Cyndi Lauper has fun, and more, in farewell tour show at Fox Theater – The Oakland Press

“I wanted to do a farewell tour while I could,” Cyndi Lauper told fans Thursday night, Oct. 24, at the Fox Theater in Detroit.

And, boy, could she?

It was just the third night of the singer’s Girls Just Want to Have Fun farewell tour, and the first theater date of what is primarily a stadium outing, and the first show in the new seats at Fox, and Lauper , 71, The stage still showed all the virtues it had 41 years ago, when the seven-times platinum “She’s So Unusual” introduced the world to Lauper and her dyed hair, her colorful and unique fashions and her absolutely distinctive voice. She declared herself “pretty old” during Thursday’s hour-and-50-minute show (her first in these parts since opening for Rod Stewart in 2017 at the DTE Energy Music Theatre), but Lauper’s performance was as energetic and full of as big a personality as any of today’s twenty-something pop divas, who are indebted to her more than four decades of transcendent courage.

What’s important to remember about Lauper is that she’s a girl (a woman, at this point) who wants to have more than just fun. As he noted before the moving “Sally’s Pigeons,” which he co-wrote with Mary Chapin Carpenter, “I didn’t want to just have a hit song. “I wanted to have songs that meant something to me.” However, he added later: “It’s nice that they applaud; Every manager I had had the last hair pulled out of their heads, ‘You’ll be ruined!’”

That’s not the case, of course, and Lauper, an outspoken activist for women’s and LGBTQ rights, peppered Thursday’s celebration of her career with songs and observations that were particularly striking less than two weeks before the US presidential election. this year. “I never thought I’d have to fight for my autonomy again,” she continued before “Sally’s Pigeons,” “or feel like a second-class citizen once again, because if you don’t control your own body, you’re not equal… If “One of us is not the same, no one is the same.” She turned Frankie Laine’s “I’m Gonna Be Strong” into an expression of empowerment, while her own hits, the anthemic “Sisters of Avalon,” “Time After Time,” and “True Colors,” a duet with the opening act Lua Kala. – acquired greater resonance in the context.

“Power to all the people, not just some,” declared Lauper during the encore.

But about wanting to have a good time…

While Lauper acknowledged that she didn’t know if her stadium-sized production would “fit in here,” the intimate Fox made the experience that much better, from the accordion-shaped, folding 11-panel HD video screen to rain showers. confetti at the beginning and streamers at the end. Lauper wore seven different looks throughout the show, wearing designers such as Jessie Mac and Christian Siriano; the last of which, he said, told him: “Cyn, gays want glamour!” And she followed that advice in her choices, including a classic black dress with a train, a carnival costume with yellow ruffled sleeves, a bright red blazer and, for “I Drove All Night,” an opaque white cape over which images of video while Lauper sang.