An open letter to NKOTB fans...

So, after months of speculation, the worst kept secret in pop music history became official yesterday, NKOTB and BSB are touring together next year. Cue mass hysteria, lots of panty wetting, wild rumours, speculation.....and that's just Donnie's tweets. ;-) I am in the unfortunate position of being off work at the moment, unable to move off the couch so have been able to have a rather thorough read of what is being said about this tour.

I try wherever possible not to go to the nk.com very often because I find it to be a life sucking pit or negativity, lots of complaining and informative, interesting topics such as "Does Jordan follow you?" I'm not sure what response they are looking for that extends beyond a simple Yes or a No but I suspect it is really just a post so author can brag about aforementioned follow. However, I broke my nk.com exile for a few hours because I just knew that this announcement would produce the most interesting posts in months. You can always rely on a Blockhead to have a good all moan!! So lets look at some of the main complaints about this tour shall we....

1. Why are NK touring with BSB? They don't need anyone else.

I don't like to buy at all in to stereotype's of Americans. I love Americans, I think they are great people however comments like this do make you think otherwise. A well respected British comedian called Stewart Lee said in one of his stand up shows once "If an American was trapped in a bomb shelter with a tea cosy for 3 months (that's a woolly thing that old people in England put over the tea pot to keep the tea warm), the American would not even be curious enough to see if the tea cosy would make a serviceable hat. The sub-text of that being, that the stereotype of American is that they take everything on face value and don't often consider other options or ask themselves questions.

Do you really, honestly think that if NK could pack out stadiums or even arenas on their own and have all of the profits for themselves that they wouldn't do it? Of course they would! The reunion show was a big seller because it was just that.....a reunion after 15 years, an event more than a concert. People who would not normally pay for a New Kids ticket went out of curiosity. The last tour was small casino venues and they were not sold out for all shows. Say what you want, that's the reality. Tickets were not sold out. RCMH was not sold out on all 3 nights. The Fillmore was not sold out and that was even with a captive audience of fans, all in town waiting for the cruise. Why else do you think Jason was standing on the corner, giving away tickets??

I think when you are so into the 'NK bubble' you tend to get an overinflated sense of their popularity. You're surrounded everyday by other fans talking about them on Twitter, dissecting everything, stalking them wherever they go, hype from certain members of the band making the whole thing seem bigger than it really is in reality. That is their job though, you need the hype factor to generate excitement. But the reality is this, NK cannot fill the kind of venues that they want to fill without the pull of BSB also. Likewise, BSB have their own agenda for teaming up with NK. Both bands are not as popular as they used to be but combining the two of them in a big, hyped up, PR fuelled event will get bums on seats and tickets sold. It's the cross-pollination philosophy. They are very smarty teaming up with a band of the same ilk, who have as dedicated fans in order to have shared success and also make new fans. BSB fans may NEVER have even heard of NK but might become NK fans after seeing them live. Those BSB fans then may be more inclined to attend any future NK shows. Its not a case of NK wanting to tour with BSB cause them love them so much or vice versa, its a business venture with a common goal.....to generate ticket sales, to sell more merchandise and to gain new fans. Plain and simple.

2. I hate the fact that I am going to have to pay more money to see half an NK show. I hate BSB!

Yeah? Well, the wonderful thing about being born a human is that YOU are in charge of your own mind and your own decisions. You don't want to pay to see NK and BSB.....well do us all a favour and stay at home. Of course you are not going to do that, you'll buy a ticket and probably act like a spoilt 12 year old (as some of you did at RCMH) and sit your ass down with a face like a smacked arse whenever BSB are on stage. If you are going to act like that, stay at home and watch the YouTube clips....you can skip through those ghastly BSB songs at your leisure then. God forbid, you pay for a ticket and are subjected to the abject torture that is "I Want It That Way". *eye roll* And you know what? At least all of the BSB's can hold a tune....think what its gonna be like for the BSB fans that have to sit through an off key version of "I Got It". That'snot meant to be a hideous slam on Donnie, Donnie brings more than anyone to that group by way of swagger, charisma and PR but he is not the strongest singer, he does not sound great live sometimes and I am sure the BSB fans will think WTF? They don't have the benefit like we do of knowing how important Ddub is to NK in general and therefore forgiving his average singing voice. I'm pretty sure NK fans will be the first to criticize if any of the BSB's have a bad singing night. Ya get me? Probably not. lol

So back to my point, if you consider it to be half a show that you are paying for, save your money or give it to charity, whatever gives you joy joy feelings inside. Some of us consider it to be getting to see two great acts and a little piece of history all on one stage. Do not sit there andbleat on about NK's touring on their own....its not happening, NKOTBSB is happening. The quicker you deal with that, the better you will feel. lol

Also, can we lose the dramatic adjectives?? "I'm devastated". "This has ruined my life". "I can't sleep from the stress of it all". Seriously.....its a pop concert. If NKOTB have the ability to ruin your entire life by announcing they are touring with BSB then may I suggest you take a long, hard look at your priorities.

