And It's All That You Got

It's always good to remember that the word fan comes from the word fanatic.

I don't think it's a reach to call a guy who's seen a band "dozens and dozens" of times over 20 years, a guy who last month went to Peru to see them perform, a guy who stripped off his regular shirt to reveal the band's t-shirt underneath, but only after they took the stage, fanatical.

I'm talking about Psychedelic Furs fan #1.

At first I just thought he was forward, leaning over to me in the darkness of the National as Bash and Pop bashed and popped on "Fast and Hard," to share that he hadn't seen a band in matching suits since the Dave Clark 5.

Right there, he's lost me. Are the Furs the only thing he's listened to since the Dave Clark 5? Or is he just hokey?

But when he came back from the restroom to find that the space next to me was still available, I didn't need to hear, "Thanks for saving my space for me." As if.

Honestly, I'd only noticed he'd left because I was glad he'd stop trying to initiate conversation.

When Bash and Pop finished with "Friday Night is Killing Me," he turned to ask how many times I'd seen the Furs.

Sure I'd sound like a dork, I said twice in three years. That's when he puffed up his chest and made it clear he was the experienced one since he'd crossed the equator and I'd never so much as left the state to see them.

But while he may have been an adoring Furs acolyte, he wasn't shy about passing judgement, either.

Richard Butler had removed his frock coat before beginning "Until She Comes" to reveal a button up black and white shirt with white piping. No surprise, he immediately pushed up the sleeves '80s-style to complete the look.

By the time the band finished "Heaven," #1 fan leaned over and announced, "Richard's getting man boobs. He's going to have to change his style of shirt."

Just for the record, #1 fan saw no irony in judging another middle-aged man's body while he himself was plenty solid around the mid-section.

That said, he was handy when I needed to know something quickly.

When they said goodnight. I turned to my walking encyclopedia of all things Furs to ask him if they do encores. He responded with three fingers and a prediction they'd begin with "India.

So you know, they did two songs and "India" was second. So there.

Was fan boy upset he was mistaken? Hell, no, because they led with "Sister Europe," a song he hadn't heard them do live in 20 years. He was very, very excited about this.

All throughout the band's set, fan boy would dance off beat and try to mimic the excellent dancing and hand motions of Richard onstage. The problem is that Richard becomes the lyrics - he has gestures for praying, raining, hearing, loving, talking and, during "All That Money Wants," vein-tapping - and no one, not even a fervent follower, can keep up.

Midway through their set, fan boy was jolted when the next song was not what he anticipated. "Oh, good, they're mixing it up!" he exclaimed, clapping his hands in delight. "This isn't the same set list as Peru!"

Show-off.

And woe to the couple who decided to air their dirty laundry at #1 fan's favorite band's show. The oblivious lovebirds situated themselves right in front of him and I, allowing us to watch the arc of an argument and its aftermath play out in front of us.

First it was clear disagreement, then a protracted period of discussion and eventual settling of the matter. You'd think that the worst part would be the standing make-up sex that came afterwards (tongues and hands were flying), but in actuality, it was the post-coital drunken dissection of what had just gone wrong ("I'm not going to do it!" and "So I'm the bad Adam because I won't dance?") that led to fan boy standing up for his right to worship at the Furs' altar.

"Can you be quiet?" he demanded of the lovebirds. "I came to hear the show!"

It was enough for Romeo to half walk, half-carry Juliet out of the National and make fan boy (and honestly, me) very, very happy.

Of course, that could be said about every song the band played, whether a huge hit or lesser known. I can tell you that the most phones came out to capture "Pretty in Pink," the loudest roar was for "Love My Way," it took a while before most of the room recognized "Heartbreak Beat" and "Ghost in You" got its own interpretive dance thanks to Richard.

It was also a heavily paired-off crowd and what wasn't coupled was male. Think middle-aged meat market for those who weren't happily-ever-aftering and still like synths.

So with fan boy to my right (of course he had to be in front of the center of the sound booth for optimum viewing), I couldn't help but chat up the woman on my left, only to learn that she was 4 or 5 when she first heard the Furs. For her at 36, it was music from her childhood.

Naturally, I wanted to know if the current music she listens to pulls from the Furs' sound. She was somewhat perplexed by the question, but thought maybe so. Some of it. Kind of.

Spare me the lack of opinion.

As for people I actually knew, there was a favorite WRIR couple who stopped to chat on their way down front for a close-up view. Like me, they'd seen the band here in 2015 and couldn't think of a single reason not to come enjoy them again this Saturday night.

Then on my way out, I ran into  an arty couple I'd seen at my first Furs show in 2014. They'd somehow recognized me (short woman, big hair, constantly dancing) from the back while standing behind the sound booth while I was in front of it.

"They're always so good," she said, while I got shallow and pointed out that Richard Butler has aged awfully well. After all, a show is audio and visual, right?

And if you don't think #1 fan likes the visual as much as the audio, you're kidding yourself.

Let's just say I'm not the one who went to Peru or noticed the man boobs.

When the synth and sax are wailing and Richard Butler's singing, "And it feels like love and it don't mean a lot," I'm thinking that it's all that we got and I'm not looking at his chest.

