There are a handful of bands that I regret never catching live; Pretenders are high on that list. For anyone in the same boat, here\u2019s your next-best-thing solution\u2014pick up Live In London<\/i>, a 2010 CD\/DVD package with a 19-track setlist providing a broad overview of the first 30 years of this battle-scarred yet legendary band. <\/p>\n
The band\u2019s 2009 lineup featured founding members Chrissie Hynde (vocals\/guitar) and Martin Chambers (drums) along with a trio of players who\u2019ve frequently supported Hynde since 2008: James Walbourne (guitar), Nick Wilkinson (bass) and Eric Heywood (steel guitar). In particular, the at-the-time-new Walbourne has been a constant for the past 17 years, co-writing a substantial portion of latter-day Pretenders material. <\/p>\n
Typically for the group\u2019s iconic and iconoclastic frontwoman and chief songwriter Chrissie Hynde, the setlist is all over the place, mixing a solid representation of the requisite hits with scatterings of then-recent tunes and deep cuts. Most of the time this works, though there are moments when it feels like the audience begins to grow restless for something more familiar.<\/p>\n
Opener \u201cBoots Of Chinese Plastic\u201d launches like a rocket, a newer tune at the time whose visceral energy nonetheless serves as a reminder that the Pretenders emerged out of the late-\u201970s London punk scene. The also-new \u201cDon\u2019t Cut Your Hair\u201d follows, another high-energy number that doesn\u2019t seem to capture the audience\u2019s fancy (or mine) quite as much. Early-days single \u201cTalk Of The Town\u201d has all of the requisite jangle and chime, a wonderfully melodic number that brings out the tender side of the often-fierce Hynde. Another great example follows in \u201cKid,\u201d a sweet and affectionate tune.<\/p>\n
The show\u2019s energy flags on \u201cThe Nothing Makers,\u201d a bit of a dirge; maybe they\u2019re conserving it for \u201cDon\u2019t Lose Faith In Me,\u201d a blues ballad that Hynde sings the hell out of, even if it is also rather slow. \u201cBack On The Chain Gang\u201d is lovely and poignant as ever, always a highlight in the catalog, and then \u201cLove\u2019s A Mystery\u201d goes big on the steel guitar for a taste of Americana. Up next, middle-period single \u201cDon\u2019t Get Me Wrong\u201d is\u2026 fine. It\u2019s lively enough, but not my favorite of theirs, and then the slow lament \u201cTequila\u201d dips the energy level again.<\/p>\n
The turnaround comes quickly in the form of the group\u2019s cover of The Kinks\u2019 \u201cStop Your Sobbing,\u201d a note-perfect highlight still, starting with just Hynde\u2019s voice followed by a burst of jangly melody. \u201cDay After Day\u201d is a relatively unfamiliar deep cut that\u2019s nonetheless stamped with that characteristic Pretenders sound: riffy, urgent, and dominated by Hynde\u2019s charismatic voice.<\/p>\n
From there the set moves from highlight to highlight. First they tear through a raucous, triumphant \u201cCuban Slide\u201d; then Chambers teases the crowd for a moment before plunging headlong into the drum opening to \u201cMiddle Of The Road,\u201d the perfect set closer. The encores begin with \u201cThe Wait,\u201d one of my personal Top Five Pretenders songs. This rendition is different enough that you can tell some years have passed and there are new players in the band, but it\u2019s a powerful version of a classic tune. Then they positively rip through \u201cTattooed Love Boys\u201d with all the frenetic fervor of the original and a remarkably faithful recreation of James Honeyman-Scott’s fiery guitar work. Finally, they close with \u201cPrecious,\u201d steely and explosive as ever. Thirty years on, the first song on their first album still hits like a howitzer. <\/p>\n
For all the enjoyment I got out of this set, there were some odd decisions made. It\u2019s understandable that the CD and DVD tracklists don\u2019t match up perfectly; DVDs can hold a lot more data\u2014and therefore content\u2014than CDs. But after trimming several tracks for the CD version\u2014including one of my favorites, \u201cMessage Of Love\u201d\u2014they then add two \u201cbonus tracks\u201d onto the end of the CD. \u201cI\u2019ll Stand By You\u201d substitutes steel guitar for the piano featured in the original, to intriguing effect. And \u201cBrass In Pocket\u201d absolutely belongs here, another first-album classic that\u2019s as melodic and charming as ever. <\/p>\n
But the CD bonus tracks don\u2019t appear on the DVD, and the CD is missing five tracks that do appear on the DVD, and the bonus tracks are shunted to the end of the CD rather than being presented in the order they appeared at the show\u2014and it\u2019s not at all obvious why any of these decisions were made. Plus, the way the tracks are listed and called out on the album packaging\u2019s back cover turns the task of figuring out which songs are on which disc into a task for a code-breaker.<\/p>\n
As far as the DVD itself, it\u2019s everything you might hope for: visceral, intense and captivating. The camera angles are simple and direct, with no dollies or other intrusive filming techniques used, so the band\u2019s connection with the audience is ever-present and central to the experience.<\/p>\n
Watching and\/or listening to Live In London<\/i> isn\u2019t the same thing as having the Pretenders performing right in front of you, of course, but for those of us in a position of settling for the next best thing, it\u2019s one of the better substitutes available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":35237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7670],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-47121","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-pretenders","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47121"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=47121"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=47121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}