Pretenders
London Palladium, London, October 22, 2024
IF THERE’S A RANCOROUS MOOD amongst the Pretenders’ fans gathered here tonight at this most hallowed of London venues – where everyone from The Beatles to Bob Dylan (not to mention Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland) have previously trodden the boards – then it doesn’t show.
Not only have devotees had to wait eight months for this rescheduled gig, after Chrissie Hynde suffered a tour-postponing knee injury, but the most dedicated of them who follow the band from show-to-show were warned last week by the forever brutally frank singer, via an Instagram post, not to hog the front rows on this tour. Hynde, it seems, is tired of seeing the same faces night after night. “Please don’t be offended if we request you to move,” she warned the faithful, prompting much online disgruntlement.
It’s a typically provocative move from the bandleader, recently turned 73, who’s always said and done whatever the hell she wants. As famous fans from Paul Simonon to Bobby Gillespie, Harry Enfield to Miranda Richardson take their seats and the lights dim, the latest incarnation of Pretenders – Hynde, guitarist James Walbourne, bassist Dave Page and drummer Dan Walbourne – enter from stage left. The singer (wearing shiny gold jacket and thigh length boots over jeans) is noticeably still a bit limpy, and a roar rises into the air.
It immediately becomes clear that Pretenders in 2024 are all about raw power and traditional dynamics over modern flash. There are no production values beyond standard rock lighting, not even a logo backdrop, but it’s obvious even from the early numbers that the band don’t need them. Grinding opener Losing My Sense Of Taste juxtaposes jaded feelings (“I don’t even care about rock and roll”) with Neil Young guitar heaviness, followed by the chiming A Love (both from 2023’s Relentless). At the close of the latter, Hynde peels off her jacket, inciting a “woo!” from someone in the audience. “Seriously?” she responds with a laugh.
The perennially gorgeous Kid (their second single, from 1979) follows, preceded by a dedication from the singer to the band’s original guitarist and bassist, James Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon, who both tragically met drug-related deaths in the early ‘80s. “Fellas, we’re not far behind,” she notes, with characteristic pitch-black humour. Fans rise to their feet to dance in front of the stage and MOJO watches with interest to see if any of them are removed for failing to be, as Hynde put it in her statement, “local faces”. (None are.)
Incredibly, there’s not a hint of age in Hynde’s singing voice and her shiver-inducing vibrato is intact as it reverberates around the world-famous theatre. But while she could construct a set purely made up of hits, Hynde is no easy crowd-pleaser, delving into recent albums and deeper cuts from the catalogue. Three songs from 1984’s Learning To Crawl – Time The Avenger (punchy British Beat Boom), Thumbelina (storming rockabilly) and Akron, Ohio hometown lament My City Was Gone (Stones-y blues) make the cut, along with an airing of the slow-burning Biker, tucked away at the end of 1999’s ¡Viva El Amor!.
James Walbourne, meanwhile, is a wonder, capable of playing rhythm and picking guitar lines at the same time, before moving into fuzzy solos. Onstage, Hynde recalls her pal Jeff Beck coming to see Pretenders at the Royal Albert Hall back in 2017 and asking him afterwards, “What did you think of James?” “I want to cut his hands off,” Beck mock-enviously told her.
As the show progresses, it’s the hits, inevitably, that stir the emotions of the crowd: a propulsive Talk Of The Town, the rousing if elegiac Back On The Chain Gang (in which Hynde breaks off singing to warn a fan to put their phone away), a driving Don’t Get Me Wrong. Capping the main set is Mystery Achievement (the closing track from 1980’s self-titled debut), with its pummelling, four-to-the-floor soul beat and Hynde and Walbourne stepping to the lip of the stage to trade her wristy riffs and his spiralling solo interjections.
Returning for the encore, Hynde dedicates her better-known hit take on The Kinks’ Stop Your Sobbing to her onetime partner Ray Davies ahead of a storming Middle Of The Road in which she blows a mean harmonica, before dramatically lobbing it into the wings. Then, she and the band take their bows and the houselights go up.
So, no Brass In Pocket, no I’ll Stand By You. But it scarcely matters at the end of a show that absolutely proves that Pretenders have lost none of their power and, in fact, might be as vital and thrilling as they’ve ever been.
Set List:
Losing My Sense of Taste
A Love
Turf Accountant Daddy
Kid
Junkie Walk
The Buzz
Talk Of The Town
Time The Avenger
You Can’t Hurt A Fool
My City Was Gone
Back On The Chain Gang
Private Life
I Think About You Daily
Biker
Thumbelina
Don’t Get Me Wrong
Night In My Veins
Let The Sun Come In
Hate For Sale
Mystery Achievement
Encore:
Stop Your Sobbing
Middle Of The Road
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