On the Road Again
Live Reviews:

Blondie
May 16, 1999
Massey Hall, Toronto

I was in Grade 3 when "The Tide is High" hit the charts. And when you're 8 years old, and your musical frame of reference up until that point has been Raffi or Peter, Paul and Mary, your first exposure to pop music leaves an enduring impression. Once Blondie etched her fossil onto me, I became addicted, like many of us, to sneaking my cheap A.M. radio under the covers to listen to the Top Ten at Ten until my eyelids drooped at half-mast — desperately trying to stay awake for the number one hit.

Now that Deborah Harry is back, (and I'm allowed to stay up as late as I want), it seems a terribly trivial thing to want to spend any time discussing her age and weight, because as she displayed at Massey Hall, in her UK black & whites, that voice is something that time will never succeed in imprisoning.

The great thing about Blondie coming back after 15 years, is that I now have the facilities to appreciate the incredible insight of this performer. At the time, it was clear that she was foxy and that she had Attitude (capital 'A' well-deserved), but it was often overlooked that she was also a pioneer of the New Wave movement, and is a really talented writer. Incidentally, she was also a sexually unafraid woman rapping in 1980!

Debbie Harry

With super lo-fi stage production, (i.e.: all Band, no smoke and mirrors), Blondie showcased some of their new songs off No Exit like "Forgive and Forget" and the title track, (I heard that Coolio raps on the album!), and I found myself impressed and almost relieved that they are so good. They also played oldies like "Dreaming", and "Hanging on the Telephone". The audience danced for the entire show, and there was plenty of opportunity to skank, especially during "Screaming Skin", where that never-old, infectious Ska rhythm raised the adrenaline levels, while Debbie sang "I'm a multi-cellular individual/You're way out of proportion/We've got a hemodynamic connection/Don't call me germ".

One thing to especially remark on, was that all of Blondie's songs are markedly different from each other. Sometimes there was a real rock drive at the wheel, and then they would fly into some crazy, hipster jazz fusion, but not before bringing that New Wave sound into a fresh incarnation and dipping into the Hip Hop grab-bag for a couple of goodies. But these many different threads could all be traced back to the root that is Debbie Harry's voice.

I may struggle in vain to describe this enigma, because I'm not sure it's possible to put parameters on something so native. It was as if Harry learned to sing while living on an island only inhabited by herself. She truly taps into her original source when she sings. She has this way of 'sitting back' vocally, that conveys boredom and elicits rapture instead. But this is only one of her voices. She also channels the Diva, the Little Girl, the Angry Victim-No-More, the Spiritualized-One (yes, new lyrics with cosmic references), Dance Hall Queen, and the Sly Deviant to mention only a few.

When she took off her dark shades, those beautiful eyes of hers captured an audience of hearts. She seemed mostly quite solemn on stage, but when she flashed one of her smiles, her genuineness was inspiring. Don't get me wrong, she's no earth mother; when she thrust her pelvis into outstretched hands that were just grappling for a touch of Blondie-fabric, all you could think was, "My God, she's sexy".

At one point, she grabbed a bouquet of African daisies from the shaky hands of a fan who had been offering them to her for quite some time, and proceeded to take a huge mouthful of petals, and spat them back out like confetti over the heads of her subjects. She said she just needed a snack.

They did "Hurry up and Wait", a great old hit that I had almost forgotten, and then "Maria" which had all the makings of a new one. I was enjoying all the new stuff so much, I was surprised that I could be taken up higher when they did "Call Me" with the exact replications of those immortal 80's keyboard sounds, only changing the lyrics to sing "in the fashion of the nineties".

Breaking out that familiar Ragga beat for "The Tide Is High", with a completely weird experimental scat slipped in to keep us on our toes, Blondie had us primed for a 50's style mmm-bop song called "Boom Boom in the Zoom Zoom Room". It was then that I noticed that the sparse lighting on stage was casting the coolest hundred-foot shadow of Debbie on Massey's sloping wall. For all I might speculate, this could have been her alter-ego's true size.

Standing the test of time, "Rapture" was the highlight of my evening with favorite lines like "do the punk rock!" or "now he only eats guitars "weooowow". Or maybe the highlight was the charmingly threatening "One Way or Another" (I'm gonna find ya, I'm gonna getcha getcha getcha!)".

Blondie did one encore, completing a perfect night with "Heart of Glass ". When the show was over, it was just enough. Not because it was getting boring, but because it is a better kind of satisfied when you've eaten a light dinner rather than overstuffing yourself. But the show didn't end before we had worked up a sweat, celebrated the past with some embarrassing 80's dance moves, and welcomed Blondie into the folds of the New Wave of New Wave.