miXtape: A Musical Trip Back to the 80's

As a Christmas present for my sister last month, I found a great deal through Groupon for tickets to a show called miXtape.  We both were teens in the 80’s, so we’ve talked about and attempted to go to miXtape before, but just could never quite get it together.  My sister had vacation time between Christmas and New Year’s, so we picked a day and finally made plans.

When I posted about it on Facebook, a friend stated that she went with a large group who dressed up in 80’s gear and she wished she joined in their fun that night.  I also read that there is a “Ladies Night” and “80’s Night”, so when I suggested it to my sister, it really didn’t take much at all to convince her that we would partake in the festivities.  Although we realized later that we could get a free beverage if we dressed up as a larger group, we were stunned to be the only ones in full 80’s gear at the show (more about that in a post later this week)!

The premise of the show is around a “mixtape”.  I remember making many of these as a teen, for many reasons, and even to give to friends.  A mixtape is just a compilation of music recorded on a cassette tape, like a play list on iTunes.  What the musical presents is that a mixtape or play list can be a diary of point in time, reminding ourselves of what we did and where we were at that time in our lives.  The medleys consisted of not just songs of the 80’s, but also television show themes and movie quotes (which included a bit on one of my favorite John Hughes movies, “The Breakfast Club”).  They walked through different genres of music from top 40, to rock, to metal, country and my favorite, new wave.  They had a bit on the kids who were “mods” like myself (consider it “goth-light”, if you will) as well as the trends of the times.  It wasn’t all about happy times, but poignant ones like the Challenger crash and the beginning of the  AIDS concerns.

What we enjoyed the most was that we could sing to every song to a fantastic live band, and that they really did span all of the 80’s.  The parts we thoroughly enjoyed of course the parts that included new wave, which basically was all of the music you can find on my favorite XM Sirius station, First Wave.  They even had a snippet of Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence” because one of the characters fell in love with a guy who stood her up at one of their concerts and left her a mixtape.  Within the stroll through new wave memories, they had an entire medley of music by Duran Duran who they touted as “the best looking boys in rock” (so true at the time, and still are in my book).  Although the new wave bits brought back the most memories, a truly fun part of the show didn’t have to do with any of that.  Our seats were pretty much dead center of the small theatre, so we were hard to ignore in our full 80’s gear.  My sister was serenaded by all the males of the musical during one of the slow songs, which really pulled us into the show even more than we already were.

If you are at all a fan of 80’s music, television shows, movies and enjoy clever musicals, miXtape is a must see.  miXtape runs until February 26, 2012 (it was extended for the last two years).  If you are in the San Diego area, grab tickets, take a bunch of friends, and most of all, sing out loud and dress the part!