Fringe 2023 The Blondie Story theSpaceUK 15th August Review
The Blondie Story at theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall is a new show from Night Owl Productions, and if the sold out venue tonight is any indication of success then they have another hit on their hands. Bringing a show featuring music from one of the most iconic bands and iconic singers in pop music history has no doubt helped to sell a lot of tickets too.
I have to admit that this was one show from Night Owl that I was not too sure about fitting into their format of telling the story and featuring the music of a band or singer, as Blondie are a band that I grew up with and for me nobody has ever come close to sounding like Debbie Harry ever again. Thankfully, Night Owl are not in the tribute band business and as Reine Beau took to the stage to the sounds of the Night Owl band playing “Atomic”, it was clear that she was going to sing these songs her way and in her own energetic style. Visually, Reine Beau is not attempting to look like Debbie Harry either, but she does capture some of that energy that the band had when I first saw them perform live in 1978 and then again in 1980.
Any long-time fan of the band will probably tell you that there are really two bands out there in our minds, the first, the New Wave/Punk band that released some great songs on their first two albums – “Blondie” released on their pretty unsuccessful first record label Private Stock and later re-issued on Chrysalis (it did have some great songs though including “X-Offender, “Rip Her To Shreds” and “In The Flesh”), and their first album on their new label Chrysalis – “Plastic Letters”.
Plastic Letters was not a huge selling album but it did have “Denis” on it (a cover with a girl/boy name swap that was originally by Randy and The Rainbows – Denise in 1963) that was the band’s first major chart success and Reine Beau and the band did a good version of this one.
The third album, “Parallel Lines” produced by music legend Mike Chapman was of course the album that changed Blondie’s musical direction forever and if anyone knew how to produce chart hits, it was Mike Chapman, and with “Heart of Glass” the band were to go onto global chart success. Another song from this album on the set list today “One Way or Another” has over the years revealed its very dark origins and is far from the happy song that many of us imagined it to be at the time.
Reine Beau made it clear that this show was going to concentrate more on the music of the later years of the band and Debbie Harry herself, and with only a 50 minute window to tell the story and fit the songs in that of course means that a lot of songs had to be left out, but there are still some classics in this show – “Heart of Glass”, “Rapture” (a song partly about the then underground rap club scene in New York and the people in it, and sometimes cited as the first No 1 Rap song) and the band’s cover of the reggae classic “The Tide is High” (originally a 1967 hit for The Paragons) and more songs that the audience recognised instantly.
For me this story needs a little updating too and although Chris Stein is credited here for his role in Blondie the band’s creation and Debbie Harry’s personal life, his short time as the guitarist with the Stilettos (a band Debbie Harry was in) is not and neither is his recording of the emerging New Wave music scene as a photographer (he knew many of the right people in town). The one omission from the story that I would like to see corrected in this show is credit given to the man who gave Blondie the band a sound just as unmistakable as Debbie Harry’s vocals, one of the all too often most under-rated drummers in pop music, Clem Burke. Without Clem Burke on drums, Blondie would probably still have been a huge success with Debbie Harry upfront providing iconic vocals and a very photogenic look, but they would have sounded a very different band.
Reine Beau wisely made this show her own take on these songs and as always the Night Owl Band were sharp and tight musically and obviously everyone on stage was having a lot of fun with these songs.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
I have to admit that this was one show from Night Owl that I was not too sure about fitting into their format of telling the story and featuring the music of a band or singer, as Blondie are a band that I grew up with and for me nobody has ever come close to sounding like Debbie Harry ever again. Thankfully, Night Owl are not in the tribute band business and as Reine Beau took to the stage to the sounds of the Night Owl band playing “Atomic”, it was clear that she was going to sing these songs her way and in her own energetic style. Visually, Reine Beau is not attempting to look like Debbie Harry either, but she does capture some of that energy that the band had when I first saw them perform live in 1978 and then again in 1980.
Any long-time fan of the band will probably tell you that there are really two bands out there in our minds, the first, the New Wave/Punk band that released some great songs on their first two albums – “Blondie” released on their pretty unsuccessful first record label Private Stock and later re-issued on Chrysalis (it did have some great songs though including “X-Offender, “Rip Her To Shreds” and “In The Flesh”), and their first album on their new label Chrysalis – “Plastic Letters”.
Plastic Letters was not a huge selling album but it did have “Denis” on it (a cover with a girl/boy name swap that was originally by Randy and The Rainbows – Denise in 1963) that was the band’s first major chart success and Reine Beau and the band did a good version of this one.
The third album, “Parallel Lines” produced by music legend Mike Chapman was of course the album that changed Blondie’s musical direction forever and if anyone knew how to produce chart hits, it was Mike Chapman, and with “Heart of Glass” the band were to go onto global chart success. Another song from this album on the set list today “One Way or Another” has over the years revealed its very dark origins and is far from the happy song that many of us imagined it to be at the time.
Reine Beau made it clear that this show was going to concentrate more on the music of the later years of the band and Debbie Harry herself, and with only a 50 minute window to tell the story and fit the songs in that of course means that a lot of songs had to be left out, but there are still some classics in this show – “Heart of Glass”, “Rapture” (a song partly about the then underground rap club scene in New York and the people in it, and sometimes cited as the first No 1 Rap song) and the band’s cover of the reggae classic “The Tide is High” (originally a 1967 hit for The Paragons) and more songs that the audience recognised instantly.
For me this story needs a little updating too and although Chris Stein is credited here for his role in Blondie the band’s creation and Debbie Harry’s personal life, his short time as the guitarist with the Stilettos (a band Debbie Harry was in) is not and neither is his recording of the emerging New Wave music scene as a photographer (he knew many of the right people in town). The one omission from the story that I would like to see corrected in this show is credit given to the man who gave Blondie the band a sound just as unmistakable as Debbie Harry’s vocals, one of the all too often most under-rated drummers in pop music, Clem Burke. Without Clem Burke on drums, Blondie would probably still have been a huge success with Debbie Harry upfront providing iconic vocals and a very photogenic look, but they would have sounded a very different band.
Reine Beau wisely made this show her own take on these songs and as always the Night Owl Band were sharp and tight musically and obviously everyone on stage was having a lot of fun with these songs.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com