Blondie Still Icons of Cool, Blink-182 Too Old to Be This Moronic at Coachella's Day 1

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by Julian Spivey
You won’t be as cool as Debbie Harry when you’re 77 years old. That’s the conclusion I came to while watching the Blondie Coachella set from the Mojave stage on Friday, April 14. I don’t think it’s possible most people could be.

Harry has always been an icon from the moment the band became regulars at legendary New York City venues like Max’s Kansas City and CBGB in the mid- ‘70s and released their self-titled debut album in late 1976 with a new sound that mixed pop, rock, funk, punk, eventually disco, reggae and even rap in a mixture that became known as new wave.

While I’ve never been the biggest listener of Blondie – liking some of the group’s hits but rarely choosing to spin it or click on it on a streaming service – I wanted to see the set because when a legendary act takes such a stage, still has it and the stream is free you shouldn’t pass it up.

Appearing in acid-washed pants, a leather vest jacket and sleek, thin black sunglasses, Harry looked both old-school rebel and futuristic in a way I think only she could truly pull off. She’s truly always been known as much as a fashion icon as a musical one.   

There weren’t many shots of the Mojave tent crowd at all on the live stream so I couldn’t get a picture of the makeup of the crowd, but they sure seemed to be into the whole 10-song set based on crowd noise alone – whether they were being introduced to Blondie for the first time or nostalgic for the sounds of their youth.

The group, which has always consisted of Harry, Chris Stein on guitar and Clem Burke on drums, also featured Leigh Foxx on bass, Matt Katz-Bohen on keyboards and Tommy Kessler on guitar.

Blondie opened its roughly hour-long set with their rocking classic “One Way or Another,” from their 1978 album Parallel Lines. The song, which remains a staple on both retro pop and classic rock format radio stations, was a top 25 hit in 1979 and a perfect way to begin their show on Friday night.

Blondie performed the majority of their “greatest hits” on Friday night with my personal favorite being “Call Me,” a no. 1 hit from 1980, which was recorded for directed Paul Schrader’s film “American Gigolo” starring Richard Gere. I also really enjoyed “Heart of Glass,” the penultimate performance of the night, which was the band’s first major hit when it topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1979. The group also got around to their third and fourth no. 1 hits, the reggae-infused “The Tide is High” from 1980 and “Rapture,” which was the first Billboard no. 1 to contain a rap verse (albeit a frankly amateurish and kind of lame one) in 1981. Blondie’s four no. 1 hits from 1979-1981 showed there was an era in popular music they utterly dominated – interestingly enough those four no. 1s are the only top 20 hits of their career.

Late during their set Blondie was joined on stage by producer, musician and composer Nile Rodgers, who played guitar on “Rapture” and “Backfired.” The band would end their set with “Dreaming,” off 1979’s Eat to the Beat.

Frankly, I was going to review the Coachella set of late ‘90s/early ‘00s pop-punk-rock trio Blink-182, but I couldn’t get more than 15 minutes into their set before bailing. The original trio consisting of bassist/vocalist Mark Hoppus, guitarist/vocalist Tom DeLonge and drummer Travis Barker recently reunited and I believe this was their first live performance since the reunion. I remember the trio having a few hits around the time I was 12-13 years old with “What’s My Age Again?” and “All the Small Things,” which are fine if not a bit whiny pop-punk numbers. They were “cool” with folks around my age or just a bit older around the turn of the century, but honestly, as an adult, I see it for what it is: utter bullshit bitching about stuff that doesn’t matter. The real punks always had stuff to actually sing about and important stuff to take on – societal wrongs, “the man,” etc. These guys just come off as wannabe punks who think it’s cool to sing George Carlin’s “seven dirty words.” It is quite laughable and even somewhat sad to see them as late 40/early 50-somethings doing this.  

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