Pat Benatar at the Austin Music Hall - more photos... photo by jaime butler - staff photographer

by jaime butler - club kingsnake staff

The first I thing I noticed walking into the Music Hall was the ridiculous line leading to will call. The second thing I noticed was the lack of security. Usually that would excite me but in this case it resulted in the venue having no barricade thus no pit for us photogs. Hurray!, my favorite shooting environment. Thankfully what security guards there were and a few fanatics helped me push to the front of the stage.

To be honest I didn’t really care whether or not I saw Pat Benatar's set and I had already missed the Donnas but once I was in front of her I was enthralled. She’s nothing short of an amazing vocalist and her calm cool attitude on stage made me want to befriend her. Pat was by far the star of the evening, the never ending roars and waning crowd by the end of her set made it obvious. I was most excited to see Blondie and naively assumed the others were as well but once I realized every song in Benatars set was once a top 40 hit it all started to make sense. This chic is HUGE. Bigger than huge and her presence is as strong as ever.

During “Love is a Battlefield” I was lucky enough to witness a middle aged woman, dressed as if she had fallen asleep in 1984 and abruptly awoke ready to go see one of the most famous pop stars of the decade, get roughly escorted out of the building. Once she realized how long she had been passed out she must’ve been filled rage directed at the fans of “this century”. The core audience didn’t seem to notice. They kept right on dancing and reciting every lyric to songs such as “Hell is for children”, “We Belong” and the most popular “Heartbreaker”.

Blondie at the Austin Music Hall - more photos... photo by jaime butler - staff photographer

Despite the happy go lucky crowd the rage didn’t stop there. There were some 10-15 fights that broke out that evening. All women might I add. Why were they so angry? Not sure but I bet it had something to do with alcohol and coca cola perhaps? If security wasn’t so lacking the house may have been half empty by the time the headliner went on. Speaking of, right when I made my way to the front of the stage for Blondies “Tide is High” I hear a young woman scream “F you Bitch!” and immediately I got lucky again and got to watch her be carried out by one of the two stage security guards. I still don’t know who she was talking to.

Besides all the ladies spilling their mixed drinks down both my legs I had a really good time. What folks that remained from the Pat Benatar set were true Blondie fans. They went crazy for tunes like “Call Me” and “One Way or Another” with Harry handing the microphone over to the audience for the majority of the songs. There were a few songs the crowd and myself didn’t seem to recognize and I’m hoping it’s safe to assume they are going to be on an upcoming album.

But I’ve always been half ass when it comes to doing my homework. Mostly at this show I was just a fan thrilled to be experiencing a band I was too young to at their prime. And that’s not to say their flame is dying. These guys and girl are every bit as good as I can imagine them being and they are still just plain cool. Harry still has the power to draw you in and make you go “Wow! She’s something”, even if you have no idea what that something is. Debbie wasn’t alone in the glory, she was accompanied by originals Chris Stein and Clem Burke along with Paul Carbonara and Alex Leigh and some Shandon Sahm looking guy on keys. I had to look it up but I believe that was Matt Katz-Bohen. Forgive me if I’m wrong. As much as this show rocked nothing could touch the amazing encore with Chelsea Bono on the bongos. Talk about a hoot. No I’m kidding. But that would be cool huh?

I’m sorry for those of you that weren’t there. I definitely wouldn’t have wanted to miss this show or any Blondie show in the future. My advice? Wear boxing gloves and a raincoat and leave the earplugs at home.

Blondie at the Austin Music Hall - more photos... photo by jaime butler - staff photographer