Icons: Pat Benatar and Blondie

The local DJ introducing the show said, "Can you smell that smell in the air tonight? It smells like flowers and sweat. That's the smell of an estrogen heavy hard rock show, man! Breathe deep!"

We breathed deep.

Pat Benatar and Spyder Giraldo started playing together the year The Donnas were born. They haven't stopped since. Stepping once again into the shallow end of the pool (I always like it there. The water's warmer. You can say that's because the little kids pee there, but I won't hear you. LALALALALALALA!) Pat looks amazing. The years have been kind to her. Uber kind. Dude. I'm certain that there is a portrait of her somewhere that is aging normally. That's really the only explanation I can come up with.


She didn't hit all the high notes, but that was ok. Our minds filled in the blanks. She and her band knew what the crowd wanted and they delivered it. I felt like I was in college again.

That's a real, real good thing.


Blondie was up next. Debbie Harry took the stage like she owned it. Girlfriend is 64. I looked it up. Sixty-four and dancing, strutting, posing, and generally just rocking the house.


The stage set and the band took me back to 1982. Ms. Harry herself is timeless.


Their first callback song was a punkified cover of the ridiculously inane 'My Heart Will Go On". They made THAT cool. THAT, my fine friends, is no small feat.

THAT, my fine friends, is Blondie.


And THAT, my fine friends, concludes the week of a thousand bands. Or, you know, eight. To recap:

The Prodigals

Blue Oyster Cult and Alice Cooper

Joan Jett and the B-52's

The Donnas, Pat Benatar and Blondie

You can hold up your iPhones with their lighter applications as long as you want, but there won't be an encore from me anytime soon.

Unless, you know, an opportunity knocks and I score some tickets.

Will blog for tix.

(The more observant among you might notice that there are only two tix for The Donnas, Pat Benatar and Blondie. We didn't ditch the kids that night, but we did leave them in the cheap seats. My cousin got us two sweet seats, but couldn't manage five. When I visited with the girls after The Donnas' set, I said - "It was so cool! We could see the pink bass strings! We could see the little sparkle thingy on the singer's face!" They responded, "We could tell the singer had a head." Meh, they're young. Their opportunities for sweet seats will come...)