True Colors Tour concert

Last night, Marc and I went to the theater at Jones Beach for the True Colors Tour. We got our tickets as part of a charity auction, and they included a "meet and greet" with Cyndi Lauper. We have a photo from that, but it hasn't been transferred to a computer yet, so it will have to wait. Perhaps Marc will put it on his blog.

While the multi-artist concert--all five hours of it!--was going on, I made some notes in my cell phone. With minimal editing, here they are:

Artist #1
Mary McBride
Her fourth song: got married this year and "I'm sending this out to my wife." Nice.

Last song: Amazing Grace to the music from Rolling Stones' "Honky Tonk Woman" Different. A little weird, but not bad.

Artist #2
Kat DeLuna--two lame dancers & bad karoake over her own soundtrack.

Second song very loud. Very dancy song, which seems to have inspired the dancers. Much better now. Not great. Just not terrible anymore.

Artist #3
The Cliks. Never heard of them, but no matter. Time to go to the rendezvous point for our special meet-and-greet with Cyndi Lauper. While there, I'm noticing the captive audience pricing of the refreshments: $4 for candy, $5 for a 20 ounce bottle of soda, and $6 for a pretzel!

Met Cyndi. Very nice, but they had her overwhelmed and confused, not knowing who was coming up next, what group they were with, etc.

On way out, ran into James from LIGALY. A sweetie. I asked if he had gotten in to see any of the acts. "Yes. I went in for about 10 minutes of angry lesbian music." Asked him to narrow that down. He laughed and said "Indigo Girls."

Artist #4
Indigo Girls still playing when we went back in. After a couple of songs, they introduced a "special guest." "Julie Wolfe on keyboards" in a tone that said we should know who she is. No idea. Maybe if I were a lesbian I would know.

They do like their naughty words, don't they? And James is right: these lesbians are angry!

Two hours in, and they're taking intermission! Jeebus, this thing really will be 5 hours. There's nothing I want to do for 5 hours! Well, maybe one thing! ;-) No, on second thought, not even that! (Oh, I forgot sleep. Okay, that is worth five hours and more.)

Artist #5
Cyndi Lauper came out first and gave a great talk on involvement and voting. Then she introduced Rosie O'Donnell.

Rosie O'Donnell is not very happy. Some mild chuckles, but not laugh out loud funny (although the lesbian audience members seemed charitable).

A little later, and Rosie is getting a little funnier. She says guys know from the get-go if they're gay. "You gay guys are in the womb, like, get me out of here and I'll never come in again!"

Okay, is this a gay thing? What is with the guys not only not turning off the ringers on their cell phones but actually taking calls during a concert?

In the end, Rosie was pretty touching.

Artist #6
The B-52s sound damn good. They were big when I was in college which is a good 2 or 3 years ago now (shut up!), and they still sound like they did back then. With that said, they should have stuck to their hits. A band like this shouldn't have to say "this next song is called..." or "this song is about..." Maybe one or two of those, but not the majority of the songs!

Damn, I'm being eaten alive by bugs!

Fred is just so strange.

I feel more in need of hearing protection here than at a pistol range. Jeebus, they're loud! Even for a rock concert, this is ridiculous!

Artist #7
Cyndi sounds great, and Rosie is joining in. Interesting. :-)

Into the 5th hour of the concert, and even the mosquitoes have called it a night.

But Cyndi sure can rock. She's doing some new stuff, and it's pretty catchy!

She's a riot. Between songs: "You know what they say. I've suffered for my art; now it's your turn!" (Now that's funny!)

They reworked She-Bop a little. I usually don't like that kind of thing (reworking hit songs), but this was pretty good!

Now doing something new. My seat is shaking from all the bass.

Rosie on the drums for Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. Fun, indeed! (And the lesbians in the audience are losing it. The SWAT Team may need to rescue us!)

Lights down, and Cyndi and her band have gone off stage. Clearly, she is coming back for an encore. She still needs to sing the signature song, True Colors. With that, Marc and I are hitting the road. Otherwise, the traffic to get out will be hideous. Besides, it's almost 11pm on a "school night." Time to head home.

Overall, it was a fun night. Cyndi Lauper was very nice, and I'm glad we went. Five hours is a bit much, but still it was fun. And the location was great, except for all the bug bites.