Debbie Harry still has it after 35 years.
I think there has been a recurring theme with my concert attendance this year…Revenge of the Eighties. First DeVO followed by John Waite, then Weird Al and now Blondie. They are all acts I wish I could’ve seen when I was 25-30 years younger but hey, better late than never. I think I appreciate their larger body of work more too.
This show was done impulsively. July was Blondie month, then I was late getting my concert buddy Mark M his birthday gift, CMJ mentioned the upcoming album/tour, Shazam! Synchronicity! Don’t worry, I asked Mark before I sprung it on him so he had a choice regarding my present.
How was the concert? Despite the standard, horrendous traffic jam Austin has every weeknight on southbound MoPac (by 45th Street it’s a crawl), we arrived 20 minutes before the doors opened and the line was oddly short. This gave us a great location, ergo the rather close photos of the band (those which panned out, a pair of drunk gay guys kept putting their arms in the way). Somara and I are nice to shorter people because we often let a couple go ahead if they aren’t obnoxious (again, see drunk idiots I mentioned earlier). I certainly couldn’t wait for the rather mediocre opener to finish: Nico Vega, imagine Bjork’s voice accompanied to some guitar and drum noodling. You decide if it’s torture, performance art or untapped potential.
Co-Founder-Guitarist Chris Stein. He wrote or co-wrote most of Blondie's hits and developed their sound.
Blondie hit the stage rather promptly, there was no need for Travis W. Redfish to make it happen on time! (I want to see who gets the reference, except Mark.) They opened with “Union City Blue” from their 1979 record Eat to the Beat and then jumped to the recognizable hits “Dreaming” and “Atomic,” which I’m guilty of knowing thanks to a “best of” tape a friend gave me in 1985. Fear not my fellow purists, as per Courtney’s rules, I’ve been fixing my collection to contain the individual remasters and the “best of” CD will have a new home. They squeezed in four from the CD Panic of Girls, pretty good stuff and the audience didn’t appear bored. Then again, unlike my peers (the over 40 crowd), I want to see the older bands continue making new music; I hate the “oldies/hits” mindset. Unfortunately, Panic is difficult to find at stores so I scored mine through the merchandise booth while buying my obligatory shirt. Of course they did “Call Me,” “Rapture” (Rap’s major debut for Middle America), “Maria” and “One Way or Another.” “The Tide is High” and “Heart of Glass” were saved for the encore. Throwing in “Fight For Your Right” near the tail of “Rapture” was a clever touch.