Share BLONDIE AT THE BBC (CD+DVD) - Blondie (Chrysalis)
Back in the day, Debbie Harry had enough sass to sink a battleship. When I saw Blondie last year (2010), she still had it despite the fact that she's old enough to be my mum. While this uneven live set from New Year's Eve 1979 might pitch and yaw more than a yacht on a rough open sea, there's enough goodness here to make you wanna buy it, and with enough of the band's original appeal to guarantee that you'll dig it.Filmed on the Glasgow leg of their "Eat To The Beat" tour (the difficult fourth album – nowhere near as good as their block-busting "Parallel Lines" set, but far ahead of sophomore LP "Plastic Letters", the record company's all-too-rushed-to-make-a-quick-buck second album syndrome release), the band fire on most cylinders, but not quite all of them.
That said, Debbie Harry is nothing less than absolutely sex-on-two-legs – if you aren't feeling all trousery watching her wiggle and twitch her way through the course of this DVD, there's something wrong with you, regardless of sexual orientation. Some people have got it, and some people don't – and believe me, Debbie Harry's got IT. She's an authentic New York bad girl with attitude and a lip-sticked pout to match, and god knows, that's why we love her.
I always get annoyed when people say that Blondie weren't a punk band. Sure, they mightn't have sounded like The Dead Boys, The Heartbreakers or da bruddas Ramone, but they always had the punk attitude, even if their music was more based on Phil Spector's girl-groups than three chords and a distortion pedal. Not to say that they didn't use that approach occasionally – check out the version of "Detroit 442" on the DVD if you don't believe me.
The CD part of this set is the New Years' '79 gig in its entirety, 22 tracks of pop-goodness, for the better part. I won't lie to you, there are a couple of filler tracks thrown into the mix which don't best represent the Blondie sound at their peak (I could have done without the bagpipe version of "Sunday Girl" to begin with), but everyone's been to gigs by a band they dig where not everything's delivered as much as you'd hoped.
What's really neat about the DVD (which only features 11 of the songs from the original gig – and sadly, desperado-stalker hymn "One Way Or Another" isn't one of them, although thankfully it is on the CD) is watching Clem Burke flay the fuck out of his drum kit – it's a bonus to see him do it clad in a gold lame Elvis suit. This guy is good. Real good. Feel for the music, showmanship and a natural flair are beautiful things to watch.
The set-list of the gig is about what you'd expect (all the usual suspects) – "Dreaming", "Union City Blue", "Atomic", "Picture This", "Pretty Baby", "Sunday Girl", and their truly awesome cover of The Nerves' "Hanging On The Telephone" (if you haven't heard the re-mastered version of this from the most recent release of "Parallel Lines", you are doing yourself a tremendous disservice).
There are no real surprises here, although Blondie's explorations into reggae, disco and dub really aren't too welcome to these ears. When they kept it straight down the line, they were much more successful – sassy girl-group power-pop. Otherwise they kind of sounded like a white band trying too hard to incorporate more overtly black music that didn't come naturally to them to find a "new (and hopefully commercially viable) sound" – unsuccessfully. And, it must be said, patronisingly; like finding the music of the week – like Peter Gabriel, who apparently seems to think that he invented "world music". Not something for which I'd be thanking him anytime soon.
Many of the extra cuts on the DVD are mimed performances from Top Of The Pops, and they suffer for the fact – often truncated, and with the band's heart clearly not in it. The Old Grey Whistle Test tracks are better, but still lack the oomph of the band at their best.
An essential record? Probably not – I'd recommend your first Blondie experience to be "Parallel Lines"; it's a ball-tearer. But this is still a pretty neat double disc set, aided by the fact that it allows you to see Debbie Harry at her prime, looking sexy as all hell. I mean, the band are good, but she is truly smokin'. - Mr Intolerance
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