GRATEFUL though I often am for always having wellies in my car, I never thought I’d be wearing muddy green boots to a gig by New York New Wave urbanites Blondie.The green backdrop maybe affected Deborah Harry too, as she proclaimed: “Here we are in the Dalby Florist… ah, Forest.”
Never mind; Blondie were quickly into their stride, starting off with old but recently revived favourite One Way Or Another, to the delight of a sold out happy crowd.
Debbie, Chris Stein and co were always more than just eye candy or even perky popsters; they have some seriously decent music in their back catalogue.
Ms Harry celebrates her 68th birthday today, and you couldn’t expect her to rampage round the stage like she used to. But she still bopped away a bit, did a lot of waving to the audience and if she didn’t seem to be singing the old numbers quite how she used to, well, maybe she didn’t need to when the audience was happy to holler back the lyrics at her.
The band blasted out the tracks as if to remind us of their rock pretensions.
The crowd’s excitement levels dipped for some when Blondie strayed into newer material, their loss but were only to rocket again for the likes of Atomic, Call Me and Heart Of Glass.
Oddly to my mind initially they did a version of Frankie’s Relax during their encore but it worked, it really did before ending spectacularly with Dreaming.
But if part of me was wishing I’d seen Blondie live even more in their prime, even if I was only 12 nonetheless I left the forest with a smile on my face. To tell the truth, I think I’m still wearing it now.
