When I look at you holding my heart, I will give to you all that I have...

**Brian Littrell - Welcome Home Tour - 6/18/2006 - The Intersection - Grand Rapids, MI**

There is no doubt that Brian has ALWAYS been my favorite Backstreet Boy.  However, when I heard that he was coming out with a solo Christian album, I had to think hard about whether I was going to buy it.  Immediately, I thought "of course I am going to buy it because I love Brian's voice and it is an album of just Brian."  The other part of me thought, "I was not raised with any kind of religion in my life so am I going to like or understand the content of this album and will that affect my feelings about Brian?"  I was in a dilemma.  I eventually decided that I was going to support him no matter what.

So on May 2, 2006, I drove to the local Family Christian Store in Muncie, IN because I thought that would be the best place to find it.  I looked at every single CD in that store and could not find Welcome Home anywhere.  I knew that if I couldn't even find it at a Christian store, there was no way it was going to be anywhere else.  I thought I would take a chance and ask the employee working there about the album.  I explained to him that Brian Littrell's album was supposed to be coming out on that day and asked if they had it in stock.  He went into the back and came out with a handful of the CDs.  They had forgotten to put them out!

As I always do when I buy a new CD, I opened it up immediately and stuck it in the CD player of my truck.  Unfortunately, it took less than one song to drive back to my apartment because I lived so close.   I transferred the CD straight from my truck CD player to my computer and continued to listen to the album the entire day.  I was in love with it.  At the time, I couldn't relate to what Brian was singing about but I loved just hearing his voice.  It was the thing that made me fall in love with him in the first place, after all.  Actually, there was one song that I related to and that was "Angels and Heroes."  I was (and still am) a member of a philanthropic sorority called Epsilon Sigma Alpha (ESA).  This group was made up of so many types of people who came together for one common goal:  to help others.  To me, "Angels and Heroes," represented our group perfectly.  I thought that every single one of my sisters was an angel or hero to someone that they helped while we were doing our service work.  In fact, some of them were heroes to me in great times of need.  We didn't have wings but we were all angels and heroes at heart.  To this day, this is still my favorite song of all time.

As I continued to listen to the CD, I started to ask questions about God and Christianity.  I was baptized Catholic as an infant but that was the extent of religion in my life other than a few Christmas Eve midnight masses here and there.  Because I was not taught any of this, I never had an interest in learning about it.  In fact, it scared me.  However, I could sense something in Brian's singing that I never had in my life.  It was a sense of peace, belonging, and happiness.  I knew it was because of his faith, but I was still not quite ready to take that step.

Megan and I at her house before leaving for Grand Rapids

Later in the month of May, news was released that Brian would be doing a small tour and I was lucky enough that there was a date (June 18, 2006 - The Intersection - Grand Rapids, MI) that worked into my schedule.  It helped that I was just taking summer classes at Ball State University.  I called the first person I thought of to go with me...Megan.  We had enjoyed ourselves so much for the Never Gone concert and she was really my only BSB friend at the time.  Even though she was an AJ fan, she agreed to go with me.

Muncie, IN -> Anderson, IN -> Grand Rapids, MI
274 miles - 4 hours, 49 minutes

I once again drove to Anderson to pick her up, but this time I was going to drive.  After our near death experience going to Cincinnati for our Never Gone concert, I thought it might be best if I drove this time.  This concert was going to be general admission so we wanted to be sure to get there early enough to get a good seat.  Little did we know that there would be no seats.  Anyway, we were following the directions to get to the venue, The Intersection.  The directions, which I had either gotten from Map Quest or Google Maps said we should have arrived at our destination, but we were still on the high way.  We did see the venue from the interstate, but there was no way that we were at our destination!  We were going to have to do this the old fashioned way, as we did not have a GPS.  We were either going to have to figure it out for ourselves or stop and ask for directions.  Luckily, I like to think I have an okay sense of direction and we got off of the next exit....into what looked like to be a very bad neighborhood.  This was not the time to be lost.  I continued to drive and we ended up finding the venue without having to stop for directions.  As we drove by the venue, we noticed that the line was not super long and we were pretty hungry.  We needed to go get something to eat but did not want to get off of the current road we were on, for fear of not being able to find our way back.  We found a Taco Bell down the road, ate, and returned to the venue.

