Pat Benatar - "Promises in the Dark"

 

We saw Pat Benatar at the Beach about two weeks ago at a brand new venue called The Dome.  They had only had the first concert earlier that week.  The facility was nice, if a bit soulless because it was brand new. A lot of our concerts lately have been at places like The Birchmere in Alexandria, and the Warner Theater in DC.  The setlist on May 7, 2025 was pretty similar to the show at the Warner almost a year ago, but at the Beach they did the song "Precious Time", the title track from their 1981 LP.  

It's an excellent song, and not one that they often do, so I was pretty excited to hear that night. I was going to blog about that song, but then realized I blogged about it seven years ago.  Since "Precious Time" was never released as a single, but it was the B-side to the "Promises in the Dark" single, this post is then about the A-side. "Promises in the Dark" is an excellent song, still a concert staple, and the was in high rotation on MTV back in the day. And yes, Neil still counts off "1-2-3-4" coming out of the break.

Pat Benatar - "Promises in the Dark", "Precious Time": both songs feature Neil Giraldo's finest guitar work.

What a terrible pic ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

The marquee changed right as I snapped the pic; we were racing to beat the crowd out of the parking deck and did not pause to wait for "Benatar Giraldo" to cycle back around, 

Pat Benatar - "Precious Time" (forgotten song)

For my next post in recognition of Women's History Month, let's go back to 1981 and the title track from Pat Benatar's third LP, "Precious Time".  It was not released as a single and as such, I don't recall it getting radio airplay at the time.  But it did have a video that was played on MTV a good bit at the time, and at 5:29 for the video (6:03 on the LP) it might have been a bit too long for a typical radio single.

I always liked Pat Benatar, but she was particularly important for Danette while growing up.  Pat Benatar certainly wasn't the first female rocker but she arguably was the most prominent in the US during the late 70s / early 80s, and as such served as a role model for Danette in an otherwise male-dominated genre.  Unfortunately, this is the last Pat Benatar LP that rawks...  starting in 1982 she married her guitarist, Neil Giraldo, swapped her second guitarist for a keyboardist, and shortly afterwards started a family; the sum total of which might have been good for her personally but it took a toll on her music.  I liked a lot of her songs that followed, but they no longer rawked.

We saw Pat Benatar at the NorVa (was it really 10 years ago?) and she gave a great show, and we'd definitely see her again if given the chance.  In the meantime, enjoy the slow heaviness of "Precious Time", the last heavy song she released before happiness, children, and keyboards arrived at the Benatar / Giraldo household.

Pat Benatar - "Precious Time"