That Dame Lana
- Apr 9, 2021
- 2 min read

I kissed Bob bay! - The Funhouse Era

Updated: Dec 20, 2022

Real-life Candy Girl

It's the 80's, I'm talking 1983 New Edition played at my go-to club, The Funhouse almost every weekend. If it wasn't Shannon (Let The Music Play) it was New Edition.

Madonna was dating the DJ at this time. She hung out in the DJ booth. I was zero degrees of separation from MADONNA!! My dad loved telling that story to his friends. I saw her first show there and her first real concert shortly after at my other hotspot Roseland where New Edition opened.

(Madonna and club scene post coming soon...whew I get side-tracked)

I have some other flyers I'll post. I love how the flyers sometimes just called them, The Candy Girl Guys and not New Edition.

Check out this lineup for a Friday night at The Funhouse. It will never be this good again. I'm posting some of the tracks performed below.

Candy Girl was produced by Arthur Baker. (see my Arthur Baker Blog Post, link at the bottom)

New Edition was performing. Me and my girls were on the side of the stage. I looked at Bobby and asked if I could kiss him. He said yes and I gave him a kiss on the cheek. His mother was there at the side of the stage.

They were still traveling to shows with their moms. I watched the New Edition movie and I can say from being there they got it right.

For some reason, I thought I was so much older than him back then. I felt like a cougar kissing him. So dramatic. lol!

Another night at THE FUN HOUSE seeing THE CANDY GIRL GUYS -aka- NEW EDITION.

I wrote on the flyer RONI & BOP were there. Roni, short for my name Veronica and Bop short for my childhood / teenage bestie Barbara.

This is a picture from another hip-hop show. I will do a separate post. We are still besties today. She visited me last year to celebrate our birthdays and then the following week COVID was full on.

THEN:

Bop & Roni

Now

Roni & Bop

Another night at Roseland seeing NEW EDITION - April 2nd, 1983

I went every weekend. No way would I miss Soul Sonic Force (April 9th) or Visual (April 16th). This makes 3 times for New Edition in several months. Like they showed in the New Edition movie, they stayed performing live anywhere they'd get a gig.

I still love my boys.

Bobby was always my guy in New Edition and when he went solo nothing changed. At one time Bobby owned the world.

Bobby Brown - Frankfurt Germany

One FRIDAY in NYC. This concert happened.

I made a mini YouTube playlist of songs from that night. If each act ONLY performed one song it still would've been fire. It's hard to believe this was one whole damn concert....with these many MEGA 80s groups.....and it cost $10 in advance and $12 at the door. LOL!