3. I don't want to share a concert hall with a bunch of immature 18 year olds!!!

LOL. Just LOL. Again its a stereotype that Americans do not fully get ironical statements BUT I'm pretty sure most can see the irony surrounding that little gem. Firstly, the majority of BSBfans are not going to be 18 year olds. BSB started when? Around 1993 ish? So technically a year before NKOTB broke up. I was 14 years old in 1993. If you take it that most kids get into boy bands at roughly 8 or 9 years old then that would make BSB fans no more 5 - 6 years younger than us. Probably older for the most part. We are all going to be roughly the same age with a few exceptions. There will be no great 20 year age gap and total disconnect that some people seem to be propagating. It's just maths. Get out your calculators.......if your Amish, try an Abacus or some other wood based calculating tool.

Now lets move on to this issue that BSB fans are going to be silly, immature, girls. Um, we've all been to NK concerts. Things I've noticed about the "mature" New Kids fans. They sit in lobbies all day waiting for a sighting, they suck up to all the crew, they stalk buses, hotels, they beg for twitter follows, they complain when a show is not in their state let alone in another country, they push and shove and use underhand tactics to benefit themselves, they spend countless hours gossiping on stupid gutter websites about their marriages and relationships, they are constantly trying to outdo other fans, they expect everything to be convenient for them and complain if its not, fans that legitimately win comps get threats and nasty threads created about that, anyone seen to have an "in" is either befriended by shady people who just want to use them for their connections or totally exiled....i could go on for hours. Are these the actions of mature women? I by no means mean that EVERYONE is like that, but there are a lot and its very transparent. People hate Miss Tattoo. I don't. Sure, her posts come across annoying sometimes but does it affect my life so much so that I want to tweet something hateful to her? Not at all. In fact, I kind of respect the fact that she is totally out there and unashamed of her celebrity obsession. Does she tweet alot of thing to make others envious? Probably, lol. So what? For the most part, most fans will tweet every detail of every interaction that they have with an NK so why lampoon her for doing the same thing? Look at yourself and your actions before pointing the finger at others.

Again, I've gone off on a tangent so my point is, NK fans are immature sometimes. I'm sure there will be BSB fans that are just the same, but saying that they are somehow going to be more immature is silly based on some age game that you haven't even estimated correctly in the first place. Maturity is not entirely based on someones age. Its about someones attitude. WORD!

4. They are not coming to Europe because they don't love us. I'm tired of them ignoring us!

If you're tired, then go take a nap. The answer to this lies in the answer to the first question. Do you have any idea what it takes to take a tour overseas? Not only financially, but logistically? Probably not. For them to go overseas the pay-off has to be big. Not only does it cost a lot more to fly over equipment needed to stage a show plus all the people involved, plus accommodationfor everyone in expensive European cities etc think about their families. They have to leave their families for months at a time and are not in a position to just hop a quick flight home on a free weekend. They all have young kids so the payoff needs to greatly outweigh the sacrifice.

Where the line gets blurred is that since the advent of Twitter, people seem to buy greatly into this thing that we are one big family and the NK's are our buddies who love us and would do anything for us. It's a nice thought, but you are living in a dream world. Getting a DM from a New Kid does not mean you are their best friend. If one of them recognises you and says something nice to you or hugs you at a show, it does not mean they think you are special. This whole touchy-feely world that has been created, a lot of the time by the NK's is not real. It's Marketing. They want you to feel this way about them cause if you feel like you are their best friend that translates into more $$$'s for them. I'm not saying they don't like their fans at all, I'm saying there is a difference between appreciating their fans and being best buddies with them. That is an illusion that people who need something to cling on to buy into wholeheatedly. You see it everyday on twitter, the constant "I love you" tweets going to the NK's. Do you love Joey McIntyre the same way you love your husband? Or your kids? No. Does Ddublove his fans more than Edub? No. I know "I love you" is a lot of the time just used to convey a deep appreciation for them adding a little va-va-voom to your life but honestly, love is a serious deep emotion that should be saved for the people that you really do love, not bestowed lightheartedly on someone you've put on a pedestal for years and have seen a few times in your life for max 30 seconds. I have never tweeted, I love you, to any NK and never will. I find itdisingenuous and very strange.

