THE PRETENDERS
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ONCE the reigning queen of new wave and, in the years since, one of the strongest voices for women in rock, Chrissie Hynde delivered a disappointing performance Wednesday for the first of her two-night engagement at the Beacon Theater.
There was nothing wrong with the music – the Pretenders didn’t miss notes, and Hynde played and sang on key and in tune.
Yet, when all was said and done, and Hynde sang the lyric “I’m special” during the encore, it was clear those words didn’t pertain to this performance.
With more than 20 years of hits behind them, the Pretenders weren’t stingy with their most-loved catalog material. The flash-of-oldies set featured “Back on the Chain Gang,” “My City Was Gone,” “Middle of the Road,” “Precious” and “Talk of the Town,” to name just a few.
But those old hits – what should have been the Pretenders’ bread and butter in concert – sounded as if they had been pushed through the grinder one time too many.
It wasn’t that way for the new material from the recently released “Loose Screw” album. From this collection, the zippy reggae scramble “Complex Person” and the rocker “Fools Must Die” were terrific.
When Hynde and company worked those songs, they had blood pumping in their veins. It was easy to see that the audience took note of the Pretenders’ gusto for these new tunes, just by the way they moved to that music.
But when the Pretenders dusted off a couple of ballads midset, the entire left half of the house stayed glued to their seats.
That should have been the tipoff to the band that it sounded as if it was playing by rote rather than with passion. It was a chance to turn the show around that the Pretenders let slip by.
Still, when you consider the end-show applause, the audience didn’t seem to mind.
But they didn’t get half the show Hynde gave when she opened for the Rolling Stones last fall.