Chrissie Hynde oozes attitude. At 57, she still possesses a distinctive and charismatic voice suited so well for rock ‘n roll. Or any of rock’s offshoots: punk, new wave, R&B, balladry, even country, among others.
Hynde’s charisma on stage is in place as well. She’s sexy, sarcastic and devilishly fun to watch as she puts her latest version of The Pretenders through their paces of playing a mix of classic Pretenders material and newer tunes, many from 2008’s Break Up The Concrete.
Her guitar, bass and pedal steel band, with original member Martin Chambers on drums, played a 90-minute set Friday at the Oakdale Theatre in Wallingford, Connecticut that included all those mixed elements of repertoire and rarely let down in execution or energy.
She opened without her trademark Telecaster and sang the title track from last year’s album, a Bo Diddley flavored tune with perfectly orchestrated stage movements and syncopated lighting that accented her vocals at the end of each chorus — dramatic and effective. Then donning her guitar, she and her band went right into Middle Of The Road, an ’80s staple from one of The Pretenders most successful albums Learning To Crawl.
The night was a mix of the old and new, often alternating between each. She revisited Kid, Ohio, Back On The Chain Gang, Don’t Get Me Wrong, Thumbelina, Precious, Night In My Veins and during the three-song encore a beautiful rendition of I’ll Stand By You, showing her vocal versatility and way with a ballad, the band-breaking Brass In Pocket and a majestic Mystery Achievement.
Hearing all those songs makes you realize that in addition to her style, vocal ability and sassy, Hynde is an outstanding songwriter, one of the best from the post-punk, new wave era of the late 1970s. I’ve been a Pretenders fan since their first self-titled album, though I haven’t followed Hynde as closely in recent years. The band’s original lineup with bassist Pete Farndon and guitar virtuoso James Honeyman-Scott, both of whom have passed, was something very special. Still, Hynde has survived, adapted and thrived, always remaining true to her art.
One of the highlights from the newer material came when the band surged into Rosalee from Break Up The Concrete, a blues-inflicted burner with a latin rhythmic foundation, during which guitarist James Walbourne took a screaming country, blues and rock-a-billy infused solo that came to an abrupt end and prompted an instantaneous standing ovation, only to see Hynde strut to the microphone and say “Pretty Good Huh?” before the band launched into another verse. The arrangement saw one more abrupt stop that triggered a final incendiary solo by Walbourne.
Boots Of Chinese Plastic, somewhat reminscent of Dylan, was another standout from Concrete played near the end of the set as was the Chip Taylor classic Angel Of The Morning, a tune Hynde recorded in the ’90s and that she interpreted beautifully despite dropping a line in the first verse.
Eric Heywood, pedal steel, and Nick Wilkinson, bass, complete the band, which is solid and plays proficiently throughout all the material, particularly the country leaning tunes, a seemingly unlikely genre for Hynde. But as startling as that may seem, Hynde pulls it off quite well as you can trace those influences in her music as far back as the early-to-mid ’80s.
I saw The Pretenders one other time in the mid-90s in support of Last Of The Independents, an album that brought Hynde back to form after mixed results on Get Close and Packed. They played in New Haven at the Palace, once a Roger Sherman movie house, and their performance was just as inspiring and accomplished, perhaps moreso, as Friday with a band that included Adam Seymour, who brought a lot of what Honeyman-Scott gave the band as well as fresh creative input.
As the opening act, Juliette Lewis and her band gave a high energy jolt to the crowd, which responded with a long standing ovation after their set. Her new band, the Licks having been broken up, features an extemely talented lineup. Some of the material was uneven, yet Lewis delivers most of it competently making up for any limited vocal ability with an impassioned reading of her songs and a Jaggeresque stage presence.