notes from underground

Just got back from Ravinia, an outdoor music pavilion about 20 minutes north of where I live, where I saw a Blondie concert with my family. At least that’s what I’d been told I was going to see… Until last Wednesday I thought it was just Blondie, with some no-name opening act, and even when we got to the theater I assumed the new incarnation of ’80s band The Cars, now headed by Todd Rundgren, would open for Blondie, the big-name lead act.

Frankly, if Blondie had played second I doubt many people would have stayed.

She started playing right on time at 7:30, and although Kip stayed behind on the lawn to read his book I followed Mom and Dad into the pavilion. Dad has a thing for strong female vocalists–a few years ago we came to see Pat Benetar here–and this was really his treat, but Mom liked Blondie too and I followed more out of duty than anything else. Deborah Harry can still sing, but she hasn’t held up as well as singers in other bands I’ve seen, particularly Yes, who I saw in concert a number of years ago but still carried their show off with an amazing degree of musicianship. The band played good songs, but Blondie’s been around 30 years according to the Ravinia site for the show, and Deborah Harry has gotten kind of old (and is a little wider, perhaps, than she had been in the late ’70s). I went back out and spent the first half of the show on the lawn, reading my own book.

I didn’t go in for the start of the second act for The Cars, preferring to finish my chapter instead, but when I got up to walk around the lawn a little later on I kept drifting towards the pavilion. They were playing good songs (turns out I recognized more of The Cars’ music than I thought I would) and they sounded great, a little overmic’ed but very strong. When Kip and I figured the concert was dying down we packed up our blanket and chairs, then I went back to the pavilion while Kip finished his book. I missed my favorite song they played (don’t know the title), but the last few songs were great and their encore opened with “Just What I Needed,” a great song which I did know. Really fun.

The best part, I think, was the way the band looked… Todd Rundgren had what Mom described as a “Skunk Wig,” and the keyboardist was described by Rundgren quite accurately as a garden gnome. The backdrop, set and general atmosphere was very retro at times. I don’t know what it was like for the whole time, as I only saw the last segment of the show directly, but some of the music I heard while on the lawn felt a lot more epic and progressive too… they were all over the place, but despite being a bunch of old guys they managed to still be very cool, in a way Blondie couldn’t quite carry out. Very fun show.

Now, it’s sleep-time for Adams. G’night.

-A