Berlin, Baby

It was Friday night. I had just gotten home and dinner was in the oven. Then Erika calls and says Berlin is playing in Park City later that night and we should totally go. I agreed, mostly because I needed a night out, but I was stressed as I didn’t know how quickly I could finish dinner, get ready put the child to bed and go. I was also thinking that I would probably only know about 2 Berlin songs, but Erika and I would find a way to make it fun.
Getting ready for a concert takes time and effort, neither of which I had. I wanted to be a bit eighties so I threw on a bright red shirt and tried to be slimming by wearing black pants.
Erika and I headed up the canyon. It was a nice drive because it was so late in the evening. The doors didn’t open until 9 and when Erika had called, we found out that Berlin wouldn’t even be taking the stage until after eleven.
When we had almost gotten there I pulled out the newspaper with the ad in it to find the address. That’s when I saw this concert was for the Park City Prom Night. I’d heard just a little about that and thought it was awesome! I wanted to go and wear a bridesmaids dress or something super cool and 80’s. Doh! Hopefully next year! We went in and they were spinning 80’s tunes and there was a small dance floor! Erika and I got our picture taken and wanted it to be a true prom picture and I think it turned out that way.
Neither of us were prepared to be dancing our little butts off, but it was so fun! It was like going to the club on 80’s night and having no one else on the dance floor! Mostly it was me, Erika and some skanky lady grinding against her boy toy. But it was super fun! They played George Michael’s “Faith” and I totally shook my booty for it. There was an opening band. They mostly played 80’s covers, which was awesome, but they mixed in there own songs a little, which weren’t awesome. But if I had known there were really people like that, I would have had them play at my wedding! Of course then the colors would have had to be hot pink and turquoise to fit the theme, but fun!
During the opening band the “dance floor” got pretty packed but Erika and I ended up state right at the very front. Then Berlin. Terri Nunn came out in a cute coat and started the rocking with “Masquerade.” Everyone thinks of the song from Top Gun when they think of Berlin, but because I watch a lot of VH1, I knew that song was the reason that band broke up, because they hated playing it because really Berlin is a new wave punk band. But I didn’t know how hard they would rock! Terri was coming to the very front of the stage and the crowd went nuts, we could have reached out and touched her. She almost hit me with the microphone once. It was sweet. I didn’t recognize all the songs, but we also heard “No More Words”, “Sex (I’m a…)”, “Shiny”, “Hideaway” and during “The Metro” she sat on the speaker right in front of us and held Erika’s hand and Erika being totally flustered but her other hand on her knee! Mostly Erika was just trying to remember the words to the song, so we could look like real fans.
They played a cover of a Prince song, but I don’t like Prince, but I was excited for Erika, she does like Prince. I was excited to hear her play Depeche Mode's "Never Let me Down Again", she also played a very slow acoustic version of Duran Duran’s “Come Undone” which she said she added to the setlist after her mother passed away. IT was sweet but she was sitting in a chair, with her legs open. In a short skirt. You see where I’m going with this? Luckily she was wearing tights (which were grey and awesome), so basically it was just trying not to look at her crotch, since we were at that just right angle. But Terri looked amazing, absolutely gorgeous. She’s aged incredibly well and now me and Erika have girl crushes on her. I was very impressed with her energy. At one point she got on the shoulders of a security guard and went through the crowd a little. She was such a rock star! There was a little musical interlude. The keyboardist played a song while Terri had a costume change. She came back all gothed out! She was wearing a corset and these awesome high heeled boots with the toes and heels cut out! We were so close that not only could we see that she has a mole on the side of her stomach, we could have also touched it! Eww!
The very last song was “Take my Breath Away” and it was really lovely, but kind of out of place. But I was very impressed because Terri had been screaming and doing all the rock singing all night, but her voice on this song was soaring and flawless. For the encore Terri came out with a black feather boa and asked if we wanted to dance. Then she told the people up front to climb onto the stage and dance with her! I went totally retarded but I was all about that! The security guard reached down for my hand, but then I didn’t know how to pull myself up without using both hands, so the poor guy had to dang me onto the stage while I flopped like a fish. I have some nasty bruises on my thigh from it! But I got a bright pink boa and while the stage was pretty crowded, I was up on stage dancing with Terri Nunn while she performed! Unfortunately it was a cover of that Mason Song “Dope Show” and I didn’t have to listen, I just had to dance! It was super sweet. Unfortunately I was not a genius and left my camera at home. Erika was able to get one decent picture on her ancient cell phone camera, but it doesn’t do justice to just how close we were to her. If I had brought my camera, I’d have evidence of the mole!
It was such an incredible night, Erika and I left on a major high. Even getting pulled over and told that ‘stop signs look the same from the east coast to the west coast’ didn’t put a damper on our excitement!
Berlin, I’d definitely see you in concert again!