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Home > Atlanta Music Scene > Archives > 2007 > November > 28
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Miley Cyrus wows the tweens at Gwinnett
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
John Thurman had a plan after the Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus concert ended Wednesday night. He knew he had no prayer of meeting the actress/singer, much less getting an autograph. So he targeted Cyrus’ used water bottle.
He asked every security guard in sight to help him out. All of them said no as they, gently but firmly, told him to just go home. But he persisted. A sympathetic camera guy finally went back and got it to him. “There are some good people in this world,” the good-hearted man told Thurman.
Thurman’s souvenir wrapped in a concert program, he beamed. “I plan to frame it,” said the Lakeside High School freshman. (He also owns a water bottle once used by teen pop star JoJo.)
Yes, a water bottle which touched Cyrus’ lips is worth framing because that’s how big a deal this Disney phenomenon has become.
In a gender sense, Thurman was an anomaly. Most of the fans at the long sold-out concert were female tweens. There were so few guys there, the arena temporarily converted several men’s bathrooms into women’s.
And like many attendees, he and his mom Cindy risked their pocketbooks by using a scalper. They planned to meet the scalper at the arena at 4 p.m., three hours before the concert. But he didn’t show up until 6:45 p.m. as the pair cooled their heels, worried they might end up with nothing. The scalper, they said, cut the price from an agreed-upon $300 per ticket for fifth-row seats and even gave them better seats: two second-row seats for $500.
“We figured he simply couldn’t sell the tickets at a better price and he ran out of time,” said Cindy.
Both worried that the dude, who disappeared into the shadows, had given them fakes. But they were fine.
In fact, Chris Hendley, arena booking director, said the hysteria over counterfeit tickets was much ado about not much at all. He said fewer than 20 people had fake tickets. A Ticketmaster official, though, told Hendley they were “some of the best they’d ever seen.”
Judy Edwards of Sandy Springs nabbed tickets at cost as part of the Hannah Montana fan club. Her 9-year-old daughter Kimberly is such a fan, they saw the concert twice: in Nashville last Friday when Cyrus turned 15 and Wednesday night. (The Nashville tix through a broker cost her $168 apiece, nearly triple face value.)
“It was awesome,” Kimberly said moments after Cyrus left the stage. She saw “Corey in the House” Disney star and Atlantan Kyle Massey in the house, and with her best friend Daniela Bishop, got autographs. (See photo below). Daniela loved when the streamers flew out. Kimberly was wowed by the pyrotechnics.
Indeed, the production values were Disney-level impressive, with a tri-level stage, huge video screens, confetti and eight backup dancers, who dressed up like teens but looked far beyond high school age. Cyrus, as her alter ego Hannah Montana, dressed in spangly, bright dresses and sang upbeat pop tunes about “Life’s What You Make It” and I’m-just-a-regular-gal cuts such as “Just Like You” and “Nobody’s Perfect.”
The second half of the concert featured Cyrus’ “normal” brunette self. She opened as a rocker chick, with some leather and chains thrown in, but this is Disney edgy so it wasn’t anything the parents would find alarming. She eventually donned a dress for a Latin-inspired “Let’s Dance,” then wore a Catholic schoolgirl uniform for the “Hannah Montana” theme song “Best of Both Worlds.”
Though Thurman dubbed her “hot,” Cyrus isn’t the sexual vixen Britney Spears was at a comparable age wearing a schoolgirl getup. Cyrus has retained a girl-next-door quality and tons of teenage spunk. She showed no extraneous skin, offered no lyrical innuendo in her songs. Vocally, she’s a less snotty Avril Lavigne, a more accomplished Ashlee Simpson.
And no matter how popular Cyrus may be, Disney already has positioned its next headliner: the Jonas Brothers, who could be this generation’s Hanson, three energetic mop-topped guys ranging from ages 15 to 20.
At times, the gals screamed even louder for the trio than for Cyrus. Jami, 10, of Oxford, was one of those Jonas Brothers fans and she was even luckier than most people at the arena: her grandmother Leslynn Abbott won tickets from Kicks 101.5.
When her principal at East Newton Elementary informed her of the news Wednesday, Jami literally screamed in the office into the phone.
