The After Party is over and the show itself was unlike any other I’d ever been to. A review didn’t do it justice though I did talk about it and the VIPs . But now I want to talk about the soundcheck. It was a last minute decision because the way it’d been originally advertised by Ticketmaster had been iffy. Basically it only promised two of them and you wouldn’t know who until you showed up. Then it ended up being all four each night! I think if we’d all known that more people would’ve chosen to do it honestly. I did enjoy that the crowd was small, it made it feel more intimate.
It reminded me of the VIPs from back in the day.
For newer fans, it used to be VIP packages came in tiers. Bronze only got you the soundcheck. Silver got you the soundcheck and a group photo with the Boys (no less than four fans), Gold got you the sound check and a solo photo with them, then platinum got you a backstage tour or you got to be on stage for a song, included with a solo photo and a soundcheck. These things got phased out when the first residency came along.
Don’t get me wrong, the old VIPs were oversold and insanely overcrowded. So a lot of the changes to VIP that came with the residency were more than welcome. That said, I’d legitimately forgotten how much I enjoyed soundchecks. I used to do Bronze just for that. I loved them that much. They were just very personal and engaging. This one I did for the final show of The After Party was no different.
Basically they had us asking questions, they were picking who got to ask. Yours truly got a chance to ask something so I used my opportunity to ask Nick when we’d see his solo album hit fruition. (Well once I got his attention, he’d gone to get water when I asked and I jokingly told him to pay attention haha.) The answer was as expected, that he’d been busy with the Christmas album, his family and such. But that he did still plan on releasing a song (Girl I Knew) as a NFT. Other good questions came up too, like what songs by the others did they have as favorites. One AJ named was NSYNC’s Digital Get Down, and Nick was definitely more in my lane naming Boyz II Men’s song Thank You and mentioning he’d wanted it in the set list but it hadn’t made it.
No phones were allowed and this was actively enforced, not just encouraged. But I actually agreed with the reasoning in that it allowed all of them to be more open with their answers. Plus we all just got to sit back and enjoy the moment. Then the four of them performed a song for us, of course. All in all it was pretty great. It wasn’t until the end that we were allowed to take photos that they posed for.
In a time like now, where we’re still dealing with a pandemic? I think this might be the VIP solution. Why not bring these back for the Christmas residency? Make the soundchecks part of the package in a time where Meet and Greets while fantastic, aren’t going to be the same as pre-covid. That’s just the reality. It’s no one’s fault. I feel that if we add soundchecks into VIP you’d get a lot of happy fans who’d love the experience. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed them since the In A World Like This tour until I actually had it back again. Not to mention to have one with all five Boys joking around and bantering? Sign me up!
So for the powers that be, think of the Christmas residency as a test run. It’s only twelve shows, so twelve VIPs featuring a soundcheck. This would be very covid friendly and help fans feel a lot better about the changes that would come with covid restrictions during a meet and greet. Like I said, I loved mine because Nick put in a lot of effort to make it personal and was having full blown conversations with each fan. That said, that’s a lot harder to pull off when it’s the full group just because there’s five Boys instead of one. This gives that personal touch but with less complications I think.
This is the sort of thing fans love and want from you guys.
Think about it, okay?
The Dark Side 