Still serving up pop strength and punk attitude
MUSIC
Blondie
Hydro, Glasgow
BLONDIE were – and still are to some degree – the band who brought the musical tribes of their native New York together. They were the most successful crossover band from the CBGB punk scene – drummer Clem Burke still wears the Manhattan East Village venue t-shirt – but, across a formidable run of hits in the late 1970s and early 80s, they also celebrated the city’s disco and club culture and the nascent hip-hop scene, and all strands were hanging out at this show, some sounding more frayed than others. Indomitable frontwoman Debbie Harry rivalled her fellow New York icon Grace Jones for eccentricity, clad in a hat that looked like a deformed bee and a cape which suggested we “stop f***ing the planet” (both in reference to Blondie’s latest album, Pollinator). “Hello Glasgow – guess who? This is a party calling,” she teased as the audience hung on for Hanging On The Telephone. Harry delivered its sensual, insistent plea more as a conversation than a song, and kept the punk faith on a chaotic One Way Or Another.
She took a cavalier approach to several of the older hits, from Picture This to protorap odyssey Rapture, one suspects because she cannot hit the high notes nor keep up the hectic pace anymore. No matter – her performance of the new songs demonstrated her continuing vocal agility and there was a livewire edge to the rest, powered along by Burke’s athletic fills.
They paid fitting tribute to another great New York band with a rampant cover of Beastie Boys’ You Gotta Fight For Your Right To Party, which was properly punk and wholly unexpected, and evoked
the spirit of Studio 54 on mirrorball classic Heart of Glass, with an I Feel Love coda.
And although no one was in the room for the new songs, they continue to champion the city’s musicians – the pick of a pretty strong crop from Pollinator was Long Time by London expat Dev Hynes.
The inclusion of Maria, their last UK Number One single, was a sobering reminder that Blondie have been touring in their reformed incarnation for longer than they were ever together in the first place, but the combination of pop strength and punk attitude in their encore selections of Dreaming, Union City Blue and Parallel Lines album treat Fade Away and Radiate prevails across the years.
FIONA SHEPHERD