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Shortly after she and her Blondie band mates covered the record-breaking "Old Town Road" at L.A.'s Greek Theatre, frontwoman Deborah Harry quipped, "See you never know what is gonna happen."
That she could say that with a straight face and have it be true on a night when Blondie and co-headliner Elvis Costello shared the stage, bringing nearly 90 years of onstage experience together, was maybe the biggest testament to the continued vitality, musical invigoration and creative excellence both these Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame legends share.
Take the case of Blondie, who took the stage first. Certainly the band could have gone up there and just done a string of familiar hits, from "Heart Of Glass" and "Call Me" to "The Tide Is High" and "Rapture." While they did all those hits, recognizing the crowd wanted to see the songs that made Blondie iconic, they often did them with a new spin.
"Heart Of Glass" paid homage to both fellow '70s icon Donna Summer and producer Giorgio Moroder, who produced "Call Me," with a refrain from Summer's disco classic "I Feel Love." A joyful rendition of "The Tide Is High" featured a segment of Deee-Lite's 1990 hit "Groove Is In The Heart."
In the 17 songs they packed in an abundance of musical styles, highlighted by the Latin flavor of "Wipe Off My Sweat"; the hip-hop feel of "Rapture," which Harry introduced by saying, "This was a crazy song when we did it. It was met with a lot of confusion, but it turned out to be a very important song"; the punk feel of "Atomic" and "Sunday Girl" and the noir vibe of "Fade Away And Radiate" and a cover of "From Russia With Love."
Playing with one of the greatest and most acclaimed songwriters of the last half a century, Blondie showed off their own considerable songwriting prowess by reminding everyone not only of the sheer number of hits they had, but how memorable and how influential and diverse that catalog is.
Following a 30-minute intermission, Costello and his Imposters came out and immediately laid down the intensity and tempo of the night with a ferocious "Pump It Up."
Playing absolutely inspired against a superb visual backdrop of lights and Vegas-like images that looked like a slot machine, Costello and the band wove their way through all terrains of his long and storied career, with a lot of the famous biting Costello humor thrown in.
For instance, as he told of the current brief "coast and coast" tour with Blondie, rather than the traditional "coast to coast" trek, he mentioned visiting a civil war landmark in Gettysburg. "We thought we should see one of the sights of the civil war before the next one breaks out," he quipped.
Then talking about the Bethlehem gig he joked, "We started at Bethel and our show with Blondie was so good they canceled Woodstock."
As biting as the humor was though, and clearly all done in good spirits as Costello was very jovial, changing hats often and singing "Happy Birthday" to drummer Pete Thomas, his greatest fervor was saved for the performances.
"Episode Of Blonde" was transcendent, as was "Unwanted Number," where Costello and his band free-form jazz style did snippet after snippet of great songs with numbers in them, like the Rolling Stones' "19th Nervous Breakdown," Three Dog Night's "One," Meredith Wilson's "76 Trombones" and many more.
Playing with his longtime band Costello was very comfortable improvising, mixing things up and having fun with the arrangements. That was one of the joys of watching two veteran acts on the same night, both have the experience and ease onstage to take the songs wherever they wanted to with a seamless perfection.
By the time Costello and the Imposters wrapped up just before 11 with a magnificent "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding" fans had been treated to three hours of songwriting and musical mastery from two greats.
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