IN CONCERT

The True Colors tour featuring Cyndi Lauper, B-52s and more

Where: Deer Lake Park, Burnaby

When: Last night

Grade: B+

When you package a tour around a theme it's your tour. You write the rules and immediately are the star headliner.

Ask Sarah McLachlan. For a few years she headlined her Lilith Fair tour and so became a star, because she was the star. There might have been a few more exalted names on her bills but the Lilith Fair tour was her tour so she wrote the rules.

It worked that way last night at Deer Lake Park. True Colors, whose theme is the ongoing struggle for human rights, is Cyndi Lauper's endeavour. Lauper was the star, McLachlan sat in and fit in, thereby lending her name to the cause.

Carson Kressley MC'd, and Nona Hendryx started off a five-hour night with southern acts. Hendryx was all soul and high-energy funk with her four-piece band and two singers. She roused 8,000 people who otherwise were in early summer's-night wonderment. She performed only three songs but she was great.

Kressley bridged the gap to Joan Armatrading with a few gay and lesbian jokes. Supported by a three-piece band Armatrading confirmed she's a good, effective guitarist. Her nine-song set wasn't as exploratory as her albums, but had a blues-edged power.

Kressley came back and told a few more gay jokes, but that's OK, as a gay man was telling them. He brought on Rosie O'Donnell, who told a few more gay jokes and other funny, occasionally thought-provoking observations.

Lauper came on stage prior to the McLachlan set to explain the tour and promote community. With her acoustic guitar, McLachlan started off with "Building a Mystery." On piano, there was "Adia," "Arms of the Angels" and a feeling that she should get out of the house more. McLachlan was enjoying herself and the crowd in front of the stage drew closer to each other.

"This is just a love-in," said McLachlan. "It is just what I needed."

Kressley again . . . but enough about him. Let's talk for a second about the B-52s. All the things that anybody loved about them 30 years ago still apply. They had all the fun and they were vital, too. They make meaningful the culturally trivial. Keith, Kate, Fred and Cindy looked great, with an innate understanding of the Funplex. It is a place they have visited often. That understanding has kept them together and makes a lot of people happy.

Lauper has earned her place back at the top. In recent years, she has re-recorded her hits acoustically, done a covers album, and her new Take Ya to the Brink is a dance album. So she's been covering the bases while people have been rediscovering "Time After Time," "True Colors," "When You Were Mine" and "Girls Just Want to Have Fun." She did them all last night but, under the True Colors banner, there was extra verve and purpose to her performance. Coming after the B52s however, Lauper had a tough act to follow and at times she sounded weary. "She-bop" lacked spark and she seemed to have lower enthusiasm for the newer material which, in concert, is pleasingly raw and human.

Lauper's set was short, but she had O'Donnell acquit herself well on timbales during "Girls Just Want to Have Fun." Meanwhile, McLachlan joined Lauper for an encore of "Time After Time" and Hendryx came on stage for "Money Changes Everything."

As balloons sailed throughout Deer Lake Park, the assembled tour sang "Everyday People" and then came "True Colors."

"It used to be my song," said Lauper, "but now it's yours."

© The Vancouver Province 2008