"Anyone here ever been to a slaughterhouse?" asked Chrissie Hynde halfway through the Pretenders' set, alluding to the carnivorous menu at the venue. I remember well being slain and sliced by the original Pretenders one hot summer night at New York's Ritz nightclub in the early 1980s in one of the most ferocious sets of rock 'n' roll I've ever witnessed.
Anyone else who'd also been stunned and slaughtered by that band—one of the most fierce and incandescent foursomes ever—would likely have also found this show a nice but somewhat mild echo of what once was. But since Hynde and her current musical company tour infrequently—"I've never seen them before" was on the lips of many listeners—even a mere taste of what once was gave the avid assembled a final SXSW thrill. What no doubt drew the packed crowd was the fact that Hynde is a prime candidate for the title of archetypal modern rock chick—tough yet sexy, smart, no bullshit and possessed of just about the coolest musical vocabulary—and the news she broke earlier in the week in a conference one-on-one interview that this trek might be the band's final bow.
What the packed house got was what could be called "the boxed set set." Hitting the road to tout Pirate Radio (issued by your friends right here at Rhino), the Pretenders mixed some of the hits with lesser-known gems in a satisfying career retrospective. Kicking things off with "Pack It Up," Hynde had the crowd in her hand from note one, leading them through such nooks and crannies as a one-drop number from 2003's Loose Screw yet peppering the set with enough big numbers to charm the rabble.
Sure, Hynde and the band still rock, but in a mature way. And the Plexiglas pod encasing drummer Martin Chambers blunted his impact—he does, after all, pound out the beat with as much muscle as anyone in rock—even if it made it easier for Hynde to sing in a fine if somewhat low-volume voice. Guitarist Adam Seymour can recreate the tones and notes of James Honeyman-Scott's riffs, but the incendiary attack of yore was merely recalled rather than recreated.
No matter for the fans, though. They were happy to spontaneously chant along with the "oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh" of "Back On The Chain Gang" and groove to the syncopated lilt of "Don't Get Me Wrong." And when The Pretenders lit into "The Wait" and "Precious" for a top-of-the-pops encore, the band's heyday felt almost tangible. It was a nicely historical capstone for SXSW 2006, but alas, only just a memorable show by a band whose shows were once historical blasts of true rock 'n 'roll firepower that left you hammered and butchered in all the best ways.
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