Concert Reviews

Thursday’s concert at Xfinity Center marked the start of the final leg of Lauper’s farewell tour.

By Marc Hirsh

July 18, 2025 | 1:08 PM

3 minutes to read

Cyndi Lauper, with Jake Wesley Rogers, at Xfinity Center, Mansfield, Thursday, July 17.

The look back began early, before Cyndi Lauper even took the stage. Above the Xfinity Center stage ran a video montage showcasing Lauper as a singer, an MTV icon, a wrestling curiosity, a Tony winner, an activist at the White House.

If this was to be goodbye — Thursday’s concert marking the start of the final leg of her farewell tour — the singer was setting the stakes early. “I wanted to go out kinda big,” she said later, after reminding us that she had always come with bigness baked in.

Lauper kicked things off with a bang, literally and figuratively, as a blast of confetti fired into the air just as her band dug into the winking synth lurch of “She Bop.” Her voice retained nearly all of its power after all these years (decades, really). “I’m Gonna Be Strong,” a New Wave diva anthem dating back to her pre-fame band Blue Angel, offered an extraordinary vocal that built and built before landing on a few powerful notes that she held for impact. Even on a song as sleek and whooshing as Prince’s “When You Were Mine,” she was piercing even as she was warm, petulant, and distraught.

That was the crux of Lauper, in a way: She has a cartoon voice that’s also full to bursting with empathy. “True Colors” was a mass of contradictions, an anthem that was small and intimate that could sustain a mass singalong. The twinkling “Who Let In The Rain” was like the Drifters singing Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire,” and she imbued “I Drove All Night” with enough throaty yearning to make it clear exactly why Roy Orbison wanted it, delivering a smeary blur of headlights and longing.

Even on the songs that didn’t need to tug on the heartstrings, like her N’awlins-by-way-of-Noo-Yawk “Iko Iko,” Lauper’s personality was sharp and endearing enough to spackle over what might have been misaligned seams for anyone else.

It also carried her through the biggest indicator that she was on a farewell tour, which was how much Lauper talked. She didn’t simply walk the crowd through a recounting of her career and share stories behind her hits, though those elements were there. Instead, she was philosophical about life being a series of chapters and unpacked what the ending of this chapter might mean, and she tugged on threads from her past — like her family’s immigrant story, and how listening as a child to the women as they hung clothes on the line informed her growing understanding of her place in the world.

Extended ruminations such as those — as well as two costume changes in full view, one directly on stage that led to two songs being performed in a long black robe and wig cap, and one on screen from backstage — might have come across as rambling and killed the momentum for any other performer. (She also got distracted by a dragonfly catching the spotlight in front of her, causing her to say “Oh, snap! That’s special. That’s nice. That’s magical.”) But Lauper was such a disarmingly engaging presence and storyteller that her casualness simply folded into what made her great in the first place.

“Girls Just Want To Have Fun” was a perfect example, all squelches and jitters and a seemingly bubbleheaded message that she elevated into an unlikely but undeniable statement of purpose through personality and willpower.

There was only one time all night that Lauper’s voice seemed to fail her. Something was off right from the start of “Time After Time” and she never recovered, spending the entirety of the song just under pitch. (The consistency of her mismatched key combined with it being the lone such instance suggested some sort of technical problem.) But the audience knew every word by heart in more ways than one, and sang along with her, supporting her the whole while. She fell, and they caught her. They were waiting.

Openhearted and with a theatrical vocal extravagance, Jake Wesley Rogers opened with sparkly glam-pop performed with the fervor of someone being himself without the need to hold anything back. The running thread in his songs was love, and in particular envisioning a world where people are loved, and they practically vibrated with joy.

Setlist for Cyndi Lauper at Xfinity Center, Mansfield, July 17, 2025

• She Bop
• The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough
• When You Were Mine
• I Drove All Night
• Who Let In The Rain
• Iko Iko
• Into The Nightlife
• Sally’s Pigeons
• I’m Gonna Be Strong
• Sisters Of Avalon
• Change Of Heart
• Time After Time
• Money Changes Everything

ENCORE:

• Shine
• True Colors
• Girls Just Want To Have Fun

Marc Hirsh can be reached at [email protected] or on Bluesky @spacecitymarc.bsky.social.

Marc Hirsh

Music Critic

Marc Hirsh is a music critic who covers a wide variety of genres, including pop, rock, hip-hop, country and jazz.

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