Friends of Mine

Sorry for the radio silence. I’ve been editing and reliving my youth.

A bunch of my girlfriends and I hauled ourselves up to Oklahoma to see Duran Duran play at the Winstar Casino on Friday night. As I’ve said, I haven’t been to a Duran Duran show since 1989, so I was pretty excited. Excited enough that I dodged a barricade and got right up against the stage, where I commenced to bopping around like the person I thought I was too cool to be when I was 17. Pffff. I’m not cool and no one cares anyway. I’m going to dance and sing along!

I did. In 5″ heels.

The show was great. The band sounded fantastic, and looked better than they have in years. There wasn’t a lot of audience engagement or excitement from the band (until the encore), which made it feel a bit like watching a pre-taped show, but the band had also just come from SXSW and had apparently had a miserable struggle against traffic to make it to the OK venue. The sound was good enough that the rest really didn’t matter. I am so glad I did it! So glad I went.

In general, I dislike live shows. They don’t usually sound as good as I want them to, and I also dislike being shoved and battered by overzealous fans. You have to be polite people. John Taylor doesn’t want to marry you now. He especially won’t if you have blood all over your shoes and pants legs after trampling half of Dallas to get to him. Not a good look.

I made it half the show up at the stage, got all the photos I wanted, then enjoyed the expressions of surprise as I salmoned my way away from the band and back to where most of my friends were sitting. I spent the last half of the show dancing with my girlfriends and having more fun than I’ve had in ages. I know some delightful girls.

Some photos for you:

I tried to get everyone, but the drums and keyboards are backlit half the time, so it’s very difficult to get any good shots of Roger or Nick. And Roger’s hidden anyway. But those are nice, and I did have a great time. Did I mention the great time?

Saturday morning was the Women Worth Knowing event, and you can find video of Charlcye’s fantastic session over on the brand spanking new www.womenworthknowing.org. More to come on that site as I am able to edit old content into the new digs.

Saturday evening, I met up with girlfriends again to have dinner at Palomino’s. I’d never been there before, but was very impressed. The food was lovely.

Now, I am recuperating from the festivities, having gotten home between midnight and 2am all weekend.

Back to regular blogging next week. Hope your weekend was as much fun as mine!