Blondie & Pat Benatar at the Austin Music Hall Last Night!

Yeah, as you might have expected, IT REALLY WENT DOWN! Oh man, did it go down. I'm no 80's music fanatic, in fact fuck the 80's and everyone who is trying to relive that shitty Reagan tainted decade of filth and fucking day glo bullshit clothes, etc...

Except for Blondie. They started in the 70's anyway (as did Pat Benatar) so they still were able to be rooted in real music before all the Mtv dumb shit took over.


Not that I didn't watch a lot of Mtv in the 80's, I most certainly did. In fact, I remember when my father called me from Houston to tell me about this new 24 hour music video channel. Before Mtv we watched 30 minutes a week on Video Jukebox if we were lucky enough to have a friend with HBO, or a parent who knew how to bootleg that shit.


Anyway, everyone knows the Buggles were the first band to be played on Mtv, "Video Killed the Radio Star," and such. But how many of you know that Pat Benatar was the second? Yeah, me neither till last night.

Anyway, I was shocked at how killer Pat Benatar was too. I mean, I expected it from the almighty Blondie, but I really didn't think that Pat woul dhave so much energy, and her ORIGINAL BAND. This was really something.

I'll tell you though, I took my 7-year-old to this show, and we did it like how we used to do it, actually stood in line outside and such as opposed to looking for someone to slide us in a side door. Anyway, as we stood in the massive line, hearing The Donnas inside faintly through the wall, I thought about how many times in my youth, I stood outside a venue, missing the opening act cuz they had to go on so early, and play such a short set. I don't think The Donnas even played 30 minutes, maybe. We saw two songs and Eva was really sad cuz she loves them too.

But whatever. It wasn't as bad as when I went to see Firehose and Superchunk at Fitzgeralds in Houston with the motherfucking Bouffant Fucking Jellyfish smack dab in the middle. I stood on the steps waiting to get in while Superchunk plowed through their less than 30 minute set. Saw maybe 3 songs and they were gone, and then, that funk band (by this point in my life I was REALLY sick of Texas white boy funk, if you lived here in those days you know exactly what I'm talm bout) played in their middle set for no less than an hour and a half.

Talk about pain, anyway, there were no sleepers on this bill and we enjoyed Pat Benatar quite a lot. The Music Hall was packed from wall to wall. We found a spot on the balcony where I could kind of stand off to the side and Eva could just post up on the guardrail and see everything. I think a couple of lesbians with 80's hair got annoyed that they couldn't sit down the entire show, as Eva was standing sort of in their way, but um, yeah, it's a rock n roll show ladies. Get up!

Eva says they said something to her and kind of made her move down a bit, but I didn't see that, and I was watching. Anyway. None of that mattered because a very strange man in a funny hat came up to me and said that I should take my daughter to the backstage VIP area so she could see better, no need to stand on the balcony.

I was like, yeah I wish man, I don't happen to have VIP here. Well, said dude whips out two "all access" passes, hands them to me, says enjoy the show and walks off never to be seen again.

I says to myself, wow what luck, and put one on Eva and one on myself and walk to the backstage area, where these photos were taken. We missed the food but oh well, the show was raging!

Thanks strange dude. (Even though when we got home I looked at the passes and they were cut all uneven like a crazy person cut them, and the lamination shit was all peeling off and the image on it was totally faded. Yeah, they almost had to be bootlegs. Hahahahaha. My Life > Yours. I am not even trippinG. I love resourceful, and giving people.)


Anyway look how good Debby Harry still looks!


We just took the lil pocket camera and I let Eva handle the photo duties and this is what we came back with.


Suffice it to say Eva was totally stoked, but was even more stoked when they opened with her favorite song "Call Me," and then went right into my favorite song "Hangin' on the Telephone."


Yeah.


It really went down.



Word to 30+ years of amazing music and extremely hard work. Here's to another 30.