LIVE REVIEW : BLONDIE AT THE ROUNDHOUSE 07/07/2013

Blondie was a band I'd always want to see live. They sound quite fantastic on record but the live reviews I had read through the years were sometime a bit lukewarm. I remember one in French magazine Rock'n'Folk where the journalist said he had never seen a gig by such an experienced band with so many bum notes !! Added value to attending that gig is that the missus is a Blondie fan, which means that for once I wasn't just by myself :). The Roundhouse is a venue I really like because you're never far from the stage wherever you're positioned in the venue.

I don't remember anything about the opening act apart from the fact that is was rather...err...unmemorable. Blondie opened the gig with "One Way Or Another" to a good crowd reception. Only three members from the original line-up remain :  lead singer Debbie Harry, rhythm guitar player Chris Stein and drummer Clem Burke. Other members are : Leigh Foxx (bass) who joined the band when they reformed in the late nineties , Matt Katz Bohen (keyboards), Tommy Kessler (lead guitar) who joined respectively in 2008 and 2010. They're all good musicians but they sometimes lack the "punk" vibe that was at the core of the original line-up (Kessler used to play guitar in the musical "Rock of Ages" before joining Blondie).

The set list relied quite heavily on songs from their forthcoming LP with a few classics mixed in (Heart of Glass, Dreaming, Hanging on the Telephone, Call me, Maria, Atomic). The new songs are ok but I can't see any of them sticking in the set list the way "Maria" from their comeback album "No Exit" has done. Of all the original members, Clem Burke is the one I found the most enthusiastic in his performance (which Debbie Harry doesn't seem to appreciate much... deduction made from the angry stares she gave him when there was one too many roll during the intros and the fact he was the only band member she didn't introduce. Mrs Harry put on a tremendous performance considering that the temperature mid gig was almost oven-like but she doesn't react too well to other members taking center stage, at one point putting her hands on Tommy Kessler's fretboard while he was doing an extended solo (during "Atomic" if I'm not mistaken). Chris Stein was in the back strumming, not seeming too concerned by the proceedings (for some reason he seems to favour using alternate tunings and using a thumb pick which means that most of the time he was drowned out by Kessler). They threw in a couple of covers for good measure, one of "Relax" by Frankie Goes To Hollywood (Why ???) and a rather cool one of "You Can't  Put Your Arms Round A Memory" by Johnny Thunders. That last one was dedicated to Arturo Vega, the recently deceased, designer of The Ramones' logo.