The Pretenders
Live Shots
Reviewed by Audra Schroeder, Fri., March 6, 2009
The Pretenders
Stubb's, March 1When Chrissie Hynde remarked, "I know the Pretenders have looked like a tribute band for the last 20 years," after the band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2005, she was celebrating its past members. Yet Hynde has remained the heart of the Pretenders for 30 years now, and her lyrics have chronicled every broken one. At 57, she's making sure she hasn't forgotten her roots. Steel guitar accented most of the songs the quartet played from Break Up the Concrete, the Pretenders' first disc since 2002's Loose Screw. It's Hynde's love letter to Akron, Ohio, where she was born and has now returned after years of living abroad. Not surprisingly, the new material weighing out most of the set proper sounds more mellow and country (save for "Break Up the Concrete," which sounds an awful lot like "I Want Candy," and "Rosalee," which never quite caught fire). Hynde, dressed in a waistcoat with tails and a vest, is the mama bear in the band now, even when hoping out loud that Willie Nelson, who was down the road at the Paramount, would join her onstage after she smelled weed. She eventually gave the crowd what they wanted, peppering older gems at the end of the hourlong set – "Don't Get Me Wrong," "Stop Your Sobbing" – and taking off her guitar for a seductive walk through "Brass in Pocket." "Let's see U2 do that," she drawled before steamrolling through two encores of early punk classics: "Precious," "Tattooed Love Boys," "The Wait." It was an era-hopping set, but Hynde's no tribute act.