Hynde and Co prove they’re still the real deal
‘No one likes playing arenas,” drawled Chrissie Hynde as she brought The Pretenders back to the kind of tiny basement London club where they started almost 40 years ago. “I wish all gigs could be like this.” Well, don’t we all?
Crammed onto a tight stage in front of a couple of hundred dedicated fans, Hynde led her vintage band through a set of joyous, guitar-charged new-wave pop-rock that served as a thrilling reminder of Hynde’s extraordinary talents. She really does deserve to be considered one of the all-time great women of rock and roll.
I am not sure The Pretenders get their due. They are famous but not in the first rank of superstar rockers. Yet this hit-packed set was one knockout after another, demonstrating a range, depth, intelligence, emotion and quality of stylish insouciance that few can match. And, exuding no false modesty, Hynde knew it.
At 65, grey hair dyed blonde, eyes blackened by kohl, in T-shirt and jeans, she still leads her band with imperious swagger. Smiling and wisecracking, the delight she exuded at being on stage was infectious. Her voice is a thing of wonder, a slippery vibrato that contains a kind of Dusty Springfield soulful languor at odds with the dirty garage rock attack. She was mesmerisingly vulnerable on a tender version of Hymn to Her, singing to a single, woozily ambient guitar, and was commanding on Stop Your Sobbing, Brass in Pocket, Chain Gang, Don’t Get Me Wrong, I’ll Stand By You and a fantastic version of Private Life. A handful of songs from the just-released 11th album, Alone, stood up really well, particularly the dark, emotional ballads I Hate Myself and Death Is Not Enough.
It would be wrong to reduce this to a Chrissie Hynde show, although The Pretenders have always had a floating line-up. The only survivor from their beginnings in 1978 is drummer Martin Chambers. A perspex sound shield separated him from the rest of the band and Hynde (who has teased him relentlessly for decades) joked that she needed it “to stop Martin from attacking me. God knows, I deserve it.”
Rip-roaring guitarist James Walbourne and dynamic bassist Nick Wilkinson have been part of her touring line-up for 10 years. Pedal steel player Eric Heywood was a new addition. But crucially, they played like a band, with intuition and sympathy that allowed songs to open wide and shut down hard, smiling and encouraging one another throughout. When the guitars of Hynde and Walbourne locked into a flaming groove on Down the Wrong Way and Middle of the Road, the effect was utterly explosive. The Pretenders are still the real thing.