Pop icon Cyndi Lauper drops in for 'surreal' visit to Dunedin bar
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Co-owners Josh Thomas (left) and Dudley Benson (right) with 1980s icon Cyndi Lauper outside Woof! bar in Dunedin.
For Josh Thomas – Dunedin’s Woof! bar co-owner and lifelong Cyndi Lauper fan – meeting the 1980s pop star on Tuesday was “surreal”.
The 51-year-old told Stuff he had been an “original fan” of the Time After Time star since the 1980s.
So when he heard the 69-year-old would be touring New Zealand with iconic rocker Rod Stewart he needed, “to do everything I can to try to get her to Woof!”.
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Thomas reached out to contacts in Dunedin and overseas who could be involved in the tour in some way and, on Monday night, put a sign in the venue’s window.
The brightly coloured welcome read: “Nau Mai Haere Mai Cyndi”
Thomas believed it was a combination of the prominently positioned sign in a central area of town, and the groundwork of “[putting] a few feelers out” that made her aware, and on Tuesday night Thomas hosted his 1980s hero in the bar he owns.
“It was amazing ... To finally meet her was surreal and quite incredible.”
Growing up as a young gay man in Auckland, Thomas said Lauper meant “a lot” to him throughout his life.
“She taught me valuable lessons about being true to yourself and that it’s OK to be different.”
And while they say you should never meet your heroes, Lauper was, “just the most down to earth, gentle, loving person you could ever meet”.
In the conversation that followed, Lauper was “very curious” about the city of Dunedin and seemed more than happy to chat, he said.
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The sign in the window of Woof! bar.
Thomas also used the opportunity to show Lauper a journal from when he was a teenager living in a room “plastered with Cyndi Lauper posters”.
“She kind of politely smiled,” he laughed.
“But I suspect she gets a lot of that kind of fan action.”
80s singing icon, Cyndi Lauper had more on her mind as she picked up a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the rights of the LGBT community.
Lauper is due to perform at Dunedin’s Forsyth Barr Stadium on Wednesday night, which Thomas will be attending.
“I’ll be there in the front row.”
Rod Stewart and Cyndi Lauper will also perform Napier’s Mission Estate Winery on April 8.
In February, promoters added an Auckland show to Stewart’s tour, scheduled for Spark Arena on April 9, and will donate a portion of the Auckland concert proceeds to Red Cross NZ Disaster Relief Fund.
