Pretty Cool, and...Meh. Or: Pat Benatar and Cheap Trick

Hi boys and girls--

I went to the Pat Benatar and Cheap Trick show at AVA on June 16. I had been wanting to see Pat Benatar for years and finally got my chance. A big reason I loved Pat Benatar when I was a kid was that she was a woman singing in a more male-sounding style of music. She sounded so strong, so confident, and so cool, and I thought, "Wow. I wanna be her!" I still remember when Hit Me With Your

Best Shot came out and I just thought it was the greatest song. Here's the funny thing:  Benatar was the opening act for Cheap Trick, and I think most people (myself included) thought it would be the other way around. Benatar walked out onstage and opened with All Fired Up, one of her later hits. Her guitar player (who is also her husband), Neil Giraldo (also known as Spyder) had some really great looking guitars and I really liked his sound. She performed Hit Me With Your Best Shot (of course) and the crowd really got into it. Other songs she performed included Love Is A Battlefield, We Belong, Promises In The Dark, and Hell Is For Children. If you're not familiar with this song, it's a song she wrote nearly thirty years ago about child abuse. As she explained to the crowd, "We will continue to perform this song at every show we do until every child is safe." I had tears in my eyes and chills down my spine while they played this one.

As Benatar's set came to a close, I started to panic. She hadn't done the ONE song I really wanted to hear....
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