Chrissie Hynde blazed through a set of new and classic songs last night at the Uptown

November 17, 2014

Nick Spacek,

Chrissie Hynde
The Uptown, Kansas City
Sunday, November 16

Chrissie Hynde took the stage to Sam Cooke doing “The Great Pretender.” It was almost too clever, but it did effectively remind audience members what they were there to see: Hynde, despite her new solo album, Stockholm, is best known as the frontwoman of Akron rock band the Pretenders, and it was ostensibly those songs that the packed house was there to hear.

The crowd got what it wanted, too: The first three songs were all Pretenders cuts. Unfortunately, Hynde’s first solo cut from Stockholm, “In a Miracle,” had her stumbling over the first line, forcing the band to run through the intro again. To the band’s credit, it didn’t miss a beat and kept right on going.

Hynde’s confidence and swagger were unswayed by such a minor flub, and her stage presence was such that you got the sense she was strutting even when she stood still. She was confident enough to let guitarist James Walbourne rip a solo on “Biker,” only the second song in, knowing full well that the line You bring out the biker in me would be devastating and clever enough to steal the song right at the end.

A growled line like that was fine in its delivery, but it was Hynde’s work on Pretenders classics like “Don’t Get Me Wrong” and “Back on the Chain Gang” that really revealed the fact that she has not lost a step in all the years she’s been performing. Her voice is just as strong now — if not more resonant and full — as it was when those singles were recorded 30 years ago. Her range is astonishing.

To go with that vocal resonance, Hynde had a crack backing group, the Will Travel Band, and they gave the songs muscle and heft. Those Pretenders records are packed with wonderful songs, but they suffer from 1980s production – last night, they always sounded just a little thin. Nonetheless, the men of Will Travel made songs like “Downtown” into blasts of punk-edged grit. Granted, with that heft came a corresponding loss in subtlety and grace: Those beautiful guitar leads in “Back on the Chain Gang” didn’t shine so brightly, blasted out as they were.

Hynde’s new solo material fits right in with the old stuff. “Like in the Movies” had a refrain, This isn’t gonna end like in the movies/The audience goes home satisfied ’cause nobody really died, that stuck in my head long after the show, like some long-lost 1960s girl-group lament. It recalled the Pretenders ballads with which Hynde had kicked off the set.

Surprisingly, for a Sunday-night show, the crowd was on its feet and dancing for the better part of the last half. Inside the Uptown, it was still chilly enough that most people kept their coats on throughout most of the show. Once “My City Was Gone” kicked off, though, the coats came off, and those in the front rows demonstrated that there’s no one so uninhibited as a 50-something with a good job that affords them the ability to get blazed on drinks sold at concert prices.

Case in point: I overheard prior to the show’s start, “They had Chardonnay and white Zinfandel, but they were out of red.” So, yeah, it was that kind of crowd — but also very polite, to the audience’s credit. That may have been because one aspect was rigorously enforced by Hynde (or her people): On the doors to the Uptown, and as you entered the theater proper, there was this sign posted:

They weren’t joking about it, either. Halfway through “Don’t Lose Faith in Me,” the opening number, Hynde wagged her finger at some woman in the front row who’d made the bad decision to bring her phone out. Hynde was on the lookout for the first couple of songs, explaining to the audience that it had gotten so bad, any reflection at all had her hackles up, leading to an unfortunate targeting of those in glasses: “If I give you the hairy eyeball, it’s only because you’re old and bespectacled.” It was glorious. If you’ve never been to a show where cellphones have been forbidden, know this: It’s amazing to watch a show when there is not one point where you’re doing so through someone else’s screen.

On a Sunday this frigid, one would’ve understood a lackluster performance, but despite all those elements conspiring against it, Hynde’s performance was hot and rocking. It might as well have been a summer amphitheater show on a Friday night. With all the dancing, beer drinking and warm, happy vibes, it was a shock to walk out into the November air afterward.

We were joking that it was difficult to tell whether opening act the Rails was the British version of the Civil Wars or just Richard and Linda Thompson without the emotional resonance. It wasn’t until after the show that we found out the female half of the duo was Kami Thompson, Richard and Linda Thompson’s daughter. Either way, they had lovely harmonies, and the gentleman of the duo did know how to pick quite well (being that he was James Walbourne, Hynde’s guitarist), but they were just so boring — boring in that way that talent and earnestness can’t make up for having nothing to say. They were effective openers, however, in that the audience was that much more expectant for Hynde by the time the duo exited the stage.

Chrissie Hynde set list
Don’t Lose Faith in Me
Biker
977
In a Miracle
Like in the Movies
Talk of the Town
Kid
You or No One
Down the Wrong Way
A Plan Too Far
My City Was Gone
Downtown
The Phone Call
Night in My Veins
Don’t Get Me Wrong
Back on the Chain Gang
Adding the Blue