Let’s be honest: the Pretenders is a franchise run by Chrissie Hynde. She didn’t even ask founding drummer Martin Chambers to play on the latest album, Break Up the Concrete.

He was consistently impressive on Friday at First Ave — probably moreso than she was. Chrissie was in a good mood, which can be bad. Her famous outbursts — or at least snide comments– usually fuel her performances. And there were no tirades from the star, just a bunch of polite chatter about “nice to be in a proper club,” and shout outs to pedal steel guitarist Eric Heywood being home, etc.

The new rockabilly tunes fit fine but the slower and medium tempo twang stuff, including Last Ride, didn’t work, especially in a proper club (though I liked Tequila from 1994’s Last of the Independents). Chrissie turned on her rock-star charm from time to time, especially on old favorites including Brass in Pocket, Precious and Up the Neck.

Here’s the set list:

1. Boots of Chinese Plastic 2. Don’t Cut Your Hair 3. Talk of the Town 4. Message of Love 5. Love’s a Mystery 6. Don’t Lose Faith in Me 7. Last Ride 8. Back on the Chain Gang 9. Rosalee 10. Tequila 11. Kid 12. Don’t Get Me Wrong 13. Day after Day 14. Brass in Pocket 15. Thumbelina 16. Cuban Slide 17. Break Up the Concrete

Encore 18. The Wait 19. Precious 20. Tattooed Love Boys 21. Up the Neck

What did you think of the show? Please post your comments here:

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 21st, 2009 at 3:01 pm and is filed under Concerts, Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.