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Never say dye
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Blondie’s roots are showing, and there’s nothing shameful about that. Last Saturday, when Debbie Harry and company, including original Blondie guitarist Chris Stein, kept the sold-out throng at Avalon waiting almost 90 minutes, I can safely say that I wasn’t the only one who was a tad on edge given how hoarse and annoyed she’d sounded the night before on A&E Live by Request. But she annihilated all concerns when she finally swaggered on and opened in true bottle-blonde bombshell fashion with "Atomic." Sporting a scarlet lycra get-up topped off with a frayed denim vest that she gracelessly tugged at with the winking nonchalance only a Playboy bunny/punk standard bearer/B-movie star can get away with, she proceeded to shimmy, twitch, coo, and snarl through just about all of the band’s Billboard familiars, proving that time is irrelevant for icons and quashing the contemporary widespread notion that rock divas need wardrobe crews, personal trainers, and make-up artists to be glam. I can’t say for sure, but given her presentation, I doubt Harry had any of those types with her waiting backstage. And she still has the coolest hair! Blondie went splitsville in 1982, after they’d manipulated the boundaries of pop music with the elastic ease of a pizza chef tossing and stretching dough. They reunited in 1999 to record No Exit (Beyond), and that album showed that time had eroded none of their knack for setting hard-driving lust to hooky riffs revved up with rebel roadhouse attitude. Now comes The Curse of Blondie (Sanctuary), a retro-fitted carnival of camp. Unlike so many bands whose new material sticks out like a tractor on the highway, the group gracefully wove tunes from the new album — like "Good Boys," in which Harry laments, "Good boys never can win," and "The Tingler," an homage to cult horror flicks — in between jukebox favorites. And the 58-year-old Harry still raps and leaves you in your own rapture when she preaches the gospel of the DJ. "Dreaming" was as ferocious as a spiked Shirley Temple, she and drummer Clem Burke walloped with raw headbanging intensity in "One Way" and "Hanging on the Telephone," and they delivered sunburned calypso-kissed beats in "The Tide Is High." With her trashy-chic attitude, a catty strut, and her ironic coquettish squeals, Harry reminds the carpool-driving set and punk teens alike that as long as there are thwarted love affairs, boys to flirt with, mascara to apply, and electricity to amplify instruments, brash hope will prevail. And that as long as it does, she’ll be there to sing about it.
BY LIZA WEISSTUCH
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