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Feb 16, 2025 By Adrian Peel Photography by Adrian Peel Web Exclusive

The larger-than-life New Yorker brought her Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour to London this week, delighting fans with her 80s classics.

Images and videos of Cyndi Lauper ‘back in the day’ flashed up on the giant video screen behind the stage as the sassy singer-songwriter’s seven-piece band, which included two backing vocalists, took to the stage.

Suddenly there was an explosion of rainbow-coloured powder and the charismatic star burst on to the stage, dressed in a fairly demure (by her standards) grey and black outfit and outlandish wig.

Prowling the stage with playful menace, undeniable presence and energetic vigour, she delivered moody, synth-led opening number, “She Bop”, with aplomb.

Often, artists tend to wait until they’re a few songs in before they address the crowd, but Cyndi, never one to follow convention, talked at length to the audience immediately after the opening track.

“It’s pretty, right?” she said of the colourful backdrop behind her, adding, “I just wanted to say I love you and that I wanted to do this my whole life.”

Noting that she’d been singing since the age of two, the singer then spoke about the much-loved 80s film “The Goonies”, dedicating her fondly-remembered song from the movie’s soundtrack, “The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough”, to “all you Goonies who never say die”.

For the fourth tune of the evening (“When You Were Mine” was the third), “I Drove All Night”, we saw the first of a number of costume changes, a white flowing dress worn over her existing outfit.

After the song, Cyndi talked about how the concept of a woman driving and being in control appealed to her, among other things, and reflected on her Italian heritage growing up.

She looked up to the people in the seats higher up and said, endearingly, “They used to be my seats, but then I started this job and was able to get a bit closer.”

Ms Lauper is an entertaining storyteller and a likeable, charming individual, but I felt she was talking way too much (something she acknowledged) and we were there, first and foremost, to hear her sing.

In fact, at one point she was chatting so much, she suddenly exclaimed “Holy cow, I forgot one!”, noting that she had missed out a rockabilly cover from her set - something she joked about a couple of times thereafter.

Thankfully, when she was singing, her voice sounded great and she really put her heart and soul into her performance.

“Sally’s Pigeons” and “Sisters of Avalon” were two songs with which I was less familiar but both were very enjoyable.

“Okay, it goes like this,” said Cyndi, by way of an introduction to the excitingly upbeat “Change of Heart”, a punchy hit from 1986.

She then encouraged everyone to turn their mobile phone torches on, creating a beautiful atmosphere for “Time After Time”, surely one of the greatest ballads of all time. Cyndi sang it beautifully and the crowd enthusiastically joined in.

We had to wait until the second song of the encore to hear another bona-fide Cyndi Lauper classic, however.

The singer came out onto the small stage near the middle of the arena, giving high-fives along the way, to passionately deliver “True Colours” ‘in the round’, while holding a long, rainbow-coloured strip of light material which was blown into the air by cooling fans.

It truly is a marvelous song - definitely one of her best - and, once again, Cyndi more than did it justice.

Then it was the one that probably most people had been waiting for. Making her way back to the main stage while singing the opening verse of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”, Cyndi then introduced her friend Boy George, who came out to a loud cheer and joined in the singing.

She thanked him for inspiring her early on, saying that if he hadn’t dressed the way he did back in the early 80s, she wouldn’t have had the courage to dress in her own uniquely flamboyant style.

That style would later become much-copied, of course - and indeed there were some fans present at the O2 who were clearly paying tribute to Cyndi Lauper from a fashion point of view.

On reflection, superb and soulful versions of all the Cyndi Lauper classics that one could possibly want to hear more than made up for the excessive talking.

Billed as a ‘farewell tour’, let’s hope it’s not the last time we see the artist who rivalled Madonna back in the mid-to-late 80s perform on these shores.