• Entertainment Weekly said it, and I will reiterate. If you gotta rip off a Boy Band, better to do it with Hanson than with the Backstreet Boys. (Not that I consider Hanson a boy band…) They play their own instruments folks. And they play them pretty darn well too, especially Drummer Moffatt, who had the misfortune to be named Bob. When they rocked, the rocked hard.
• They write songs. Yes they do. Ones with lyrics like this: "Sayin I love you/ Is the hardest thing to do/ And if I ever do/ I'll always be true" Now there's a nice little angst ridden twist to what could have been a rather dopey line. Good for you boys! Nurture those rock star impulses!
• The brotherly love thing. It really is darn cute, whether it's Ike jamming up on Zac's drum riser or Taylor Moffatt hanging on Bass Player Moffatt's shoulder as he tackles a bass solo.
• Fun! Yes, they're so much fun. You will dance. You really really will. And wait until you hear them hammer out the random grungy alternative stuff they seem to take to enjoy like Hanson does their beloved 50's and 60's rock. Their cover of Heaven Let Your Light Shine Down was well… good. And it's not a good song. And I hate Collective Soul. And I was in awe. Seriously… mouth open, drool at the corner of my mouth awe.

• Their record company is trying to turn them into Hanson. Check out the hue of Taylor Moffatt's hair, or the oddly familiar bounce in the bass line of the first single, or the scratching. Yes folks, there's scratching. And have any of you seen the music video? Let's just say that it includes riding a bus, frolicking on the beach and using a *tent* to magically teleport between locations.
• Not one Mmmbop song, but two. Track one, and the I'll Be There for You song. Sound a little like the premise of I Will Come to You? Yep. Now put it in the same key as Mmmbop, and give it the same guitar riff and industrial strength production. Middle of Nowhere Lite.
• Watching them, you continually think that they wouldn't be making teenie music if they didn't have to. The songs that they wrote themselves are good. The mass-produced This Is a Good Song Because Glenn Ballard Is Our Producer/Backstreet Boys with Guitars stuff is crummy. And they don't have nearly as much fun with it as they do the edgier stuff.
• Danielle Fishel does the interview portion of the Moffatts' Enhanced CD. I'm sorry. You start losing brownie points the minute you start doing things with Topenga.
• Good luck trying to be taken seriously in this day and age, at fifteen years old with a baby face and long hair playing Nirvana covers.
• Clint, Scot, Bob and Dave. Sounds like a reunion of the 1977 cast of General Hospital. Really now, there is only so much joy you can get out of screaming "I LOVE YOU BOB!" at the top of your lungs. Gimme a good old "Isaaaac!" any day. Plus, I continually forget who's who anyway.

• The Teenie Factor. Good lord. It got really bad when the whole crowd started chanting "Take it off!" at Taylor Moffatt. That was just wrong. At least he didn't actually do it. For a minute or two I was concerned.
• Taylor Moffatt came out with this very Jamiroquoi looking thing on his head. At one point, I looked at Megan and said, "What is that on his head?" Her response? "A lampshade."
• They covered Song 2. Now, let it be known that I have no problem with Song 2. Frankly, I think it's a great song. But you know what? Blur was making fun of the whole grunge thing when they wrote it. Blur is not a grunge band. Blur is a pop band and… oh well… nevermind.
• The staff at Karma was obnoxious to the rather young female fans. To prevent everyone from crowding against the stage, they made us sit down. On the floor. Yup. No kidding. I'm nineteen years-old. For a minute, I seriously wondered if I was having a kindergarten flashback, and almost asked a bouncer when we were going to get cookies and pull out our mats for nap time. I also felt like telling him that the last time I was in his club, I was in a black skirt dancing to House Mix #4 while he tried to pick me up. And he was making me sit on the floor. Bitter? Yes. I felt so degraded. And you can be sure that would never have happened if the crowd was predominantly male.
• Those Moffatt boys took a while to get rolling. It wasn't until about 35 minutes into the set when they really found their rhythm. After that, all was well.
• Bang Boy actually has more hair now. (Thank God.)
• They aren't attractive in that very religious way that Hanson is. There isn't a single Moffatt who can touch Taylor's I Have Descended From the Gods beauty. They're not "Oh my God you are the most flawless thing I have ever seen." They're more like, "If you went to my school, I'd probably think you were pretty cute."
• When we realized that standing against the stage would probably cause us to be crushed by the screaming mob, we decided to stand behind them instead. This not only gave us a better view, it kept us away from the teenies, gave us room to dance, and helped us to get in the newspaper. My first time in the Boston Globe baby. Pretty exciting.
• Stef thought it would be fun to see how many versions of "Bob" she could shout in the general direction of the stage. Among them… Bob, Robert, Bobbie, Robbie, Rob and Roberto.
• So Taylor Moffatt is pretty cute. Goodness knows he's got the chin-length blond hair, the slightly bulbous nose, the Chicklet teeth, the more than able singing voice, the absolute awareness that he's pretty dang sexy, and what you know has to be an obscenely dirty mind, even for a sixteen year old, and he's from Oklahoma… Wait? Who was I talking about again?
• They got their first national exposure on Sally Jesse Raphael. And she didn't even have to send them to boot camp.

