bad-ass babes

through the generosity of others, i was a regular concert machine last week and my final blow-out was with debbie harry and pat benatar.

this was at the pavilion now named and licensed by i'm not sure whom anymore, but it's right on the water and it was a perfect night. it was my 1st visit to this venue and i will bitch: the sight lines are terrible and the not-so-jumbotron pictures were even worse. you're also fenced in like at a super-max and cannot even remotely glimpse the water.

another back in the day, of "i saw blondie at the channel" and they killed it then and now. she was an icon of cool for me from my first listen in junior high and she just played hit after hit saturday. i'd forgotten how creepy "one way or another is," lol. she's clearly had some nipping and tucking, but she looked terrific. never had a huge vocal range, but she sounded the same, and owned the stage in a leather skirt and chuck taylors, lol. i just could not get it out of my head that she is only 2 years younger than my mother -- who is in a wheel chair and mostly out to lunch. wtf.

benatar's anthems were part of my soundtrack too, but she was always a bit too arena rock to get my "cool" label, even while i could admire her pipes. her slicing and dicing wasn't as recent as deb's, but she looked great and could still hit the notes. her sound mix was not primo that night which was disappointing. it was mostly drums drowning her absolutely out for the first 5 or 6 numbers! i had no idea her band had been the same (but for 1) for 30 years! there was a vague awareness on my end that her husband was sort of the maestro and i was totally blown away by his playing. ok, 5 out of the 6 of us were put off by how show-offy he was. yeah, yeah you can strut the stage and wail on your "axe" (must you call it that?) during "love is a battlefield", but shut up with your windy yapping and that schticky mambo-italiano in between songs, ok?

mostly chicks in the audience and i was totally surprised by the broad age range. plenty of women who were too young ever to have heard blondie before the reunion and just as many in stretchy comfort slacks older than deb. did the yhoung ones realize how ground-breaking blondie had been? "rapture"?

as a sidebar, i was the only of my friends not drinking and i think this may have been my only ever totally sober musical experience in my whole life. it was plenty fun. and beers were frigging $11! there was a very tall ostrich-like lady right near me drinking red wine in what looked to be a mouthwash cup. cannot imagine what they served or how much they gouged for it. no, she did not look *classy*, but we all did get to make fun of her.