Three days after former president/felon Donald Trump held a vengeful, race-baiting rally at Madison Square Garden, Cyndi Lauper – a musical icon and champion of LGBTQ and women’s rights – sought to cleanse the air at the iconic New York City venue on Wednesday (Oct. 30) during her Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour.
“It’s about time [women] start stepping forward and voting for ourselves. We need equality – and I ain’t going back, that’s for sure,” she said early in the evening, before alluding to Sunday night’s MAGA rally: “We need a lot of love here tonight to dissipate a lot of the hate that was here. I wasn’t going to say this, but then I did,” she added with an unapologetic shrug. And she’s putting her money where her mouth is, too, donating proceeds from wig sales at her merch table toward her Girls Just Want to Have Fundamental Rights Fund at the Tides Foundation, which collects funds for “safe and legal abortions… women’s healthcare, prenatal care, postnatal care, cancer screenings — women’s health.”
The Billboard Hot 100-topping, EGT-winning musical icon has never shied away from being politically, creatively and musically outspoken – and the world has been better off for it. So while a Cyndi Lauper farewell tour is a bittersweet affair (one audience member vehemently screamed “no!” when she talked about this being her last major trek), you can’t blame her for wanting to go out while still in peak musical form.
At 71, Lauper has not lost an iota of her distinctive vocal power. She roared through “She Bop,” belted “I Drove All Night” with 100mph gusto and brilliantly wove through her vocally fragile yet formidable cover of Prince’s “When You Were Mine.” For those ‘80s classics, her band – led by musical director William Wittman, who played on her career-launching classic debut She’s So Unusual (1983) – wisely hewed close to the original arrangements, bringing a crackling new wave punch to the material instead of trying to recast them through a modern lens. When you’re hearing these songs, you want those floating synths, snap percussion and sprightly guitars – not to mention the sublime recorder solo on “She Bop” that Lauper herself performed onstage.
Having a band that tight and well-oiled also afforded Lauper the freedom to stretch out vocally and let loose physically – which was abundantly clear toward the end of an ass-walloping “Money Changes Everything” where she hammered out various riffs on the chorus while writhing around on the ground.
Lauper’s setlist doesn’t shortchange on the hits, but half of the fun of the show is her off-the-cuff banter, delivered in that indelible, no B.S. Brooklyn fashion. “I still can’t parallel park for sh-t,” she quipped after “I Drove All Night”; while sharing a story about a famous actor who told her he was a big fan of The Goonies, she assured the crowd she would never namedrop, then paused significantly and said “Andrew Garfield” before singing the bouncy “The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough”; and when introducing “I’m Gonna Be Strong,” a Gene Pitney cover she used to sing with her pre-fame band Blue Angel, she joked about struggling to figure out the song before learning proper key changes: “I tried to sing like him and I kinda sounded like Ethel Merman.” Rolling her eyes, pulling faces and delivering one-liners out of the corner of her mouth, Lauper is a naturally hilarious human who effortlessly commands an audience’s attention. (It’s a shame the 1988 adventure comedy Vibes, which she starred in alongside Jeff Goldblum and Peter Falk, was a box office flop, because she’s genuinely fantastic in it — you can’t help but wish she’d done more big screen work.)
Like so many funny people, Lauper can also use humor to help land an emotional gut punch. “Can you imagine if men could get pregnant?” she asked before singing “Sally’s Pigeons,” a harrowing, real-life-inspired tale of a back-alley abortion that ends in death. “What did Gloria Steinem say? It would be a sacrament.” Eyes were also glistening during “True Colors,” which Lauper performed on a small stage in the middle of the arena while a colorful scarf twisted through the air; her extended pause after delivering the “don’t be afraid” lyric at the end was particularly poignant.
And, of course, “Time After Time” had more than a few people wiping their eyes – not to mention dropping their jaws when surprise guest Sam Smith came out to join Lauper on the Hot 100 No. 1, blending their dulcet tones with her restrained, emotive delivery. (Smith watched the remainder of the show completely rapt from the side of the stage.)
The show wrapped, naturally, with “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” which Lauper performed in a red polka dot outfit from Yayoi Kusama. After singing the line about “boys [who] take a beautiful girl and hide her away from the rest of the world” and wailing “I want to be the one to walk in the sun,” Lauper added a post-Roe appropriate lyrical update: “Everyone wants to have fundamental rights.” Before leading fans in a final sing-along of the chorus, she urged the crowd to give it their all: “Say it loud enough to get rid of all the bad energy in here,” she shouted, smiling. Based on the vitality, power and joy she brought to the MSG on Wednesday, it’s safe to say that the famed Manhattan arena has gone through the musical equivalent of a sage burning, fumigation and re-sanctification under her watch.
