“All my old favourites seem tired and old,” sings Chrissie Hynde, performing the Pretenders’ new song Losing Sense for the very first time. As far as opening salvos go, it amounts to a manifesto of what not to be – and during the 80 minutes that follow, they sound and look anything but worn out or jaded. Hynde is 71, but with her piled up hair, trademark kohl eyeliner, black faux leather waistcoat and guitar strapped on like a rifle, she’s still the epitome of an iconic rock star, a visible role model to the young women in the crowd who have copied her look wholesale.
Over their 44-year career, the Pretenders have never chased trends or followed fashions to stay relevant. But they didn’t need to. Their influential jangling sound – helpfully described on their T-shirts as “two guitar, bass and drums” – has become timeless. It’s also still the perfect vehicle for Hynde’s voice, an instantly recognisable mix of sand and honey, attitude and yearning which sounds all the more remarkable in such intimate surroundings.
The Pretenders are, as Hynde puts it, “downgrading the operation” as part of a series of tiny concerts for Independent Venue Week, and Hynde is visibly enjoying playing a venue where the back wall is only a few feet from the stage. “Manchester if you were a man I probably would have married you,” quips the Akron, Ohio-born singer-guitarist, whose ex-partners include Ray Davies of the Kinks and Jim Kerr of Simple Minds. “But then we probably wouldn’t still be together.”
Hynde is the only member of the band’s original line-up taking the stage tonight. Guitarists James Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon died of drug overdoses in the 80s and founding drummer Martin Chambers seems to be on another of his occasional absences. Still, James Walbourne is an archetypal leather jacketed, bequiffed guitar hero, Dave Page a hip bass-slinging gunslinger, and capably energetic drummer Kris Sonne powers through a breathlessly delivered setlist which careens through the band’s past and future.
Single Kid from 1979, which Hynde reveals a young Steve Coogan had on his bedroom wall, sounds as exquisite as ever, and there are other classic smashes in Don’t Get Me Wrong, Message of Love, Back on the Chain Gang and a reliably sublime Talk of the Town. Otherwise, such easy wins are eschewed in favour of under-appreciated album tracks and recent songs (four from 2020’s Hate For Sale). Four unreleased new numbers played suggest Hynde’s songwriting is as sharp as ever.
The most notable absentee is Brass in Pocket, but Hynde would clearly now rather keep challenging herself and her audience rather than rest on her considerable laurels. Her attitude is captured in a new number she describes as “our signature song, even though you haven’t heard it yet”. Raging into her twilight years, she sings: “To live forever, that’s the plan.” As she rocks into her eighth decade, the plan is going swimmingly.
