Watch Henry Rollins & Cyndi Lauper Sing Black Flag’s “Rise Above” At Home For The Holidays Benefit

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Watch Henry Rollins & Cyndi Lauper Sing Black Flag’s “Rise Above” At Home For The Holidays Benefit

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Every winter, Cyndi Lauper hosts her all-star Home For The Holiday benefit. The show raises money for True Colors United, the nonprofit that Lauper founded in 2008 to battle against LGBTQ youth homelessness. Last night, Lauper headlined the 2019 edition of the show at the Novo for the event’s first year in Los Angeles. Lauper performed alongside people like Marilyn Manson, Kesha, King Princess, Perry Farrell, and Lily Tomlin. She had Belinda Carlisle and Brandi Carlile; I wonder if those two know each other. And she also shared a magical moment onstage with a very different sort of ’80s icon.

In recent years, we’ve seen two competing reunited versions of Black Flag, both of which have featured ex-members of the beloved LA hardcore institution. Henry Rollins hasn’t taken part of any of them. Rollins was Black Flag’s fourth singer. He’s the most famous and longest-tenured of the band’s frontmen. But even though Rollins has the Black Flag bars tattooed on him, he doesn’t trade too much on his past in the band these days. Last night, though, he gave it a shot.

At last night’s benefit, Rollins sang “Rise Above,” Black Flag’s immortal 1981 hardcore rager, and he sang it with Cyndi Lauper. Lauper had a mohawk and a leather jacket and a gigantic plaid skirt. Rollins still looks ripped as shit, and he’s gone grey in a dignified way. If Henry Rollins sings “Rise Above” while wearing a shirt, does it even count? Does it count if he’s wearing anything other than a tiny black pair of running shorts and nothing else? I don’t know. (As far as I know, none of the many iterations of Black Flag had a keytar player, either.) But it’s still fun as hell to watch these two singing the song together. Watch a fan-made video below.

The YouTube user Brian James, as it happened, shot a bunch of videos at last night’s benefit. Here’s Marilyn Manson and Cyndi Lauper singing “The Beautiful People” together, with Manson adding a few bars of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” at the beginning:

Here’s Lauper singing “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” with Kesha:

And here’s Lauper doing her classic ballad “True Colors” with fellow ’80s pop goddess Belinda Carlisle, who remains stupidly beautiful:

We’re gonna have a YouTube party tonight.

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