Can you believe Debbie Harry is 65-years old? Live she still looks and sounds amazing. Blondie are whipping across Australia performing for A Day On The Green as well as theatre shows with The Pretenders and last night (December 4, 2010) I checked out the show in the scenic surrounds of the Rochford Winery in Melbourne’s Yarra Valley.
So it turns out Blondie have a new album coming soon. I wasn’t quite expecting to get such a heavy dose of it at this gig which was divided between Blondie and Pretenders fans. Neither was the audience judging by the reaction.
When Blondie played the hits there was thunderous applause. When yet another new song was played, it was polite applause.
It’s a pity because the new songs have the Blondie sound you know and love. They just weren’t the Blondie songs you know and love.
6 of the 15 tracks were either obscure oldies or something from the new record. You could feel the crowd react to the ones they knew. ‘Atomic’ woke the audience up but 8 songs in it was only one of four the crowd knew.
Original members Chris Stein and Clem Burke along with Debbie made up for obscurity whenever the set went back to the hits. That is what this crowd was here for. ‘Hanging On The Telephone’ came early in the set at song 2, ‘Union City Blue’ was played third, the somewhat known ‘Maria’ from the 1999 comeback album ‘No Exit’ went over okay.
Debbie dedicated ‘Rapture’ to Jay-Z. The night before she had attended the U2 and Jay-Z show in Melbourne.
‘Call Me’ had an interesting new arrangement. ‘The Tide Is High’ is always a crowd sing-a-long fav, but the obvious last song ‘Heart Of Glass’ was the one everyone wanted to hear (and they did).
It was nice to see Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard down the front “rocking out with her cops out”.
A special thanks to A Day On The Green founders Mick and Anthea Newton for thinking up the A Day On The Green winery shows and giving Australian’s such a great event to go to every summer. Maybe Julia was there to check you out as potential Australian’s of the Year. (geeks, insert smiley face here).
VIDEO: For more 70s angst, watch the Undercover video interview with Paul Weller:
