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Sunday, August 19, 2001

By Dan Gigler, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Noisy. Screaming females outnumbering males by about 20 to 1. Gals ranging in age from Brownies to Girl Scout leaders. A few minor cuts. No rough stuff. Clean-cut fun. Great show.

	Chelsea Baratz, 15, and her sister, Katie, 16, (behind her) from Upper Saint Clair, wait for the concert to begin. (John Heller, Post-Gazette)

That pretty much sums up the 'N Sync pop-rock concert that drew about 45,000 people to Heinz Field last night.

There were special people in the audience as well as JC, Chris, Justin, Joey and Lance on the high-tech stage, though.

One was Melissa Brokaw, 11, of Sharpsburg, who's favorite is Lance, who's "so-o-o-o cute."

On Friday morning, a representative of the Make-A-Wish Foundation called the Brokaw house to say someone had donated a couple of extra tickets and would Melissa like to go to see 'N Snyc. Melissa lives with a rare form of leukemia.

"I'll go, I'll go," Melissa said, excited about the opportunity.

There she was, in her wheelchair on the field, wearing an 'N Sync T-shirt and necklace and carrying a sign. One side read, "I love 'N Sync." The opposite side read, "Who can choose between the 5?"

"She's really so happy," said her mother, Mary. "Such a nice surprise."

The crowd arrived on time, and even early, jamming up outside Heinz Field gates. Some who needed to use a restroom during the wait had to wait in long lines outside two portable toilets, walk to Carnegie Science Center or, well, hold on.

Heinz Field is open for business. (Franka Bruns, Post-Gazette)

"We've been here 40 minutes just looking for a bathroom," said an adult woman, Kelly Rupp of Kittanning, well before people were able to enter the stadium. About 45 minutes later, she was still in line, waiting for her turn.

"It takes less time to get through I-279 than to get to a bathroom," Christine Sommer-Prisby of Cranberry said. "You pay $15 to park and you can't even pee."

A few toilets in ladies restrooms inside Heinz Field also experienced some first-day problems, people reported.

'N Sync took the stage around 9:30 p.m., just about on time. The field lights were turned off, but thousands of glow sticks in all colors waved in the stands. Then music. Then screaming. Then high-decibel screeches. Then stagelights.

At the first-aid room, paramedics and nurses said they treated about 60 people, mostly with alcohol swabs and Band-Aids for minor cuts and scrapped arms, legs and knees. Four people were transported to local hospitals but with problems said to be asthma-related.

What made the 'N Sync concert different from many other concerts, other than the fact it was the first concert held in the new Heinz Field?

"Significantly few people are smoking marijuana," said Joe DeMatt of Butler, who brought his daughter and friends to town. "It is definitely a clean-cut crowd."

For parents of the predominantly teeny-bopper crowd, there was a "kids drop-off" zone on Art Rooney Boulevard. There also was a free parents room in the Coca-Cola Great Hall.

(Post-Gazette staff writer Liz Austin contributed to this article.)