CYNDI LAUPER
Buenos Aires, Luna Park Stadium
21/11/2008
Reviewed By Sebastian Ariel Ruau
There are a lot of artists that are considered Eighties Icons. Several of them still continue with their careers, with more or less success. But in all the cases, people make comparisons between who they were and who they are now. It’s not easy to maintain a career, to seduce a new public and to get people’s attention in concerts for old and new material with the same intensity.
With her new record ‘Bring ya to the Brink’, Cyndi Lauper is back with a fresh sound which works perfectly in concert alongside her classics.
She came ontp the stage in a black suit and blond hair extensions, walked to the middle of the stage, kneeled, and knocked on the floor a few times prompting the band to start with ‘Change of Heart’. Seconds later she got down from the stage and started to sing and dance in the auditorium. The 4,000 people were in shock and as a thousand mobile phones and cameras like up like stars it looked like a night sky.
From that incredible beginning, Lauper mixed the new songs like ‘Echo’, ‘Grab a hold’, ‘Into the nightlife’ (very well received by the crowd) and ‘Set your heart’ with the unforgettable classics ‘I drove all night’ (with Cyndi exercising on a speaker while singing the high notes!), ‘All Through the Night’, ‘She Bop’ (‘A song that gave me a few problems’, she said, because it was almost revolutionary to talk about female masturbation in 1984), ‘True Colors’ (preceded by a impeccable a capella intro to ‘Rain on Me’), ‘Time After time’, ‘Money Changes Everything’, ‘Girls Just To Wanna Have Fun’ and the ‘fan favourites’ (as she called them) ‘Shine’ and ‘Sisters of Avalon’. She also did a song because of pressure from the crowd, ‘The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough’.
The song arrangments ranged from acoustic to rock to dance pop, joined by the strong, high-pitched and steady voice of Lauper, who didn’t stop to dance, jump and replied to screaming fans’ questions (‘Come more often’ said someone, and she answered ‘Well, I wish I could. I got married and I had a child, thats why…’). ‘This is a party, they won’t hurt me and if they do, I’m from Blooklyn. I can take care of myself’, she told to a security guard because he tried to separate people from her.
‘Don’t give up. If you have something in your heart to believe in’ she said before the last song, ‘True Colors’, and told different people to ‘keep fighting for your rights’. In an industry that awards titles to artists like ‘Queen of..’, ‘Princess of’ and ‘Diva’, Cyndi Lauper has a bit of each one, but above all a lot of talent and charisma.
