F  L  A  U  N  T

Human Rights was most definitely in the air on Tuesday night. It was there in the UN Proclamation that gave the Day its name, it was there in the rainbow lights atop Library Tower, and it was there at The Novo, where the inimitable Cyndi Lauper led an A-List group of friends through a three-hour call to action. The why? Home for the Holidays, an annual concert that benefits [True Colors United](https://truecolorsunited.org/), Cyndi’s LGBTQ youth advocacy group. See Cyndi believes everyone deserves to have a home for the holidays, and that includes LGBTQ kids, who are disproportionally without homes of their own. So each and every holiday season the great good gal gathers a great good few of her friends in order to add some high profile awareness to the situation.  This year’s Home for the Holidays showing (the first in L.A.!), featured almost as many stars on stage as there are in the sky. Yeah, I know. It’s Cyndi. And it’s Hollywood. So what else would you expect, right? Still, it was an absolutely Observatory-worthy night. As a matter of fact, without a Masters Degree in astronomy, it’d be impossible to justly chronicle all the stellar action. So let’s just stick to the moments when those stars collided.  Like with Perry and Cyndi, who teamed up for her early hit “Money Changes Everything.” If New Yorkers don’t need a last name when talking about Cyndi, then we in L.A. don’t need one when talking about Perry either. And nobody but nobody needs a qualifier when talking about how these two can wow a crowd. Together? Well, they’re positively uplifting. A different kinda uplift was in store when Cyndi joined the one and only Marilyn Manson for an almost rabid rendition of “Beautiful People.” Maybe it was because Marilyn replaced Manson Family murderer Tex Watson’s recorded intro with a growled few lines from Cyndi’s “Girls.” Maybe it was simply the brutal loud of the song itself. Or maybe it was simply one of those crazy things. Whatever it was, I don’t think Cyndi was ever more metal. Turns out though all that belting perfectly primed Cyndi for her next colliding -- with The Offspring’s Dexter Holland and Black Flag’s Henry Rollins.  This being the City of Angels, the night called for some classic L.A. punk. And so classic L.A. punk we got. First was Cyndi and Dexter taking on The Vandals’ “Oi to the World” (which was also famously covered by No Doubt); then came her joining Henry for Black Flag’s trenchant “Rise Above.” If The Vandals’ Xmas ditty proved inclusion was what made holidays cool, Black Flag’s hardcore anthem proves the excluded have the power to create that cool. Combined the tracks made a riotously righteous back-to-back for the occasion, and the pairings were simply divine. A few interludes later (including a hilarious Margaret Cho!) King Princess and Justin Trantor joined together for Cyndi’s timeless “Time After Time,” perfectly illustrating that the song is fit for every generation. So too the subsequent performance of Cyndi’s groundbreaking “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” featuring Kesha. Coming after Kesha awarded Cyndi the much-deserved United Nations High Note Global Prize (yay!), the singalong was especially stirring. There were other striking pairings too (Cyndi with blues legend Charlie Musslewhite and newcomer Greyson Chance), as well as some stunning singlings (K.Flay’s sinuous “Blood in the Cut,” Belinda Carlisle’s crowd-rousing “Heaven is a Place on Earth”). And Billy Porter pulled off not one but two stunners, including his spot-on dance hit “Love Yourself.” But it was Cyndi and Belinda’s closing colliding over “True Colors” which perfectly rounded out this Human Rights of a night. Then again, after reaching for -- and getting! -- so many stars, for such a damn good cause, there was something pretty much perfect about the entire evening.  Thanks Cyndi!