The Brit
Friday, March 12, 200?. Key Arena, Seattle, Washington

Blonde Pride Night blossomed at the Key this evening as 10,000 of Seattle's young cuties celebrated their Blondeness, and paid homage to their Goddess, The Brit. But I didn't know it until the show was over.

When the house lights came back on, I was stunned to see an ocean of blonde hair wafting throughout the Key Arena. Watching the golden shags float out of the Arena, I understood finally all that I had witnessed before- the deafening ovation The Brit received from the audience when she took the stage, her tears during her opening remarks, the candles and lit Bic lighters. That opening salvo had hurt my ears; pounded my chest to the point of pain; I had wished the kids would stop. Now, I understood the ferocity.

The Brit looked truly touched by Seattle's greeting. I had examined her closely, expecting hype, but her conversation with the audience came from the heart. The exact meaning escaped me, but her fans seemed to know what she meant when she said that she was no longer “in the same space she was six months ago.” They stood and cheered and lit their Bics.

Surprisingly, tears of pride came to my eyes when next she extolled her fans to be role models for “all the young people coming up.” Must have been the “poppa” in me. I smiled realizing that The Brit, at 22, feels old. However, the context of her last admonition was lost to me, “Never take one day for granted.”

But I didn't need to understand. The fact that she was talking about something more than sex, drugs, and rock and roll was significant. Her stagedeck teaching revealed an important aspect about The Brit and her success. She goes beyond looking sexy: she teaches Blonde Power. The Brit is sexy, but that's not the half of it. She knows she's sexy and uses both her body's traffic-stopping powers and her awareness of it to create a higher level of confidence, another level of power within her, one where she sings without concern to the depths of her pipes, never a moment wishing she were Sarah Brightman, Whitney Houston, or Norah Jones.

That whole package is The Brit, and she offers it in toto to her fans to create the same for themselves. She seems to be saying, “Go girls. Be Blonde. Be Sexy. Be Powerful. Be confident and speak your piece. Do your thing whatever it is.” The thousands of blonde-haired women reveled in that luscious atmosphere of acceptance- -no blonde jokes, no need to apologize for looking seductive, no fear of being branded a bimbo, and no jerky guys hitting on them. Just pure Blonde Power. I was touched.

I understand that parents and family groups were outside the Key protesting her faux sex scenes. I saw neither the protestors nor potentially offending scenes, for halfway through the show my union gaffer screamed for us stagehands to get assembled out on the loading dock. There were fourteen semi's to be loaded, a hundred stagehands to organize, and two days of hard highway before the next show in Denver. Show Biz reality; the pressing truth of the backstage. So, I had to leave the blondes, The Brit, and the strutting. It was time to hit it, and get The Brit's crew and their trucks on the road.

© Bruce A. Smith   2004       previous       next