“True Colors”.

Earl and I were good little concert goers last night and heeded to the request printed on our ticket: “No photographs, recording equipment or outside beverage.” Hence, there are no pictures to share.

That being said, I must say that last night’s show was absolutely fantastic! I think it’s the first show that I’ve ever been to that started on time. At 6:00 p.m. on the nose, there was Margaret Cho, last night’s emcee, out there doing a little stand-up and introducing the first act.

Can I just say that I love Margaret Cho. While her routine is definitely PG-13 and more likely “R”, I really enjoy the fact that she says it like she sees it and she doesn’t hold anything back.

First up was a group called “The Gossip”. With three members, they are two-thirds gay with the third member GBA (gay by association). Lead singer Beth Ditto has a mighty fine set of chops on her. While I’m not a huge fan of the indy rock scene, I really enjoyed the performance.

Up next we had the Dresden Dolls. Completely unfamiliar with their style and messing up their name on the car ride video from yesterday, the Dresden Dolls are fun to listen to. They have this cabaret-punky thing going on that I was like diggin’ man. What I appreciated about the Dresden Dolls is that they were musical, in that they used music theory in creative ways in their music and I really appreciated that.

After the Dresden Dolls, Earl and I jumped up from our seats and went in search of beer and food. We secured a couple of reasonably priced Bud Lights and Chicken Fingers baskets when I saw a familiar face coming through the crowd. I walked up to my one of my best friends from high school, whom I have not seen in 20 years, and said “Hi Scott.” He replied with a “hi”, quite uncertain of who I was. I coaxed him with a “It’s John” and he still didn’t recognize me (which I was finding a little surprising) and then reminded him who I was in which he gave me a big hug and kiss after realizing that this bald, bearded guy was the flaming red-head from his high school days.

Scott and his partner Mark, along with Scott’s nephew Steve and his wife Michelle(oh gosh I hope that’s right) and Earl and I caught up on old times during the next act, Rufus Wainwright. While Rufus played in the background, we made plans with Scott and Mark to get together and reignite our friendship by going camping at Hillside together this summer. I’m really looking forward to that.

Rufus was good too.

Next up was Debbie Harry, probably most famous as the lead singer of Blondie. Back in my radio days I had the opportunity to meet and hang out with Debbie backstage at a Fly 92 concert before her performance. She mentioned then that she wasn’t big on performing her Blondie stuff, and apparently she still feels the same way because she didn’t perform any Blondie hits at all, opting for stuff from her next album as well as “French Kissin’ in the USA”. Her new stuff is fun and I enjoyed her performance, but some others around us were looking to hear “Heart of Glass” or “Call Me”.

By now it was fully dark and the lights were dancing around the pavilion. Up next came Erasure. Fantabulous! Absolutely wonderful. Earl and I were on our feet the entire time. I love how tonight’s performers had at least one band member performing with a keyboard and a Macbook Pro. We were both out of breath singing “A Little Respect” and jumping up and down to “Chains of Love”.

To bring the show to a close, Cyndi Lauper performed for nearly an hour. The one that brought this show together, she is amazing. I really like the arrangement she did of “She Bop”, turning it into a rock-based track. Her final number was a beautiful arrangement of “True Colors”.

Earl and I are now proudly wearing our purple wrist bands, a gift from Cyndi to all last night. They say “Erase Hate” (see the link in the sidebar on my or Earl’s blog).

For more information on the True Colors Tour, take a look at this short Wikipedia entry.