Reunited Blondie Tape Club Show For European TV
LONDON -- Reunited new wavers Blondie played old classics along
with songs from their upcoming No Exit album in a club show that
was taped Wednesday for European TV.
The concert in front of a few hundred people at the Sound Republic is
scheduled to be broadcast on VH1 Europe on Feb. 6. There are no current
plans to air the show in the U.S.
The 50-something rockers took the stage with singer Deborah Harry, 53, ever the focal point of the band, slinking around in a little black number and her male counterparts sporting lots of black leather.
They opened with "Hanging On the Telephone," and went on to perform a
mixture of old and new songs.
New ones from No Exit (Feb. 23) , including the single "Maria," blended seamlessly with the classics, with the band mixing their new-wave and disco influences just as they always have.
But at the end of the day, they returned to the old hits -- "Atomic," "Rapture," "Dreaming," and their smash breakthrough hit "Heart of Glass" (RealAudio excerpt) -- that had the audience abandoning the free beer at the bar and cutting loose on the dance floor.
At least one fan left the show convinced the band's comeback isn't a
cheap cash-in.
Ted Rushby, 27, a financial adviser, said the performance was "a model of how to come back."
"I saw the Velvet Underground reunion, and that was excruciating and
embarrassing," Rushby said, referring to the 1993 regrouping of the
legendary '60s rock band.
"But this was fun for the band, fun for the audience, and reminded me just how many great songs they wrote."