Even the elderly enjoy the occasional concert...of the elderly

So Becki and I went to the "True Colors" tour a couple of weeks ago at lovely Red Rocks with a troupe of lovely gay boys. This worked out well, seeing as it was a sort of benefit concert for the Human Rights Campaign and for the Matthew Shepard Foundation and I would estimate that a large portion of the attendees were gay/lesbian/transgendered and/or drag queens. Please don't misunderstand my humor here for bigotry -- the aformentioned troupe of gay boys included one of my very closest friends from high school, his awesome boyfriend, and another couple of boys who I just love. And from the standpoint of people watching and just pure fun, you can't beat the crowd at this concert. More on that later.

Anyway, after the requisite unknown bands did their thing, Debbie Harry from Blondie came onstage. I was looking forward to her, sort of, because really, who doesn't like at least one Blondie song? From the 20th row, she looked pretty good. But then she started dancing. Wait, no, not dancing -- I'm pretty sure she was doing jazzercise. Do you know that she's 62? That's my parents' age -- and while I feel that my parents are pretty cool, I would NOT want to see my mom attempting to dance around on stage in a metallic silver miniskirt - which, I might add, was just one part of an ensemble including nude pantyhose and low heeled sandals. Yes, you heard me. It was painful. And to top it off, I'm pretty sure the audience could tell she was totally phoning it in, because everyone lost interest quickly and I'm also pretty sure I speak for the entire amphitheater when I say "WTF? Why did she not sing ONE Blondie song? NOT ONE." Humpf. Blondie is dead to me now.

Next up was Erasure, and of course they rocked. They sang every song I wanted -- "A Little Respect", "Chains of Love" AND "Oh L'Amour". Plus, Andy Bell is a graceful dancer. I could have totally done without the unknown bands and pseudo-Blondie and just had more Erasure.

In between each act, Margaret Cho came out and did stand up, and she was funny. Over the top and nasty, but funny. If you like that sort of thing, I highly recommend that you watch this. It's funny, and um, not safe for work or children.

Lastly, Cyndi Lauper came out and she was GREAT. Note to Blondie -- Cyndi's 54 and she looks absolutely fabulous, she dances well AND she knows enough to sing her old favorites -- I mean, she sang the "Goonies" song. She's aware that no one really cares about her new material, so she kept it to a minimum. I love her.

As for the people watching, well, how much time do you have? There was this one guy who was super skinny with very messy black hair and he was dressed in a red tank top and gold lame pants (that's "lam-ay", not "lame", althought truth be told, the pants were both). He also had shiny bronze gloves that went up to his elbows, and he was dancing around like a spazz. One of the boys with us is like "Um, just so you know, he is NOT representative of us. We're embarassed by him." Funny. There was also a guy there who looked like the typical preppy -- short blonde hair, khaki shorts, blue polo shirt, copper stiletto peep toe heels. You know, the usual.

We had a blast. Dancing and singing and laughing and people watching. It's times like that that remind me (again) how unbelievably fun and cool my friends are. SO fun and SO cool.