• We went to Boston and had to take a bus to Watertown to get to the shopping mall in question. Is it me? Or does the whole world just look more depressing out the windows of a bus?
• Corinne and I were wearing the same pants. Now this is just rediculous. Corinne figured that she was coming over my house before the show, so she would just not tell me before hand that she was wearing "the pants," therefore forcing me to change. Well I didn't stand for that, no sir. I wore the pants anyway. Too bad for Corinne. By the way, the pants in question are a dark stretch denim, which yes, is a highly questionable fabric, but they were cute.
• Now, this concert was held in the food court, which, on the whole, is a pretty skanky environment. The main problem with this was not the lack of atmosphere, but the presence of chairs which were inevitably used as objects to stand on by those kind fans who have no consideration for those who were standing behind them.
• There was a girl there with and Admiral Twin lunch box, who I accosted before the show and demanded her reasons for carrying an Admiral Twin lunch box. Hey. What can I say? You get excited when you see one of your own.
• Three, or maybe even four cheers for the New England Moffatts contingent. Seriously, we saw so many of the same girls at these shows. There was one girl who we saw at an *NSYNC appearence last summer, the last Moffatts appearence at Karma, and at the Arsenal Mall. When she saw me the third time, she gave me a hug.
• Seriously, my sister Stefanie must be the most hated Moffatts fan on this earth. At Karma, she had a run-in with a fan who insisted that she just had to get to the front of the stage because her little sister was there and her mother would be really, really upset if something happened to her. Stefanie's response? "Ok. You don't have a little sister. You're just saying that so you can cut in front of me. And you know what? You can't cut in front of me, because I was here first." And the girl made a face and sulked off, and proceeded to tell her friends that my sister was bad and evil. Then, they decided to give us all a rather pleasant host of dirty looks. Amusing.
• Now that was at Karma. When we saw the same group of girls at the Arsenal Mall, they gave us the dirty looks as soon as they spotted us.
• Ok, so we like to dance. Personally, I can't see going to one of those shows and staring stoically at the stage. That's just no fun. So we danced. At one point in time, more of the crowd was looking at us than at the stage. Why? Just go on and enjoy the concert, kids. Don't mind us.
• There was a Sbarro Pizza there. That's fun to say.

