Chryssie Hynde is, in point of fact, The Pretenders. Don't get me wrong (ahem, sorry), the drummer she had great fun with onstage certainly mattered.
They were a pricey ticket. It was a good show. She came out easy. The crowd was happy to have her. ("This is the oldies set," she said halfway through, launching into a variety of fond memories from my Sanyo combination cassette player/FM radio, and someone from behind me said "That's what we're here for.") On the way out, I heard another person, a female voice, comment on how she looked fit. She'd been working out.
I wish I could tell you it doesn't matter. But it WAS good to see Hynde looking good. (The poses for cellphone cams were a little strange, but so was "Brass in Pocket" as a song title.) On the other hand, what was perfect was Hynde's voice. The electric croon she and Debbie Harry kinda perfected was preserved, smoked, cured and tight. When she walked out onstage it didn't sound like much, and I thought, shame on them they mixed her down. But either the master plan paid off or they improved the mix, and her voice came up, father and farther, more and more pure, already Dolby, nothing scary and nothing extreme.
But I will say Hynde was just as scary as she ever was. And when I was listening to her on the Sanyo she was scary. Do you remember how she breathed? Do you remember the song we all thought was "Special" but turned out to be "Brass In Pocket"? Perfect. "I'm going to make you notice," she said, and lord, how true that was. I was hearing "Heart of Glass" from Blondie and "Brass in Pocket" from the Pretenders, and you know? I can't remember any other stone solid rock from woman-fronted bands. OK, Joan Jett, and Heart, but there was certainly a mean edge to the Pretenders and Blondie that felt DIFFERENT. Oh, I liked that. They were REAL rock and roll. There was an ambiguity, a clenchy unpredictability.
She had a few moments last night. I was glad I went to see her; I was glad I heard her, and all the wrinkles in her leather. But the torch is past.