{"id":13515,"date":"2011-09-22T09:47:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-22T13:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/?p=13515"},"modified":"2017-08-07T11:56:00","modified_gmt":"2017-08-07T15:56:00","slug":"blondie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/?p=13515","title":{"rendered":"Blondie"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the Durham Performing Arts Center.<\/p>\n

No shit, forreals, Blondie! They're touring again. <\/p>\n

There are three original members left: Debbie Harry (of course), guitarist Chris Stein, and drummer Clem Burke. And they've added a lead guitar, bass player, and a keyboard (and keytar!<\/a>) player.<\/p>\n

To answer the obvious questions:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Yes, she can still sing.\n
  2. Yes, she still looks good - for a 66<\/i> (!) year old.\n
  3. Yes, she did the rap section in \"Rapture\".\n
  4. Yes, she still wears those big black sunglasses and black mini-dresses.\n
  5. Yes, she's probably had some work done.\n<\/ol>\n

    It was a quick show: maybe an hour, plus two encores. Which was fine. They played all their hits: \"Dreaming\", \"Call Me\", \"Atomic\", \"Rapture\", \"One Way Or Another\", \"The Tide Is High\", \"Heart Of Glass\". They played a lot of new stuff that we didn't know but which was good, and sounded like it could have come from their early records; after all this time, they've stuck with their core sound. The only old non-hit that I recognized was the opener, \"Union City Blue\"; I don't think there was anything from their first two records. I could've stood to hear more old stuff - maybe a little \"Accidents Never Happen\" or \"Living In The Real World\" or \"Rip Her to Shreds\". Their loud, fast, punk<\/em> side never seemed to come through in their hits - well, except for \"One Way Or Another\".<\/p>\n

    Highlights:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. \"Rapture\" - not only did she do the rap section, she did it well; and they transitioned it into an abbreviated version of the Beastie Boys' \"Fight For Your Right To Party\".\n
    2. Drummer Clem Burke deserves a lot of credit for their sound. He was, and still is, a great high-energy drummer.\n
    3. Debbie Harry is funny, and entertaining, and not above flicking a few \"motherfuckers\" into old lyrics, here and there. \"Heart of Glass\" :
      \n

      \nLost inside
      \nAdorable illusion and I cannot hide
      \nI'm the one you're using, please don't push me aside
      \nWe could've made it cruising, yeah
      \nCruise, motherfuckers!\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    4. The sound was surprisingly muddy. It probably wasn't the venue: DPAC is no smokey club, it's a brand new posh concert hall. I think the problem was the bass player. There was no definition at all in his notes, just a big muddy rumble. But, Debbie Harry's voice cut through it nicely. We were wondering if maybe she has some digital assistance on the high end, since it's a little surprising that she can still sing some of those songs as well as she did. I didn't hear any obvious digital glitching, so maybe not.\n
    5. A few of the old songs felt kinda sloppy, while others were tight and snappy. Not sure what that was about.\n<\/ol>\n

      Great to finally see them. I was a big fan of their albums, but far too young to see them live, in their heyday.<\/p>\n

      \n
      \nCell phone pic. I hate not being close!\n<\/p>\n

      In a strange bit of synchronicity, the singer for the db's, and former REM tour guitarist, Peter Holsapple opened for them. He works at DPAC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      At the Durham Performing Arts Center. No shit, forreals, Blondie! They're touring again. There are three original members left: Debbie Harry (of course), guitarist Chris Stein, and drummer Clem Burke. And they've added a lead guitar, bass player, and a keyboard (and keytar!) player. To answer the obvious questions: Yes, she can still sing. Yes, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13515"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26420,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13515\/revisions\/26420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}