LA Adventure, Continued

File Under: La-La-Land-a-Go-Go

Saturday morning began with a workout and then breakfast. Mark and I relaxed a while and then hit the road back to Los Angeles to meet up with our friends DeDe and Kim. I've not seen DeDe since January 2007 when we met up in Vegas. I've not seen Kim since August 2001 when a large group of us met up in Vegas. Yes, both were for G0-Go's shows. :) For this trip, both were staying on Sunset, right down the street from The House of Blues.




Kim, Jim, DeDe

Here's a picture of the larger group of us. Mark is in the black t-shirt, he was my host on this trip. Kim's in grey, then our friend Damon is in the center, next is DeDe in pale blue and finally me.



Now for a little secret about my trip. I traveled with props. No, nothing naughty, just something to take to the show. As the regular readers of my blog know, Belinda Carlisle, lead singer of The Go-Go's, recently appeared on "Dancing With the Stars." She never got a score higher than a 6 from any of the judges. I decided that she deserved some 10's, so I made judges paddles and took them with me. I was going to see to it that Belinda got her 10's. More about that later.

At the venue we took our "standing room only" spots in front of the stage, we were all clustered near one another, approimately 4 "rows" back. The wait began at about 7:50 pm.

Around 9:30, the opening act appeared. They were called "The Upper Crust" and were hilarious! Four men, dressed in 18th century period clothing, powdered wigs and white makeup faces. They put on a great show. I spotted Belinda and Go-Go's drummer Gina Schock watching the show from the balcony, both seemed to enjoy it.

Finally at 10:30, The Go-Go's came out and the crowd went wild. They opened with their hit single "Vacation." Belinda began her trademark moves, at which point, DeDe, Kim and I raised our "10" paddles. Belinda looked over and was completely surprised and very happy to see the scores. She smiled wide, bowed a bit and moouthed out "THANK YOU!" However, our work was not complete.

I received kudos from Jane. She spoke and said that while surveying the crowd, she saw so many familiar faces - friends from the UK, from the East coast, and Chicago!! She waved at me when she said Chicago. I love Jane. :)

Back in the early days of the band, they adopted the song "Cool Jerk," the song by The Capitols from the 1960's. They've been performing it for about 30 years. Often, the band would bring somebody on stage to dance for them and be their "Cool Jerk." On Saturday, Belinda introduced the song by saying "I've spent so many years looking for my Cool Jerk and I finally found him, about 3 months ago. Tonight I would like all of you to meet him. Jonathan, come on out, please!" Out walked Jonathan Roberts, Belinda's dance partner from "DWTS." They hugged and he waved and the three "judges" in the audience waived our 10's high. Belinda pointed them out to him and he smiled, pointed at them, indicating his surprise, then waved at us. Then the dance began. He got to see how she does things. And so do you. I filmed it once the song began.



The song ended, Jonathan took a bow and waved to the crowd, and the band played on. The show ended at about midnight and after chatting with some friends in the crowd, the group of us wandered back to DeDe's hotel for drinks and catching up. Finally, Mark and I hit the road at about 1:15 and managed to get back to his house at about 2.

Next up, Sunday! Highlights include a lost phone, a beach, nearly-naked surfer boys, and scary dolls!

Thanks to DeDe for the use of some of her photographs in this post.