Just saw Cyndi Lauper in concert!

[MegoNinja]

Yes, I just had an excellent time listening to Cyndi Lauper music, only instead of just hearing it coming from my computer I could sit and watch her sing it in person. To be honest, the concert experience was not that good, my sister and I, being children of the eighties, came a runnin' the minute we heard that Cyndi was coming to town, but we were rather disappointed, not by Cyndi herself, but by the way things were run.
Not only did the cover band go for about 1 hour, there was an intermission that went for at least an hour as well which left Cyndi with only about 1 hour to play, to top it off, during the concert there was 'no standing'. Now, a few weeks ago I went to an Iron Maiden concert, use your imagination, that was a heavy metal concert with thousands of people, so I was half expecting a similar experience (which was pretty naive of me considering one is heavy metal and the other is 80's chick music) and I was pretty bummed when I was told (on way more than one occasion) to sit down. It is a concert for gods sake, who just sits going "rather good show old chap, let's have some wine" rather you get up on your chair and start yelling what little lyrics you know or you start cheering and the like.
You can imagine the profanities that came out of my mouth each time I was told to sit down when I had to wait over 2 hours to see Cyndi, but other than those most annoying features, Cyndi is an excellent performer. Besides having a beautiful voice she certainly does a great job of keeping you entertained either with dancing, joking and even story telling. If any one can get the chance in their life time see her, you will not regret it. That is, if your a fan of any thing eighties, which to me, was right up my alley.

PS
Sorry for no pics, my camera is so bad that every time I would try the picture would look more like 'modern art' with splashes of random colors every where. Better luck next time.

[megocrazy]

Iron Maiden and Cyndi Lauper are two totally different animals and situations differ. When I was doing concert security we would do about 3 concerts a week and they could be anybody. I had one night where I got to do an on stage with Ozzy Osbourne, which my heart pounded for about two days and at the end of that week fell asleep while "guarding" front stage for Steely Dan. Amazingly not many 50+ year old groupies want to rush the stage and grab Walter Becker or Donald ***an. The very nice couple in the front row fortunately woke me up before any one of importance (my boss) noticed but man was my face red. I had to sit there for like another 40 minutes facing all these fans that knew I had fallen asleep. I'm not a big SD fan, but I can listen to there stuff, but it was so mellow it just put me under. I was literally 5-10 feet away from an electric guitar and still couldn't stay awake. Sometimes the band is the one that instructs the venue to keep the fans sitting down and sometimes it's the venue but when it gets out of hand they just allow it. It's the same deal with cameras. Some bands sell the picture rights to their shows to companies that sell the photo's so they're the only ones allowed to have cameras, other bands, usually smaller less known bands, may not have those restrictions. It varies from band to band. If 3/4 of the fans are standing like I'm sure they were at IM, they can't ask everyone to sit so they have to be flexible with what is out of their control. I'm not surprised they asked you to sit down at Cyndi Lauper. A concert like that probably had older fans also and some old enough to not be able to physically stand for long or jump around. Others just prefer to be seated and don't treat concerts the way they did when they were younger. It's the same with the barricades along the front of the stage. Usually they'll hold the front barricades until the start of the last set, and then they determine how many people have moved forward from the floor seats. If it's a lot they'll instruct security to vacate the gap and move the barriers so it relieves the crowd for a short time and by the time it builds back up the set is over and it's a mute point. It's just done to protect the crowd from themselves. If it's not a specific issue it's usually the bands security that makes those decisions. The venues management only makes those decisions if something happens, like an injury or if the crowd is extremely unruly and they think it will get too out of hand they may choose not to allow the crowd to come to the stage limits. 9 times out of ten it's predetermined by the band what they want to do. They're usually pretty good at knowing how their fans will react and handle themselves. That job was the best I have ever had. I wish it paid some money but you couldn't raise a hamster on what they paid, much less a family. Definately two years of excitement and experiences.

[toys2cool]

That's awesome bro,I use to love Cyndi

[MegoNinja]

thats some story megocrazy, come to think of what you said about the crowd being older, basically every one there was pretty aged. Most of the people around me where in their 50's, which I found very surprising because people from the 80's should be in their 20's right? But I assume that they were the people the used to go clubbing in 1983 so that would make them 50 or so. By the end when Cyndi sang 'girls just wanna have fun' I think the guards gave up with asking people to sit down (not me though, because my seat was right near where they were standing).

regardless, fun was had by all.

[SlipperyLilSuckers]

I didn't even know she was here sigh. I saw her in concert in Canberra about 20 years ago. I was lucky enough to get up close near the stage and she held my hand and sang almost a whole song to me. Honest. I will never forget that night as long as I live.

[MegoNinja]

I didn't even know she was here sigh. I saw her in concert in Canberra about 20 years ago. I was lucky enough to get up close near the stage and she held my hand and sang almost a whole song to me. Honest. I will never forget that night as long as I live.

grrr! Jealousy alert. Jealousy alter.

I saw people doing that, she would grab their hands and sing to them, or they would be allowed to hug her. I was too far away to touch her, although the whole time I was tempted to run up and hug her, I'm going to die one day so I might as well right? But I didn't feel like being bashed by security so I stayed put.
Awesome story Cat, couldn't have happened to a nicer person.

[huedell]

thats some story megocrazy, come to think of what you said about the crowd being older, basically every one there was pretty aged. Most of the people around me where in their 50's, which I found very surprising because people from the 80's should be in their 20's right?

If you were one year old in 1989, you'd be twenty now...

If you were ten years old in 1989, you'd be twenty-nine now...

So if you use 1989 (the last year of the 80s) as your "base year"
and don't mind calling 1 year old to ten year olds music fans, then,
yeah I guess technically you can say people'd be in their 20s

But the fact is Cyndi's biggest fans couldn'ta been younger than 7---
and the height of her fame was around 1986---so fans from "back in the day"
ain't gonna be much younger than 28----and that's if you're
considering 7 year olds to be a decent chunk of her fanbase---I'd go closer
to 14 year olds-- and that would place most fans from back in the day at
about 35 years old (about my age!)

Cyndi is certainly one of my big influences and icons from back in the day.

My band covers the song SHE BOP at just about every show we do.

(We'll be doing it this Saturday in TORRANCE!)

Cool thread MegoNinja---congrats on catching the show

[MegoNinja]

awesome to hear that you do She Bop Huedell, it is one of my favorite Cyndi songs. I can certainly see how she would be an influence, Cyndi is definitely quintessential 80's listening music. Great to hear that you carry on her legacy by playing her music.