• Oh sqeal, they played "She Loves You" which a) is cool because the Beatles rock and b) sort of echoes the whole 50s and 60s thing Hanson enjoys.
• This show was sponsored, once again, by Radio Disney. Because Radio Disney Rocks! Right? Right.
• Taylor Moffatt was wearing a shirt that I swear, came out of the Discarded Hanson Garments rack at Mercury Records.
• Oh man, this officially qualifies as the Most Surreal Moment of the Day: We're sitting there, casually waiting for the concert to start. Of course, we're sitting on the floor at the back of the crowd, because we have no desire to interact all that much with the assembled fans (Are we mean?) when up the escalatior comes three Radio Disney Employees escorting a rather inconspicuous looking line of Moffatts. Yup. I'm not even kidding. They walked them right in the building, right by the crowd. For a minute, no one saw them, except for us maybe because we were behind most of the crowd, and then the screaming started. Oy. I mean, come on guys. We understand that it's not Hanson, but the least you could do is give them the employees entrance at Sears or something.
• The show was good. We danced and had a time, as usual. And security made the girls get off the chairs. {{Security}}
• Why? WHY do they insist in putting Davie Moffatt (the short haired one) in these silver holographic shirts? I mean, if there is one of them that exudes the most rockstarness, it's certainly not Davie Boy. Try Scott or Bob. (Ha. I just can't get over the fact that his name is Bob.)
• Taylor Moffatt likes to gyrate. Uh huh.

Now this was a very cool part of the whole Moffatts experience. Two out of the three shows we saw had autograph signings afterwards. You know the deal. Walk by a table. They put their name on a piece of paper for you. Minimal interraction. You're happy. They're in one piece. You get to tell your friends that you've met them. And boy, a big ole hurrah should go out to the Record Town staff at the Arsenal Mall. They literally stood in front of the store and acted as human separators, guiding the line inside. (Picture the way the lines snake in front of an amusement part ride. Exept they used people to divide the lines.) And it actually worked.

• Manchester, NH. Not a bad place certainly. Just not a place you would expect to see the Moffatts, that's all. As soon as we sat down, our immediate reaction was: "Oh my God I feel SO Beacon Theater right now." And it was true. Here we were, sitting in the orchestra section of this lovely little ornate theater with about 2,000 12 year-olds for company. I was waiting for Zac to run on stage with a can of silly string. And that girl in the front row with the tongue… anyway…
• Ok, so we wanted to dress up for this show. Because you know, the last time we had sort of gone with a semi-scrub, not-terribly-dressed-up look. Plus at Arsenal Mall, Corinne and I wore the same pants. That's no good. So we wore skirts. Not a big deal right? Wrong. The death looks we got from girls! Sheesh. It's like, if you look kinda good, they automatically think you're trying to sleep with the band or something. Have no fear ladies. That was certainly not the goal. Yes, it is true that Meghan's older sister Kayte was with us, and she does indeed work her show considerably, but you just can't help some things. But get with the Moffatts? Nah. I mean, they're little boys. Little little boys. No.
• Now I have a question here. Why, why would you push and shove to be at the front of the line to get into the theater… when there's RESERVED seating? Why? I mean, come on girls. Don't we all remember when Mom took us into the city to see Les Miserables? Same idea here.

