From: Lauren

December 17, 1998
Jingle Ball
Madison Square Garden
New York City, NY

Well, the Jingle Ball was at Madison Square Garden last night. I headed to the event without tickets. My friend, Deana, and I miraculously ended up sitting behind the stage (thanks to an asshole scalper, many MSG employees, and Z100 promoters). Our seats were kind of cool because you could watch the bands on the screen and you could see all the backstage action. Other artists: Shania Twain, N'Synch, Monica, 98 degrees... It was an interesting evening. A couple of those acts were like the New Kids reincarnated. But hey?

Five, ten minutes before the Goos performed, I saw them all standing backstage. John and Nathan were dancing during the set changes. I believe they were doing some kind of folk/swing dances to N'Synch and Brian Setzer Orchestra. They were very funny.

When they came on, the crowd went wild. There were so many dam people there, and everyone in the front section appeared to be having a blast. Unfortunately, only 6 songs; I believe in this order: "Dizzy," "Slide," "Black Balloon," "Name," "Broadway," and "Iris."

Just an interesting point: Robby was wearing black vinyl pants. I'd never seen him in vinyl. But they were very cool pants. I'd love to borrow them, by the way.

Well, after the show,(long story and entirely too much detail), Deana and I hung out in their dressing room for awhile. They're awesome.

Lessons to be learned from my shitty-turned-excellent experience:

-Never scalp tickets. Actually, never trust anybody. (Luckily, for me, it was only 40 bucks, and thanks to the scalper, I at least got into the venue).

-Even sold-out events have hope: I ran into some people who walked right into the arena, without tickets. I was lucky enough to encounter a very nice radio station promoter; he gave us our tickets.