The line had grown since we had gone to eat but it wasn't too bad.  We waited in line for awhile and then were let into the lounge of the venue to wait in line.  At some point in the transition from outside to inside, I lost one of my brand new earrings.  We were finally let into the show and that is when we realized that there weren't any seats.  This was a dance club/seat less concert venue.  The main floor was completely open but there was some seating around the perimeter.  Megan has some health issues and informed me that she would rather sit in one of the seats around the perimeter than stand for the show.  I told her I would sit with her, rather than stand in the group for the concert.

We, of course, had to wait for the show to start.  As we were sitting, a woman came up to me and said, "I know this seems really strange but do you have any batteries?"  Her's had died in her camera.  Those who know me, know that I like to be prepared for anything.  I reached into my purse, pulled out some batteries, and handed them to her.  She introduced herself as Tammy and we chatted for a bit.  We then exchanged e-mail addresses and agreed to write to one another.  And yes, this is the same Tammy that I do almost all of my BSB/UK stuff with now.  We still love to reminisce about how it was Brian that made us meet and become such good friends.

Opening Acts

Brian had two opening acts, Brandon Heath and Ana Laura, who were label mates of his.  Both were good.  Then Brian finally came on.  Even though I was towards the back of the club, this was the closest I had ever been to him.  I was so excited.  I knew I wasn't going to be able to just sit there during the show, so I left Megan sitting where she was (with her permission of course) and got closer to the action.  The man of my dreams was less than 20 feet from me!  I never thought that I would ever be this close to him when I became a fan those many years ago.  Little did I know that I would be much closer to him in the future.

Because it was so long ago, I don't remember the exact setlist unfortunately.  A search on Google pulled this up:

My Answer Is You
Wish
In Christ Alone
You Keep Givin' Me
IWITW/ALAYLM
Angels & Heroes
We Lift You Up
I'm Alive
Gone Without Goodbye
Grace of My Life
Welcome Home
That's What She Said
Over My Head

Brian being.....well Brian.

This looks correct to me and I remember certain things about certain songs.  It may not be the exact same order but I am pretty sure these are the songs he sang.  Overall, Brian continued the same crazy antics that he does during BSB shows.  He would take people's cell phone and talk on the phone with them.  He would make his same silly faces and voices.  It was great being able to just see him and not have any of the other Backstreet Boys gets in the way (no offense).  I also liked how personal it was.  It wasn't a big production.  He would play his guitar and sing.  There were no wardrobe changes or fancy pyro or light shows.  It was just Brian doing what he does best...singing.

For "You Keep Giving Me," Brian brought a church choir out to help him sing.  Brian joked all night about "bringing church to the club," but it was especially true during this song.  I couldn't find the whole song but I was able to find a clip.

Courtesy of Mei922 - YouTube

And even though this was a Brian Littrell concert, he still sang some BSB classics, "I Want It That Way" and "As Long As You Love Me."  After he was done singing "ALAYLM" he decided to show us that some old habits die hard when he decided to do the chair dance.  He also talked about how it was on the video shoot of this song that he met Leighanne.  

Courtesy of ACsShorty - YouTube

I was able to get my own video of Brian singing my favorite part of "Angels and Heroes."  My camera at the time was not the best and I could not get long portions of video so I wanted to save my camera memory for this part. 

"Angels and Heroes"

"Welcome Home (You)"

Finally, during "Welcome Home (You)," Brian premiered the music video for it in the background.  I instantly loved it and hoped that it would be available on iTunes so that I could download it and be able to watch it all the time.  Luckily for me, it was.  I also liked this because I got twice as much Brian Littrell.  I was able to watch him on the stage and on the video screen.  I could not complain about that.

I ended up buying some merchandise at this show.  First, I purchased a t-shirt.  The logo of the t-shirt was very faded to begin with but the shirt was SO soft.  It was perfect to sleep in.  It has lost some of its softness over the years but I still love it.  The second thing I bought, I debated on.  He had signed CDs there.  The only reason I debated on this was because I already had the CD.  What was I going to do with another copy?  However, I did not have his autograph.  I decided that since I already had multiple of several of their other CD's, why not Brian's as well?  I bought it and I now had Brian's autograph to display proudly.

Grand Rapids Merchandise

We travelled back to Muncie that night.  I loved every second of that show and I believe it allowed me to open my heart up just a little bit to God.  I still wasn't ready to make that leap of faith but I could tell that if I continued to use Brian as an influence, I might eventually get there.