Pics and Clips from Her Farewell Tour Concert

1986 I attended Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors tour Madison Square Garden performance. Almost 40 years later she (and I) returned to MSG for the Girls Just Want to Have Fun Farewell Tour concert.

My phone gave me trouble, not allowing me to take as many pics and clips as I wanted, but there’s still a sweet enough collection of impressions to make you feel (or wish) you were there.

Before the show, lyrics from some of her hits were projected on the screens behind the stage.

The Garden was a sold out.

In addition to retired sports hero numbers, banners proclaim record number of performances rock stars have played the arena. Harry Styles’ 15 is impressive but still dwarfed by a factor of 10 by Billy Joel.

Elle King was the warm-up act.

Then, after a short break, a montage sequence on the video screens announced the start of Cyndi Lauper’s performance.

She started with “She Bop”

Being limited by my temperamental phone on what I could record, the clips will be heavier on banter than singing. The songs you can listen to at home, the banter is unique to the concert.

A little anecdote about Andrew Garfield:

“The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough”

“When You Were Mine”

A dramatic exit (for a costume change):

“I Drove All Night”

The infamous Hate Rally by the Orange Menace and his garbage minions had only just taken place in Madison Square Garden two days previously.

So Cyndi asked us to fill the place with love, exorcise all that hate.

“Who Let In The Rain”

Another costume change.

I’m not listing all the songs that were performed, I know “Iko Iko” and “Detour” and “Change of Heart” were included in this section, but I forget which song got these backgrounds.

She removed the blonde wig, and performed the next numbers with the wig-cap acting as evocatively spare headwear.

She introduced “Sally’s Pigeons” by recalling the era before Roe v. Wade, when women dying were from illegal abortions.

A white shroud wafting delicately on air accompanied the song.

Which is a good time to interject that procedes from much of the concert merch goes towards the Girls Just Want To Have Fundamental Rights Fund. Cyndi would later find an artful way to patter sing “girls just want fundamental rights” during the final encore of you-know-what-song.

When Cyndi hit those final big notes of “I’m Gonna Be Strong” as vocally powerful as she’s ever been, it brought down the arena.

“Sisters of Avalon”

Introducing “Time after Time”…

Which turned out to be a duet with Sam Smith.

My phone kept insisting it lacked storage for more, regardless of what I did to convince it I had indeed made plenty of room for more pics and vids – so for the last part of the concert I was only able to get a few shots in.

She belted “Money Changes Everything”

She moved through the crowd to sing “True Colors” in the middle stage area. She performed with very long rainbow scarf wafting in the blowing air much like the white shroud had for “Sally’s Pigeons”

After one more bow, she launched into “Girls Just Want To Have Fun”, with a new costume and design that my phone would not let me photograph…

I’ll just crib this pic from the internet…