The Pretenders

Pound for pound, the baddest ass of them all: Chrissie Hynde. Always wild, always feral, always ready to kick butt and tell an audience to, quote, “…Take those phones and put ‘em right up your ass!”, Chrissie Hynde is not fucking around. Treating San Francisco to over 90 minutes of hits and new singles, The Pretenders showed Bimbo’s 365 how rock ‘n’ roll was meant to be played. With their new album Relentness released this September, this iteration of The Pretenders—with Kris Sonne on drums, Dave Page on bass, and James Walbourne on lead guitar—is something just as ferocious as when the whole thing started in 1978. Named after the Platters’ song, “The Great Pretender”, Hynde has guided the band through tragedy and triumph, losing her friends and original guitarist James Honeyman-Scott and bassist Pete Fardon to to drug overdoses in 1982 and 1983 respectively. Twelve albums later, with dozens of singles and Top 40 hits, The Pretenders have become the soundtrack of a generation. Last night, despite protestations by Hynde that she didn’t want to play “boring old hits”, the crowd was treated to favorites like “Back On The Chain Gang” (which George Harrison quipped was the only other song to use the E7 with an F on top chord that he made popular in The Beatles’ “I Want To Tell You”), “Precious”, “Time The Avenger” and “Don’t Get Me Wrong”, plus other B-sides and rarer hits like “The Buzz” (dedicated to Hynde’s favorite singer, Johnny Thunder), “Thumbelina”, “Boots Of Chinese Plastic”, “Junkie Walk”, “Don’t Cut Your Hair”, “Tequila” and “Turf Accountant Daddy” and new songs off Relentless like the post-punk “Losing My Sense Of Smell” and dreamy ballad “A Love”. Having no problem having fans jump on stage and dance with her, Hynde seemed delighted to be playing music for die-hard fans. “It’s nice to see old friends…I just didn’t think you would be this old,” she half-joked, as she radiated the energy of her 21-year old self, her vocals still impeccable, transforming into the iconoclastic Midwesterner who became a premier UK-punk journalist-turned-player, skewering the scene and even taking Sid Vicious of The Sex Pistols to task onstage for improper guitar technique. Skipping an opener, a Friday evening with The Pretenders is 100% a show that doesn’t require one: everything you need is here. Concluding their lengthy tour in San Francisco, Hynde accidentally thanked Los Angeles before catching herself (“fuck me, thank you San Francisco” were her exact words), but honestly, any city you’re in, if The Pretenders are there, you should be thanking them. Rock on.