Review: Cyndi Lauper at Rac Arena

Cyndi Lauper at RAC Arena
w/ The Veronicas
Saturday, April 12, 2025

Eighties pop icon and enduring music royalty Cyndi Lauper ended the Australian leg of her Girls Just Wanna Have Fun farewell tour at RAC Arena with a spectacular performance. Bringing together hits and stories from across her distinguished career, it was more a distillation of her entire life and worldview than anything that could be considered a standard concert.

Opening for such a legend could easily be seen as daunting, but millennial pop princesses The Veronicas gamely accepted the challenge. With a setlist split between paying tribute to the decade that made their headliner and their own bigger hits, the twins interpreted Pat Benatar, Stevie Nicks, and Tina Turner, with all these covers delightful to hear.

With their own material, there were fewer synths than expected but more grinding guitars. The Veronicas were having an absolute blast and the energy between the siblings and their band was infectious. The set was a tight ten songs, culminating in a powerhouse performance of Untouched, with most of the audience out of their seats joining the party.

Girls just wanna have fun? The Veronicas certainly were, both with the widest smiles as they exited stage right.

Preceding the main attraction, an MTV-style video montage covered Cyndi Lauper’s early career, through her many award wins to her strong political feminism, until glitter cannons announced her arrival to opener She Bop. With the confident, imperious strut of an artist at the peak of her craft, the past forty years melted away in a heartbeat.

Before the next song, Lauper spoke to the audience directly, paid tribute to her artistic director while making a Spinal Tap joke, and related how Australia was one of the first markets to embrace her in 1983—with the press circuit of the time inclusive of singing to a wombat and an interview with Molly Meldrum.

As important to both Lauper and her fans as the songs tonight were, the storytelling aspects woven into the evening quickly became equally so. As she talked about her first Australian tour, there was genuine affection in Lauper’s voice—and, on the wider topics raised later, a refreshing honesty rarely heard in a live music setting. This tour is billed as a farewell, so Lauper is well past the need to be polite in 2025, but this fierce authenticity has been part of her from the beginning.

Lauper discussed an unnamed music executive she had crossed paths with who insisted there were no women in early rock’n’roll. In the anecdote, Lauper listed all the female pioneers back to him, which led to a glorious rendition of Wanda Jackson’s Funnel of Love, with art direction seemingly inspired by American Bandstand.

I Drove All Night was a pulsating journey with a fantastic visual aesthetic, Lauper’s voice as powerful as the day it was originally recorded. Going from the sublime to the not-afraid-to-be-ridiculous, Lauper changed costume into what could only be described as a garish Cajun Plucka Duck, jamming with a washboard and introducing her band during an extended take of Iko Iko. The briefest explanation—that it was Easter, it was Mardi Gras—was surprisingly touching.

Lauper’s consummate way with words turned even the deeper cuts into essential works, with the poignant Sally’s Pigeons probably the most resonant of the night. Lauper described her hardscrabble upbringing in working-class Queens, surrounded by a loving family with multiple strong female role models, at a time when women couldn’t get a bank loan in their own names.

Leading into the song itself, which began almost as poetry, Lauper dressed all in black under a single spotlight, supplemented by a gorgeously animated video. The story, the song, and the effects were all phenomenal—and taken together, this was quite possibly the emotional heart of the entire performance.

Lauper brought the energy up again with tub-thumping old-school rocker Sisters of Avalon, while Time After Time brought a constellation of lights from the crowd, as Lauper channelled her vulnerabilities into every lyric and every syllable. Even after all these years and all the heights of fame, still at times the awkward weirdo from the outer boroughs.

Lauper called out that part of the tour’s merch sales went to charities either protecting reproductive rights or mitigating family and domestic violence before launching into a blistering performance of Money Changes Everything, which is just as relevant with the billionaires now as when first released. For a good portion of the song, the final of the main set, Lauper laid prone on the stage floor, the lyrics almost a guttural scream for justice.

For the encore, Lauper moved through the crowd to the hitherto hidden B-stage for an absolutely mesmerising, heartfelt rendition of True Colors, before returning to the main stage for a rollicking Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, with the stage, band, and Lauper herself covered in the polka dots of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama.

Indicative both of her career overall and specifically tonight, everything Lauper did on stage exuded an absolute passion for her art, her fans, and her collaborators. Scattered throughout the show, she gave a series of meticulous acknowledgements to multiple designers, artists, songwriters, and influences—showing a near-encyclopaedic recall of the American music industry over the last sixty years.

A very imaginative video skit allowed Lauper to bring her hair and makeup artists to the fore, and when one of the costume team was onstage, Lauper heaped kudos on them as well. She continuously showed an outsize generosity of spirit, along with a seeming inability to see herself as above anyone in her orbit—whether part of her crew or the audience.

Lauper easily demonstrated the innate power to turn the arena setting into an intimate conversation with friends, connecting individually with all on their own wavelengths. She had stated earlier in the evening, “It’s a big show, but I wanna make it personal,” and threaded both needles successfully.

“When you think your book is over, there’s always another chapter,” was another line spoken on the night, giving succour to those in the crowd who may have needed it. Lauper’s pages on her live music career have now been fully written, and she left nothing in reserve on this tour.

After over four decades of fame in the public eye—for all Lauper has done for the communities she supports, for all those who have connected with her art—we can but hope she has many more chapters to write. She long ago earned a long and glorious epilogue.

PAUL MEEK 

Photos by Adrian Thomson