Why Cyndi Lauper’s farewell show felt like, well, a suitcase of memories

November 9, 2024
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Montrose Star
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The gay icon defied time during the chic, heartfelt concert

By Chris Azzopardi

By Chris Azzopardi

I spent 15 years attending the Catholic church (and over 15 years more attending pop concerts), so I can confidently say that pop music shows are a form of congregational worship in their own right. They serve as sermons for the soul, and sometimes when you’re a gay kid born in the 1980s, led to believe that God condemns you, you turn to the catharsis of sparkly pop bops from someone like singer and gay icon Cyndi Lauper. I was that kid.

To survive as a closeted gay teen in the 1990s, which I consider the pop era that defined my youth, I latched hard onto music as escape and catharsis. (I consider the 1980s to be the musical era of Me Loving Anything My Mom Played, including Lauper, who rose to fame then.) I needed to fling open those closet doors, which I did in 2001 during the summer after I graduated high school, before I could truly get closer to the history of who Lauper was to so many gay men who allowed me to also live openly as one.

Then I saw Lauper on stage for the first time, opening for none other than Cher. I still can’t believe this was all in one night, and seeing Lauper open the show, well, it really just felt like its own main event, as did the giant scabbed-over zit on my face.

My self esteem was in tatters then; even though I had come out, an acne-speckled face had me feeling like an outsider in a crowd of people with seemingly perfect skin. Hearing Lauper sing “True Colors” that night became a religious experience, and, through tears that I thought would never stop, I would play it ritualistically, but especially before bed in place of “Our Father.” It was me, with the sad eyes, in a world full of people, that Cyndi was singing to. And she saw my true colors.

Appropriately, I was there with my mom, an ally herself. This history sets the stage for what happened last week, again with my mom, now 22 years later, as Cyndi Lauper sang that song again, deepened by time and life experience and my own knowledge of its history (Lauper recorded the song in the 1980s because it reminded her of her friend Gregory Natal, who died of AIDS) and its ever-growing resonance in our community. I consider it now to be a prayer for all of us outsiders. And yet, when she sings it, even still, you are made to feel very much on the inside. The only person in the room.

Though she’s playing mostly arenas on this trek, called the Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour, Lauper took the stage at the Fox Theatre on Oct. 24. Detroit, it seemed, got a pre-Halloween treat — a chic, retro-meets-modern show that combined grand-scale production with the intimacy of a theater performance. What a way to say goodbye.

At 71, Lauper has accepted her own mortality. “Well, hon’, you know, right now I’m strong, and I can do an arena tour,” she told me in June when I asked her about what led to this being her last tour. “And I haven’t done it in years, like a real bonafide arena — ‘go see Cyndi, it’s not 50 minutes, it’s a fucking hour and a half,’ and you actually can hear a lot of music. Right now, I’m strong and I can do it. But in five years, I don’t know what the heck. Sure, I’ll probably sing. I’ll probably do something because I love singing, but I don’t know that I would have the physical strength to do an arena tour. The people that can, God bless them.”

And God bless Cyndi Lauper, whose performance defied the passage of time as she gave one hell of a concert. Lauper’s liquid voice showcased just how robust it still is on this night, and when it soared to places that sounded like I was seeing her in 2002 all over again, I stood proudly. The truth is, though, if there were a prayer bench, I would’ve been on my knees. Her underrated cover of the breakup ballad “I’m Gonna Be Strong” resonated with the same emotional intensity it has since she released it as a solo cover in 1994, culminating in soaring notes that, if you didn’t know her version, would have you wondering if this is same voice singing “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” “I Drove All Night” challenged that notion too. Though Lauper’s career is often defined by catchy bops that showcase only a fraction of her vocal prowess, she is an undeniable powerhouse when she lets it rip.

Emotionally, she can still pack a punch. Upon its 1993 release, “Sally’s Pigeons” could pierce even the hardest of hearts. Today, it should change the minds of Republican voters who’d rather see women die from medically unsound abortions than have control over their own bodies, and with the fate of safe abortion rights on the 2024 election ticket, her poignant song about the tragic death of a young woman from a back-alley abortion left a few women around me in tears.
“I wanted to have songs that mattered to me,” Lauper said, reflecting on her journey from pop star to genre-defying artist, before performing “Who Let in the Rain.” Alongside “Sally’s Pigeons,” she wove several political statements into the night, adding a “Girls Just Want to Have Fundamental Rights” rap to the song that perfectly encapsulated that evolutionary sentiment. At the onset, a video montage set the stage for the show, featuring footage of Lauper testifying before a Senate subcommittee about LGBTQ+ youth homelessness in 2015. This montage highlighted scenes from her life and career, showcasing four decades of artistry and LGBTQ+ activism.

Lauper acknowledged her queer fans when she mentioned that Christian Siriano designed some of her wardrobe for this tour. She shared how he helped her achieve a level of glamor not typical for her, noting that if this was indeed going to be her last tour, the LGBTQ+ community would expect nothing less.

Wig or not, “True Colors” still takes me back to 2002. When she performed it near the end, following the ebullient “Shine” — another song that has become an LGBTQ+ anthem — she stepped into the audience, a gesture of togetherness. A man behind me wept, and I wondered if he was crying because he, too, remembered the first time he heard that song and felt its embrace. Our youth behind us, we had survived. No zits! And mom, still by my side.

We were older now, as was Lauper; old enough that we might never experience one of the defining songs of our younger years the same way again. Unbeknownst to us all, that night, if this truly was farewell, we weren’t just saying goodbye to Cyndi Lauper, but to so much more than we ever anticipated.

Chris Azzopardi is the Editorial Director of Pride Source Media Group and Q Syndicate, the national LGBTQ+ wire service. He has interviewed a multitude of superstars, including Cher, Meryl Streep, Mariah Carey and Beyoncé. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, GQ and Billboard. Reach him via Twitter @chrisazzopardi.