I'm a fan (and you should be too) because...they know exactly how to reach inside and pull out emotions.

I don't remember the first time I heard their music. I suppose I heard them on the radio in a store. I grew up in a place where being a fan of a "boy band" made you an outcast, but I didn't care. They were the reason I had friends at school. Their music brought me close to my friends; it was the one thing we had in common.

As the years went on, my friends decided they didn't want to be my friends anymore, and they went their own way. Today, I am a fan as much as I was back then. But they are not just famous singers. I have had the priviledge to meet another group (that you all have probably never heard of) and have worked with them on a personal level. Though I still get "fangirl" about them, they are real people. They take time out of their busy lives to talk to me, give me a hug, take a picture with me, sign something; and I do my best to give just a little back to them, in anyway I can.

Brian, Nick, AJ, and Howie are just the same, though I have not had the priviledge to meet them. It's okay to be their fans, but we also have to treat them as real people who just happen to be famous.

Meeting these guys would be a dream come true for me. They were a big part of me as my cousin was almost killed by her husband, and other times. When my great grandmother got sick, and from brain cancer last year, it was Never Gone that got me through. I just lost my great grandfather in August, and the release of Unbreakable is something I'm looking forward to more than ever.

Though I'll probably never get the chance to encounter these wonderful people, I will still follow them and hope someday that I will. Never Gone was the first concert I ever got to go to, and I hope it won't be the last.

To Brian, Nick, AJ, and Howie: If you ever read these, thank you for being just a small part of what got me through all the hard times. Don't forget all of us who are nobodies when it comes to you. We are a part of you.

Pleace and blessings.

Amanda, Oregon