With a career that’s spanned forty years and spawned a countless number of pop classics, it almost feels like an injustice to see Blondie play a venue as comparatively small as Bristol’s O2 Academy. The reception they received at Glastonbury earlier in the summer would suggest that they could easily fill out arenas, yet this more intimate setting does seem to work better for the band – for instance, Debbie Harry’s brilliant yet bonkers stage personality is allowed to shine through whilst never threatening to overshadow the other members too much.
The set follows up every classic with a track from the new album Ghosts of Download, and this seesawing works surprisingly well – diehard fans get to experience a new set of tracks in a live setting, and the more casual fans are never more than a few minutes away from the next hit. The new material is mostly a success, with Rave, Mile High and A Rose By Any Name never straying towards sounding dated or embarrassing. Euphoria fails to live up to its title (and it would have been nice to have heard Sunday Girl), but otherwise the set is difficult to fault.
Some of the classics are reworked, with The Tide Is High being mixed in with Groove Is In The Heart, and a shot of the Beastie Boys’ Fight For Your Right being injected into Rapture. Harry audibly faltered a little on some of the older stuff – she sounded noticeably bored on both Call Me and Hanging On The Telephone, for example, but she still sounded incredible when it came to the rap on Rapture and the pure energy needed for Atomic. Aged sixty-nine, Debbie Harry has earned her status as a living legend, and any criticism would almost feel invalid – her stage presence, talent and adoration for what she does is undeniable.
Blondie may be several years past their peak, but their ability to still put on an excellent show is the perfect reminder of why they’ve remained an important and influential part of pop music for so long. Bristol’s O2 Academy may not be New York City in the nineteen-seventies, but the amount of pure star quality displayed onstage meant that at least a small glimpse of what it would have been like was possible.