I'm in heaven.

She Don't Fade

A friend tells me the other night that I'm the only person over 25 she knows who makes a big deal of her birthday.

If it was meant to be an insult, I didn't pick up on it.

Instead, I went to Amuse at the (very quiet) VMFA to meet Moira for a birthday cocktail or two. Slow when we arrived, it was a hotbed of middle aged activity before long. If there was a middle aged Tinder, this room would have been ripe for it.

But we weren't there to date, we were there to kick off my birthday eve celebration.

I'd brought my Parisian absinthe spoon, a recent gift from Pru, and handed it over to a favorite bartender to fit on the lip of my glass to allow the drip to pass through the sugar cube. Meanwhile, Moira found her life's blood in a bourbon and bubbly cocktail with the most divine lemon/egg white foam that ever graced a drink.

It was an ideal night to be in Amuse's dining room, the deep blue sky and ecstatic sun mere embellishments to the occasion. Noshing on snacks - housemade beef jerky, bleu cheese and bacon deviled eggs and spiced pecans - we compared exes, considered exit strategies and daydreamed about the possibilities of shared free time.

Because it's birthday season, there must be dessert, in this case, a Madame X (absinthe, bubbly and a sugar cube) and a chocolate cake contained in chocolate ganache and split by chocolate mousse under a cloud of whipped cream. If you ever wonder why I walk five miles ever day (besides so that strangers can shout random things at me like this morning's "Great ass!" on the Lee bridge), this is why.

If you wonder what I do on my birthday eve, I go to the National to see Psychedelic Furs despite having seen them last April at the Beacon Theater in Hopewell. It's not just getting to gawk at how amazingly well Richard Butler has aged, it's to hear the music that defined a big chunk of my (relative) youth and to which I danced many, many nights in clubs.

Standing in line to get a wristband, one of the staff called out to the milling crowd, "If you're over 21, have your ID out. If you're under 21, you've all aged really badly." Young man humor. When I raised an eyebrow, he said, "What? I've always wanted to say that to people."

Another staff member pulled me aside, saying, "Don't mind him. He's really 84. He hasn't aged on the outside, but inside..."

Walking in late due to my extended absinthe interlude and much hilarious conversation, I managed to catch the last few songs of Bad English's set, including a cover of Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne," admittedly captured by the lead singer's (striped shirt, cap, deep voice) charisma.

"We're Black English. Look us up on whatever you look people up on. If we come back, would you come see us?" and a fair amount of cheers resulted. I would for sure. A bit of a ham, he worked well off the drummer at center stage while the girl playing keys was tough to hear, whether by design or a bad sound mix, I don't know.

During the break, I headed to the bar for a Cazadores, delivered by a bartender who inquired sweetly, "Were you walking down the Lee Bridge today?" Damned if I wasn't, but I also wouldn't  think anyone could spot me at 45 mph.

"Oh, I knew it was you," he said. "I recognized you right away."

Chatting with a woman whose first concert was Kiss at age four, she told me that the crowd was older than it had been when she'd come to see INXS. My, how time flies.

Soon after, the Psychedelic Furs came out and from the first moment, singer Richard Butler could have had any one of the middle aged women in the room, present company included. Dapper in a suit with his shirt cuffs hanging out unfastened, he got even better after discarding the jacket leaving only  vest and shirt.

I'm an unabashed fan of it all, the posturing, the hand gestures, the drama. And don't get me started on how he curtsies, cuffs flying, after some songs.

Oblivious to my neighbors, I danced to everything - "High Wire Days," "I Wanna Sleep with You," "Love My Ways" (during which he had the crowd singing along) and "When She Comes." Personally, I could have died happy during "Heartbreak Beat" with his hand on his undulating hips.

And it feels like love,
got the radio on
and it's all that we need

Maybe it's my age, but every possibility imaginable in the '80s resurfaced listening to songs such as "The Ghost in You" tonight. So of course it ended too soon, even after an encore with "Pretty in Pink" that spoke to the crowd who'd arrived via film and not music.

Tequila gone, show over, there was only one thing to do: continue my birthday eve celebration somewhere else. What better way than to stop by Richmond Comedy Coalition and listen to rock god Prabir tell stories from his life and be skewered afterwards by a group of improvisational comedians?

When I arrived, he was telling a Prabir and the Substitutes tour tale from a  stop in West Virginia ("I'm sure that technically they were females...") and talking about some fans getting kind of "handsy" with band members afterwards as they appealed for a place to spend the night.

"I wouldn't say they were cougars but I would say they were bobcats," he explained. "These girls were very aggressive." He brilliantly solved that by putting on a  DVD of "Lord of the Rings" which apparently makes bobcats stop touching band members.

The comedy troupe was soon trashing West Virginia and riffing on his story, occasionally breaking out into "With a Little Help from My Friends" and "All You Need is Love," a scene which closed with the characters falling on their imaginary swords to end the song. West Virginia jokes abounded.

During intermission, I chatted with all kinds of friends - the tourism guy, the beer fiend, the theater lover, the former neighbor and DJ - before we heard one last story from Prabir. This one was less a memory and more a lecture about the wonders of science and time, hardly surprising coming from a major science geek.