If you need a clearer example of how "love" is used to manipulate us, look no further than Donnie's tweet from today. LMAO!!

Donnie Wahlberg Money- meaningless. Love- endless. Live to give! #love

Some people took that to mean that Donnie just loves us so much. A lot of people took it the way I did, a canny marketing ploy to shift tickets. The romantic idea that in this "family" money means nothing, everything is motivated by love. Forget money worries, buy a ticket so we can all be together to share in this love fest of epic proportions! haha! I don't blame Donnie. I think he is so smart. He knows 90% will buy in to it and about 5% on top of that will at least pretend to. That tweet was a masterpiece of smart, manipulative, oratorical fireworks!!

So again my point is, buying into this feeling that NK should tour based on "love" is ridiculous. They are not a charity. They are not going to do an expensive tour overseas and leave their families for months to LOSE money.

I appreciate that a lot of these comments stem from just a big disappointment. I get that. I am a European, I have never seen NK in the UK. Not even when they were here 2 years ago. Every show I've been too I have had to travel for and, excluding Chicago, have had to pay thousands of dollars for. I don't like it. I would much rather stay in London and travel 5 mins down the road to the O2 Arena and see them but that is not an option. I have plenty of other things that money could be used for but I'm not going to complain about it because its my choice to fly over for a concert. I try to see the big picture and understand the reason behind the desicionsthat are made and take my personal feelings out of it. The people I feel sorry for are not the Europeans, its people in Asia and Australia who had the concert dangled in front of their eyes and then ripped away again. I'm not going to complain about a 6 hour flight to NYC compared to their 20+ plus hour flight from Sydney. Perspective.

The one thing that does bug me is people in the US who complain when a show is a 2 hour drive away and act like its such a hardship to travel all that way. LOL!! Give me a break.

Plus, you don't know for sure yet where this tour is going to go. Bands at the moment don't tend to release all tickets/venues straight away. They see what the demand is like first.NK/BSB will use the US sales as a tester. I would imagine more and more dates will be added as demand increases. If there is a huge demand then it could turn into branching out to other parts of the globe so being all pissy and mad at this stage is kind of pointless.

The way some people act its like they feel that NK/BSB are doing this to piss us off. Yeah I'm sure they are all sitting there thinking, lets do something that is really gonna make the fans mad. Of course they are not. This is a GOOD thing they are doing. They give us a lot, way more than most bands but the consequence of this is that people's expectations go up until they become unrealistic. It makes me sad that BSB fans are probably logging onto the NK.com website and seeing all these ridiculous posts from so called "mature" NK fans about this tour and about BSB fans in general. We cannot go onto their forum without paying £39.95.....see how good our boys are? We don't have to pay to be members of their website.

If you are someone that likes taking the moral high ground over BSB fans, the best way to do it is not to make whiney posts like some 12 yr old fan girl with a scuffed knee somewhere where they can read it. We are representatives of the band we support and our actions and behaviours reflect on ourselves, other fans and the band.

At the end of the day, I want BSB fans to go to this concert, see NKOTB and how amazing they are and want more! I want them to come to NK concerts, I want them to join our website, I want them to tweet with us. More fans means NK will be able to continue for longer and isn't that what we all want? It feels sometimes like the NK world is somewhat closed off to outsiders and that is they way people like it. I can see where you are coming from somewhat, its initimate, like a secret club BUT being that way is the fastest way to NK disappearing again. A band is nothing without fans.....and lots of them.

So, that is my opinion on everything I have read.

Will I be going to the NK/BSB tour. Possibly! I shall see if time and money will allow and make MY desicion based on what makes me happy.

To all those who are positive about this tour. Well done! Please pick up your "Good girl button" and big ole hug upon exiting this blog.

This blog is just my personal opinion and "reply" to the things I have read over the past 24 hours.

Peace.Love.TheBlog...I mean TheBlock ;-)

www.nkotbsb.com

@jordanknight #deluxepackage

Please feel free to leave comments :-)