Nicki and Julianna and I are eating a light dinner at the Back Bay Bertucci's. Nicki, who lives in Worcester and works as a communications coordinator at the Staples corporate center in Framingham, is the chairman of the NKOTB 2000 convention committee. Julianna (whom Nicki calls "Jules") is the treasurer and location coordinator. Between bites of bruschetta, the two talk excitedly about the New Kids' rebirth -- and, of course, about the good old days.
"We used to do some extreme stuff," says Nicki, who is 23 and grew up in suburban Connecticut. "Every year, when the new phone books came out, we used to get our hands on a Boston phone book. We knew all their siblings' names, and we'd call the phone numbers that were in their names. Like, if it said D. Knight -- like David -- we knew that David Knight was Jon and Jordan's brother. We'd call the number just to see if it was connected."
"The first time I saw a picture of Donnie with a cigarette in his hand I went home and cried for hours," says Julianna.
"I once got up at 6 a.m. to do my hair and makeup for a New Kids concert," says Nicki. "And we weren't even leaving until 11."
"I wrote letters to Oprah begging her to have the New Kids on with me," says Julianna. "I was like, 'I'm in love. I really am. I love Jordan.' I was, like, 14. I wrote to Oprah at least 40 times."
Julianna presents a typewritten sheet of paper that is probably best described as her New Kids résumé. Among its disclosures:
• She has spent as much as $275 for one ticket to see NKOTB.
• On three separate occasions, she stayed awake for 72 hours in order not to miss any New Kids appearance on the United Cerebral Palsy telethon.
• She once wrote a 386-page story about the New Kids.
Of course, other eight-to-16-year-olds did similarly obsessive things (excluding, perhaps, that 386-page story). But where many fans ditched the New Kids like training wheels, moving on to grunge and hip-hop, superfans like Julianna and Nicki have never abandoned their roots. Their fanaticism extended way beyond seventh grade, into high school, college, and even adulthood. Last winter, Julianna and Nicki spent more than six hours waiting in the freezing cold to meet Joey McIntyre at a CD-signing event. When spring came, they both stood outside the premiere and after-party for Donnie's movie Southie. And they both have tickets to Joey's two shows next week.
"My mom says, 'I can't believe you're still a teenybopper,' " says Nicki. "We joke around at work, and my co-workers say I'm going to be the only 40-year-old teenybopper."
As pop-music phenomenons go, the New Kids era was relatively short. The Dorchester-bred band burst onto the scene in late 1988 with its second album, Hangin' Tough, which featured "You Got It (The Right Stuff)" and four other Top 10 hits. That was followed in 1989 by the re-release of the Kids' first recording, the eponymous New Kids on the Block (known among fans as the "Baby record," since it was recorded in 1986, pre-puberty for Joey) and a quickie Christmas record, Merry Merry Christmas. The group peaked in 1990 with its fourth record, Step by Step, and the subsequent Coke-sponsored "Magic Summer" stadium tour, which was followed by 1991's "remix" album, No More Games. By then, however, New Kids backlash had set in, and things started going downhill. The group's rap-flavored 1994 comeback attempt, Face the Music -- for which the New Kids clunkily restyled themselves NKOTB -- was a commercial flop. Most of the group's remaining fans fled to the hills.