As he got deep into metaphysical talk, one of the comedians threw his hands up, walking away shaking his head in disbelief. "F*ck, dude, f*ck," he wailed about trying to make comedy about fourth dimension talk.

"Are there different rules for mating in other dimensions? What if we needed a third element to replicate the species?" he asked rhetorically. "Is there a place where they pair off in threes?" You can only imagine the comedic possibilities of groups of people trying to mate in the fourth dimension.

Although I saw Prabir checking his phone during that sketch, I thought is was laugh out loud funny. Pair off in threes? God, no, two is tough enough.

From there, we somehow got to a funeral for pizza attended by Papa John, Grandma Sbarro and little Cesar, all delivering eulogies. Don't ask.

Absinthe, Furs and laughter? Sure, some people would call this making a big deal of their birthday. Pshaw. You don't see me pairing off in threes, do you?

Until She Comes

All of her lovers
all talk of her notes
and the flowers that they never sent
And wasn't she easy
and wasn't she pretty in pink?

You may not be able to go home again, but you sure can go revisit the years you spent dancing in clubs to British post-punk.

Somehow- I'll never understand how - the Psychedelic Furs were playing Hopewell's Beacon Theater, the historic and recently renovated grand dame of a theater in what seemed otherwise like a ghost town.

Across from the theater, a pick-up truck had the Furs blasting as a half dozen people tailgated, pre-gaming for the show.

We took seats in the row in front of the sound booth, or roughly equivalent to my usual place at any show, except seated.

Quite sure I'd see other Richmonders at the show, we weren't there ten minutes when I spotted a favorite gallery owner with a handsome designer.

When they came over to chat, he said they'd been playing the "who will we know at this show?" game on the drive down and her first guess had been me.

We also saw WRIR's vounteer coordinator and her husband, who said that his brother had recently seen the Furs and been very impressed with the show. They were appalled at the absence of places in Hopewell to get a drink before the show, a fact which we'd taken into account.

All I knew was that I was finally getting to see and hear Richard Butler's distinctive voice playing songs that I've been listening to and loving for 30 years.

Moments after the Vacant Stairs took the stage, the sound guy two feet from us, yelled out, "Welcome the opening band!" That's about the most impersonal introduction I've ever heard a band get.

Like the Furs, the Stairs were a bunch of middle-aged men, only their songs weren't cleverly written or oozing with British art school poetry. And they didn't have a sax player.

Coming out of the bathroom during the break between bands, I was greeted by a long-time Millie's employee who ended up sitting right in front of us with his posse.

I feel perfectly safe in saying that the entire audience (with the exception of the idiot who brought the five-year old) had at some point in their lives danced, made out or swooned over a Psychedelic Furs song. Or ten.

From the moment they took the stage, looking damn fine considering everyone but the guitarist is mid-50s, I know I was lost in my youth.

But it was singer Richard Butler I immediately fell hard for. Midway through the first song, I turned to my date and told him how adorable I found Richard.

A man in my shoes runs a light
And all the papers lied tonight
but falling over you 
is the news of the day

My problem was that I'd never seen a Psychedelic Furs video, so I was there with no knowledge of what an expressive singer, fluid dancer, and just all around loose-limbed human being he was.

It didn't hurt that he was middle-aged handsome, constantly smiling, wearing dark framed hipster glasses and with his black shirt sleeves pushed up 80s-style (hands sometimes thrust deep in pockets for "the look") and had the ability to drop to a full-on floor curtsy, sing poignant love songs and spring back up without a hitch.

But mostly it's that distinctive voice and accent that are so deeply embedded in my musical memory and that served as a soundtrack to a long-ago relationship that had me swooning from the start.

My date didn't seem to mind, no doubt because he was lost in his own memories of the music and how enthusiastically well executed it was considering all the years gone by.

With each song played, I felt my smile grow wider and my euphoria higher hearing all these songs I've loved so long played live.

Love my way, it's a new road
I follow where my mind goes
So swallow all your tears my love
and put on your new face
You can never win or lose
If you don't run the race

The band was incredibly tight, no surprise given how long they've been playing together but it's the inevitability and reality of love that weaves its way through the lyrics to every song that seal teh deal.

Or maybe it's watching Richard sing his heart out while pantomiming hand gestures to words like sun and heart and dream to coax every bit of meaning from the lyrics while a roomful of Gen X types dance along.

Anyone who knows me well knows I'd always rather go hear a new band than an old one. Simply put, I love hearing the current generation interpret the influences of my lifetime.

But listening to the Psychedelic Furs last night, I was reminded of the sound that generations of bands have been borrowing from to make me their fan today.

Sorry, kids, but unless you're going to be able to age as well and sound as good in 30+ years as the Psychedelic Furs do, you'll never know the pleasures of growing up with your audience.

There's a heartbreak beat 
playing all night long 
down on my street 
and it feels like love, 
got the radio on 
and it's all that we need

The best part is knowing that your romantic idols can grow up and still be just as charmingly romantic. It's all that we need.