slight, discreet toe-tap now and then. I’m an Englishman. I
don’t show my emotions in public.

About an hour in, something strange started to happen. Women began
gathering around the sound desk behind us. I thought maybe somebody had
had a funny turn or messed themselves and everyone near them had moved
away while it was sorted out. Perplexed, we carried on with the show.
Occasionally I glanced nervously over my shoulder at the slowly increasing
woman-crowd. The boys finished a number and shuffled off stage. I looked
again behind us and noticed that the women were facing inwards around the
sound desk. How odd. Then suddenly it dawned on me: that wasn’t a sound
desk. It was a platform. With a piano on it. Oh shi…

What happened next is a blur. As the reality dawned I told Jennifer. We
entered Matrix-esque bullet time. As she turned to look, it seems that every
single woman in the arena also twigged what was about to happen: The
Block were coming right here, ten feet behind us to do a turn. Then it
happened. From all around us, instinctively as one like a flock of starlings, a
crowd of hysterical 30-something women descended on us. They swarmed
us, pushing into our row of seats and climbing over each other. We were
jostled and pushed around and I had to rescue my jacket before it was ripped
from the back of my seat and trampled in the frenzy.

The veneer of civilisation is very thin indeed.

Now, in an instant, I had gone from being at the back of the seating area all
safe and comfortable to being sandwiched between (loudly) screaming
women 10 feet from their idols. I stood out like a sore thumb. I was trapped
with nowhere to run, towering over everyone with the attention of the entire
arena focussed just in front of me. Oh. The. Humiliation.

I swear at one point Joey winked at me.

The boys banged out a couple of songs and then they cleared off. As quickly as the crowd
had gathered they dispersed. I could breathe once more. After that the show
ground on and eventually came to an end with Hangin’ Tough. The lights
came up and we were amongst the first to exit the building.

As we left the arena, on the road outside was a long line of parked cars.
Where 20 years ago it would have been mums and dads collecting their
daughters, now it was husbands and boyfriends. Some cars even had kids in
them, peering out anxiously to spot mummy. If only they’d seen what mummy
had turned into just an hour before; they would have nightmares for weeks.

We headed home. I had come out of this in one piece, although my ears were
ringing and I was high on oestrogen. I had earned major brownie points. I’m
still not sure if I’ll require counselling but time will tell. I wouldn’t say I didn’t
enjoy it as it was an experience. Maybe an experience I wouldn’t want to
revisit, but an experience nonetheless.

However, I would have preferred to see Take That.