• Oh boy. The covers. Probably the best set we've seen the Moffatt clan do thus far. Sweet Home Alabama, Song 2, Wild Thing, Enter Sandman (Kidding? No. We'll discuss this in a minute), Shine. Heck, they even make that stupid Lenny Kravitz song sound pretty good. They did a crackin job on all of them, yes they did. Corinne said it. If they were five years older, and not related to each other, no one would question that they were a good band.
• Jeez. Taylor Moffatt came out with that Jamiroquoi lampshade hat on again.
• This was the first show we saw that was not Radio Disney sponsored. This can be a good or a bad thing…
• OK. No use avoiding it any longer. I tried to hold off until the appropriate time, but is there any appropriate time for this sort of thing? No. Well, here goes. ::deep breath:: Taylor Moffatt will henceforth be known as Suggestive Scott. Why you ask? Well, probably because he did the entire second half of the show without a shirt on. Do I need to repeat this? Yes. That's what I said. No shirt. Naked from the waist up. Any comment I have ever made about Hanson being beefcake, I retract all of it. Hello? Do we need to see this? Scott honey, you are a skinny skinny boy. You are pale and you are not Taylor Hanson. Therefore, you MUST keep your shirt on. Do you understand this? Yes, I know the girls scream and inflate your ego and make you think you look good unclothed. But please understand us. It's not true. We like some things left to the imagination. Really. I swear.
• Hence the Radio Disney comment. You know that the shirt removal would never have happened at the Radio Disney events. You know, because it's gotta be a family show when Disney is involved.
• Ok. So they did Enter Sand Man. Yes. The Metallica song. Now when we heard the intro, we giggled a bit. We surely did. And we thought, now who in heck is going to sing this puppy? Dave? No. I don't think so. It (thankfully) was Clint who stepped up to the mic. Corinne's comment: "Oh my God he swallowed James Hetfeild!" And it was sort of true. Out of little willowy pixie boy Clint Moffatt came this large, raspy, menacing voice. Sure we laughed a little. But hey, you gotta give the boys some props for even attempting this one.
• They did Shine again, the Collective Soul song. Oh my goodness. I would literally pay money to watch the Moffatts play this song twenty times over and over again. It's astonishing really, to hear this huge, more than slightly edgy sound coming out of these little Canadian boys. It makes you rather anxious for their second album.
• So Suggestive Scott likes to gyrate. We've established this. But never had we seen him gyrate without a shirt on. Woah. Not something I needed to experience. And boy, he gyrated a lot. There's this one lyric… some "hold me, touch me" deal where the boy literally runs his hands down his bare chest and down to his guitar. Then he rather lovingly strokes the microphone. It's just not needed, and Hanson would never do stuff like that, because we saw enough sexualization of childhood when Brittney Spears was on the cover of Rolling Stone. I don't want to see it in Scotty Boy Moffatt either.
• Oh! I keep forgetting to post this! At every show, they do this crowd participation thing where they make the crowd clap in time to and sing the chorus of "Hey Mickey." (Hey Mickey, you're so fine, etc.) Of course, the crowd inevitably changes it to "Hey Scott, you're so fine…" Go ahead! Encourage him!

• Here's the thing about having a signing at like, every event you do. Yes, it's a great way to make the fans happy. But are they seriously considering what this is going to do to the value of their signatures? I mean, at Karma, there wasn't a signing, but there was an opportunity to buy autographed CDs. I've had enough chances to get those boys' signatures on a piece of paper, I could have gotten one for me, my mom and my dog. I mean, the new question of the moment isn't… Do you have the Moffatt's CD? Or even… Do you have an autographed CD? But, How many autographed Moffatt CDs do you have?
• So we met them again. Yes. At the Arsenal Mall show, we all had signs that said "SHAW." Now we did this because there is a moment in one of the Moffatt songs where Suggestive Scott goes "SHAW!" And it's funny so we made signs and held them up at the precise moment he said it. Cute? We sure thought so. But when we got to the Moffatt Autograph Table, they had no idea what it meant. And goodness knows we didn't have enough time to go into a lengthy explanation. So they just gave us confused looks and we moved on. So we brought the signs again to The Palace. And my sister and Meghan had the Moffatts sign them, the signs that is. Whether there was some legitimate recognition that we were indeed the same SHAW girls from Arsenal, we'll never know, but as the sign was passing by Bob, he said: "You know, I couldn't figure out what that meant for the longest time." So basically, we took up a moment of Bobby Moffatt's thinking time. Pretty exciting. On a small level.
• I actually said to Bob as I was walking by him: "Bob, I couldn't see you behind the speaker!" You know, usual brilliant Laura, but it was true. His drum riser is like, way out in right field and you can't see him if you sit too far to one side of the auditorium. What was brother Davie's comment? "Yeah. Well that's a good thing."
• Why is it OK that boys have acne? That would never fly if you were a girl. Never. Because Suggestive Scott has got it. And it even sort of adds to his cuteness. I dunno. I will never understand.
• Did we mention that he's got pretty gray eyes and a smattering of freckles across his nose? Cute? You betcha.

You know you've seen the Moffatts too many times when you turn to your friend and say, "Wait. Haven't they already played this song tonight?" Her response: "No. That was last time."