Benatar performs sold-out show in Lynn

LYNN – More than 2,000 people stepped back in time Thursday night for a sold-out concert in downtown Lynn by iconic 1980s rock singer Pat Benatar.The four-time Grammy Award winner and MTV star made Lynn her only stop in Massachusetts for her 2012 tour, according to Lynn’s Community Development Director, James Marsh.”It’s great,” he said.Even though most of her songs peaked in the late 1970s and early ?80s, several concert-goers milling in the Lynn Auditorium before the show Thursday said they were just as excited to see Benatar perform 30 years later.See a photo gallery from the concert.”I’ve listened to Pat Benatar for years,” said Lynn resident Vicki Kennedy.Kennedy, who had just purchased a Benatar concert T-shirt for herself and friend Theresa Breen of Peabody, said she still jams to Benatar when she wants to get up and dance.”I listen to it and it takes me back to when I was in my 20s,” she said. “I love to dance to the music from back then.”But Thursday was the first time for some Benatar fans to see their beloved singer live.Stephanie DeBonis of Derry, N.H., said she fell in love with Benatar when she was 16, too young to see the singer live.”My mother would never let me go to a concert when I was 16,” she said as she sipped a Coors Light with her fellow concert-goer Lorraine Lambert of Lynn.The two had high hopes that Thursday’s show would live up to their idol’s heyday.”She still sounds fantastic,” DeBonis said. “She kept her voice well ? why not take the opportunity to come here and see her?”But Hamilton resident Wendy Jolly wasn’t so sure Benatar could perform like the days of yore.”She’s a has-been,” Jolly said. “I watched her in the ’80s. It’s 2012.”But she and her friends said they still bought tickets for the show as a girls’ night out.Some people attending Thursday’s show weren’t even old enough to watch Benatar on TV in the ?80s.Twenty-nine-year-old twins Kristen Sprague, of Swampscott, and Lauren Vitale, of Ipswich, said they first got hooked on Benatar when they heard one of her songs on the soundtrack of a movie they were watching.”When we heard her music in the movies, we just Googled her and downloaded a couple of her songs,” Sprague said. “She’s fun.”Another set of twins at the concert had very different memories of Benatar. Westford residents Tim and Tom Lynam said Benatar actually baby-sat for them while growing up in Long Island.Their older brother, Shaun Lynam, said he went to middle and high school with Benatar and that she invites the family to shows she plays in New England. Shaun Lynam was tight-lipped about growing up with Benatar, but his younger brothers weren’t afraid to dish some details.”The first time we went to see her – what was it, 20 years ago? – we went backstage and she goes, ?Oh my God, I haven’t seen you since I used to baby-sit you,'” Tim Lynam said. “We were 30 then.”Marsh, with the city’s community development department, said he thinks Lynn has found its niche with classic rock acts like Benatar.”We look at the demographics of Lynn and the surrounding area and see what fits,” he said.Marsh said when Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull was announced as an October concert in Lynn Auditorium, more than 700 tickets were sold on the first day.”It’s really taken off,” he said.Benatar hasn’t been the only act to sell out the auditorium. Marsh said Kenny Rogers and Peter Frampton both played to a full house when they came to town this winter.With a packed auditorium comes a boon for local businesses, Marsh said. He said local businesses like the Blue Ox, Tatiana’s and Brothers Deli had lines outside their doors before the show.That’s the real reason he hosts concerts that bring the crowds, he said.”For me, that’s so important that the economic spinoff happens before and after the show,” he said.To see who’s playing next at the Lynn Memorial Auditorium, visit lynnauditorium.com.Amber Parcher can be reached at [email protected].