Just one psychological drama after another...

Okay, there was no drama today or tonight, but it occurred to me, after seeing the song "Drama!" performed live this evening, that that would have made a much better title for my last post given my recent predilection for titling LJ entries with song lyrics. :)

Speaking of that last post, I know a lot of you commented, and thank you to all of you. I'll go back and address specific points in specific comments when I'm not falling down.

First off, for those of you who haven't seen it yet, here's one of the skits we filmed on Saturday to promote Polaris 21:

Watch on YouTube

There are seven more, but I don't know if they're all being put on YouTube.

My boss was gracious enough to let me leave today at 3:45 so that I could get to the Molson Ampitheatre for 6, for the True Colors concert (it doesn't feel right spelling it that way, but that's the way they've spelled it...)

The evening started with Margaret Cho introducing the festivities. The first band was a local group called The Cliks, whom I'd never heard before but were fairly decent. They were followed by The Gossip, whom I'd never heard before either. They weren't really to my taste, but I liked the next group, The Dresden Dolls, who performed a fun song called Coin-Operated Boy that I rather enjoyed. I may pick up some of their stuff, because I wouldn't mind hearing more. Things really picked up at that point - Debbie Harry was next, followed after a short intermission by Erasure, and the tour's organizer herself, Cyndi Lauper.

Margaret Cho came out between each pair of musical sets, and did some standup. I rather liked two of her lines:

"I hate the Pope. I think he's a Slytherin."
"I want to fuck everyone. Well, you can't say that now... not after 9/11."

I noted Erasure's set (hey, I've been a fan for over 20 years):

Sunday Girl
Blue Savannah
Drama!
I Could Fall In Love With You
Chains Of Love
A Little Respect
Sucker For Love (I think; I know it was a song from their new album, but I don't know the new songs yet so I'm guessing)
Oh L'Amour

(Edit: They also did Sometimes, but I don't remember where it was in the set.)

Andy Bell was in fine form tonight - in recent photos, I didn't think he was looking all that well (the man is HIV-positive, after all), but he seemed to be on top of his game. At least, that's the only explanation I can think of for his "Michael Flatley, Lord Of The Dance" imitations during instrumentals. And Vince Clarke seemed to be trying to evoke Chris Lowe - he was wearing an Andy Warhol wig and sunglasses, and stayed pretty motionless at the synthesizer throughout their set.

For the encore, everyone came out and they sang "Take A Chance On Me" and "True Colours" - after launching about a dozen large (ie. six feet in diameter), multi-coloured balloons into the audience.

It may be a good thing that some of the performers who are part of this tour are only performing in selected cities - I'm not sure I could have handled Rufus Wainwright, Rosie O'Donnell and The Indigo Girls too.

As it was, I only got home at 12:30 (after a brief stop for something quick to microwave for dinner, since I hadn't eaten since 1:30 this afternoon).

Overall, I had a fantastic time. I did note a couple of odd choices, though:

• At one point, the lead singer of The Gossip ripped off her dress and played the rest of the set in her bra and panties.


• When Cyndi Lauper came out, she was wearing a wig in a shade of orange that only looks good on anime characters, and a pointy hat reminiscent of a 19th century Chinese immigrant working on the railroad. The overall effect was to make her look like the umbrella in a mai tai. Thank the gods they came off after her first song.


• Memo to Ms. Lauper: "She Bop" was not written as a dirge. It really doesn't work very well as one.

And in the "Lance knows everyone" file, I ran into the following people tonight whom I know, not counting Adrienne, since we were sitting together:

• Scott Dagostino, the managing editor of fab magazine who came to Gaylaxicon last year and wrote a fantastic article about us (yes, kaelsu2, we chatted, but we're going to continue the chat via email)


• Clint, the boyfriend of my friend Troy from bowling (Troy was around somewhere, but not in the immediate vicinity when I ran into Clint


• Darren Morneau, another bowler


• Brandon Barre, the former Woody's bartender who first called me "the boy who can't say no," in relation to my working on three SF cons at once


• Heather Murray, aka "Koshka", with whom I was involved in theatre in Waterloo back in the early 90s

I was expecting that I might run into indydark, since he was the one who first told me about the concert, but I didn't see him. (Okay, there were several thousand people there, but still...)

I also saw Jon Maxfield, another fellow bowler, but he doesn't really count as I only saw him when he was on the platform at Davisville station after getting off the train (he'd been in a different car).

Oh, and when Adrienne showed up, there were two young women with her whom I assumed were friends of hers. They left after Debbie Harry's set, and said to me, "See you at Polaris!" I later found out that Adrienne had never seen them before tonight, so we concluded that they must have recognized me from the con, or possibly from last year's Gaylaxicon.

I guess it's not that out of the ordinary to expect that I might run into people I know at a concert that was doubling as a fundraiser for Pride Toronto and the Human Rights Campaign, but still...

Here's hoping I can get up for work in the morning... my legs are going to be killing me, since I spent most of the last half of the concert on my feet dancing...

Strolling down memory lane.

I mentioned a few posts ago that on Saturday, I found an envelope full of old photos in the bottom of the garment bag I'd used to transport my costumes to gurudata's house, and he kindly scanned five of them and emailed them to me. Well, here they are:

( Follow the cut, if you dare. )

The mocking may now commence.