Mark My Words

Monday morning, my Google Watch showed a sleep score of 51, solidly in the Poor category. Not surprising; I’d barely slept four hours that night. But in this case, I had a very good reason. Well, two actually:

Rock. And roll.

I guess this story begins way back in 1979. There’s a song on the radio called “Heartbreaker,” and I dig it, man. It’s by a newcomer, some rocker chick from NYC who dresses like Catwoman. The vocals are gritty, the guitar riff vicious. Here’s a woman who appears Invincible.

That song rockets up the charts, and others follow. By the time “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” reaches #2 the following year, I am officially a Pat Benatar fan. That powerhouse of a voice–she’s a classically trained mezzo-soprano with a 4.5-to-5-octave vocal range–combines confidence with vulnerability. And she’s an early MTV darling; her video for “Shadows of the Night,” in which she plays a Rosie the Riveter type who dreams of piloting an aircraft and fighting the Nazis, is one of my all-time faves.

(You might recognize a couple of familiar faces.)

The hits keep coming. It’s impossible to pick a favorite from a catalog that includes “Hell is for Children,” “Promises in the Dark,” “We Live for Love,” “Treat Me Right,” “Love is a Battlefield, and “We Belong.”

Let’s fast-forward several decades…

Tara and I are huge concertgoers. But by 2026, there aren’t many bucket list shows left; by now, we’ve seen damn near every artist and band we care about.

Pat Benatar is one of the few exceptions.

So, when I learned she was touring with Bryan Adams this summer, I was All Fired Up.

Side note about Bryan Adams: we almost went to see him play in Illinois over the 4th of July weekend in 2023. His album Reckless was the soundtrack to my high school years; both that one and Cuts Like a Knife are in frequent Saturday night rotation during our card nights. I like Bryan Adams a lot! There’s just one small problem:

He’s Canadian.

OK, that’s not the issue. I love Canadians! But that massive, chart-topping power ballad from 1991, “Everything I Do (I Do It for You)”–you know, the one from Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves movie–well. My ex and I considered that particular Bryan Adams tune “our song.” It was the first dance at our wedding. Obviously, given that our marriage crashed and burned, there are negative associations with that song for me. So, as much as I like Bryan Adams, I was never going to go out of my way to see him live.

But throw Pat Benatar into the mix, and the concert’s a no-brainer. Of course I’m buying tickets! Even when the show is on a Sunday night. In Milwaukee. Not ideal, but I’m willing to Roll With the Punches.

Originally, we’d booked a hotel room across the street from the Fiserv Forum and taken Monday off. I still have nightmares about parking garages in Portland; it would sometimes take us an hour to get out of there after a show. But my inner cheapskate won out; a few days before the concert, I asked Tara if she would be willing to cancel the hotel and just drive home after the show, midnight be damned. Doing this would save us $170 (well, $120 minus the exorbitant parking garage fee) and eight hours of PTO. She was down, so I bit the bullet, reserved a spot in the garage for $50 (good hell!), and we headed into Milwaukee late Sunday afternoon.

We arrived a couple of hours before the show on purpose. Decided to grab dinner at Mader’s, a German restaurant in the Third Ward that never disappoints. We opted for a cocktail and a couple of appetizers, Reuben egg rolls and a charcuterie plate, because we were seated at the bar and service was SLOW. But everything was great, and we were a block from the Fiserv, so we got there with plenty of time to spare.

The show, in a word? Incredible.

Pat Benatar and her guitarist/composer husband, Neil Giraldo, took the stage first. Their hour-long set was blistering. I thought back to my adolescence, how I grew up with her music, always admired and respected her, and was thrilled to finally, after all these years, have a chance to see her live. What a legend. At 73 y/o, she’s still got it. And Neil is an underrated guitar player. You never hear his name mentioned among the all-time greats, but it should be. The dude can shred.

By the time they wrapped up their set, Bryan Adams almost felt like an afterthought. But I’ve gotta say, his reputation as a great live performer was earned. He was amazing! The moment he stepped onto the rear stage to kick off the show with an acoustic performance (“Can’t Stop This Thing We Started” and “Straight from the Heart”), I knew we were in for a treat. I did not expect to see him up close like that.

For the next two hours, he rolled through hit after hit from the main stage, accompanied at times by flying inflatable balloons. “Run To You.” “Somebody.” “Summer of ’69.” “Heaven.” “Heat of the Night.” “Please Forgive Me.” And 20 others.

The coolest part at all? The audience were handed LED wristbands, which pulsed in sync with the music, displaying a rainbow of colors, throughout the show. Totally cool, and nothing I’ve ever seen before.

Bryan sounded great, at least 20 years younger, his trademark raspy voice every bit as powerful as ever. And he’s a performer who knows how to work the crowd, sharing amusing and occasionally self-deprecating anecdotes and, at one point, getting everyone in the arena out of their seats to dance. Tara and I were both surprised by just how good he is. Pat Benatar may have been the main draw, but Bryan Adams completely won us over.

And when he played his huge hit–that song, the one from the Costner movie–I picked up my phone and tuned it out. It’s like it never happened, and I’m okay with that. No offense to Bryan, of course.

The concert ended at 11 p.m., and shockingly, we exited the parking garage with no issues–it took us maybe five minutes, tops. If not for a wrong turn on the freeway (it was dark, and we were tired, and Milwaukee interchanges can be confusing), we would have been home in an hour. Instead, we rolled into our driveway at twenty minutes past midnight. Exhausted though we were, and as rough as Monday was, we both shared the same sentiment:

Totally worth it.

Are you a Pat Benatar fan? How about Bryan Adams? Who’s on your concert bucket list?