No. 629 • July 25, 2019 • outwordmagazine.com
Chrissie Hynde is the Great Pretender page 16
“Guys and Dolls” Mark Your & “Shakespeare in Calendars for Love” Boas & Bow Ties page 20 page 6 Beazer Homes “The Lion See the results Debuts The King” Roars on pages page Cove Again 10 -11 page 9 page 22 Chrissie Hynde Is The Great Pretender by Chris Narloch f all the great female rockers from the 20th Century still out on the road – including Bonnie Raitt, Pat Benatar, Joan OJett, and the Wilson sisters of Heart – Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders may be the biggest bad-ass of them all.
The Pretenders on stage with Shirley Manson.
Hynde is the vocalist and a guitarist for these cities. No one else got it. They were all one of the finest indie rock bands of the rock out in their condos, out in the suburbs, era, and she has a career-capping concert getting far away from the blacks.” film now available on DVD and Blu-ray that The Pretenders, a post-punk rock band combines her classic hits with a few songs that formed in 1978 at the height of the disco by newer artists she admires, such as period, lost two original members to drugs Incubus, Shirley Manson (from Garbage) and along the way but retain their lead singer Kings of Leon. and main songwriter in Hynde. The concert disc, entitled “Pretenders With I had the good fortune to see Hynde live Friends,” also features Chrissie trading vocals again, for the first time in many years, at with the one and only Iggy Pop – the Sacramento’s Golden 1 Center, when The legendary punk rocker is now 72 but as spry Pretenders opened for Stevie Nicks on her as ever – who gives the 67-year-old Hynde a solo tour a few years back. run for her money on “Candy.” Nicks was terrific too, but Hynde stole the Hynde is beloved by rock music fans show with a fierce set that took me back to around the world and also by queer fans, The Pretenders’ peak period in the ‘80s. The who appreciate her ballsy, no-bullshit rocker is also on fire in “Pretenders With attitude and her band’s classic songs, which Friends,” showing much younger performers run the gamut from political (“Middle of the like Ms. Manson and the guys from Kings of Road”) to sexual (“Brass in Pocket”). Leon how it’s done. The outspoken, no-holds-barred rocker is Even in her late 60s, Hynde is tough and twice divorced from men but decidedly sexy, wearing tight jeans and a little vest in gay-friendly, and it wasn’t hard for me to the new concert film, with her dark hair still find a 2006 Billboard interview online in in her eyes. which she said, “Gays saved America.” “Pretenders With Friends” contains live Hynde went on to explain: “All across versions of “Back on the Chain Gang,” “Talk America, with gentrification, it was the gay of the Town,” “Up the Neck,” “Message of community that had the vision, means, taste, Love,” “Precious,” “Mystery Achievement,” fortitude and determination to carve “Brass in Pocket,” “Middle of the Road,” and something out and save what was left of more. The Blu-ray/DVD/CD is out now.
16 Outword Magazine July 25, 2019 - August 8, 2019 • No. 629 outwordmagazine.com