Concert Review: 1 October, 1999

    Hi, my name's Nicola, or Nicky as most people call me.  Last night my
best friend Bella and I went to Melanie C's first solo concert in America,
at Irving Plaza, New York City.  Bella had heard about it, and ordered
tickets, and I asked her if I could go.  Then we had to make the plans of
what was going to happen.  After school on Friday, 1 October, we met at
her house.  From there we took a train, and a subway in order to get to
the venue.  We had a hard time finding it, so we asked different people
along the way.  Then, we turned the corner and there was the beginning of
a line that we would end up spending a long time in.  The concert wasn't
going to start until 9.00pm, and we got to the venue at 5.30pm.  Since we
weren't allowed in, we sat down and started to find things to do.  While
we were waiting, a woman from a new magazine coming out called Nylon came
and interviewed us.  Then we saw two camera crews: VH1 and MTV.  We got on
the MTV camera, so we're still hoping to see ourselves on television next
week sometime.
  
    At 8.00 PM the doors to the venue opened.  We walked in, checked our
bags and went into the room where the performance was going to take place.
We were literally ten feet away from the stage, and getting more and more
excited by the minute.  There was so many people there, and no seats so we
all got squashed around a bit.  At about 8.30 a huge screen came down and
started showing Mickey Mouse cartoons.  Then, at 9.00 she came out.  She
was wearing an "I Love New York" shirt, which got the crowd revved up. 
Since we didn't know the names of many of the songs, I won't be able to
name them. 

    Bella and were standing and we looked up to see these two guys standing
on the balcony area.  They waved over to us, and we met them at a staircase. 
Then they gave us "VIP" stickers for our shirts and led us up to the balcony.
From there we could see everything, and didn't have to worry about getting
trampled on.

    Every song that she sang was amazing, she even did a rock-version of
Wannabe, which got everyone excited.  After she did about ten songs, she
went off stage and people started chanting for an encore, so she came out
again and sang an acoustic version of "Going Down".  The whole show lasted
about two hours, and afterwards all the news reporters came upstairs.

    Surprisingly, Mel G was there.  She was walking up the stairs to the
balcony waving to people.  That caused a lot of commotion among most
people but I don't like her that much, so Bella and I didn't get that
worked up.  After the concert was over, my hearing was weird and my throat
hurt.  I was still overwhelmed about what had just happened.  Bella and I
had gotten VIP passes to a Melanie C. concert!  It was unbelievable! 
After that, we went home, wishing that we were still at the concert.

    We found out that Melanie is returning to the US in February to kick
off another tour, so all we can do is wait.


            -Nicky Vallee, October 2nd 1999, Stamford, Connecticut