What were you doing on Tuesday 25th June from 8pm? Well I was in the Olympia with a sell out crowd to welcome Blondie back to Dublin, aka Debbie Harry and her crew. She came on stage at 9pm and straight in to her tune which was covered recently by 1 Direction, “One Way or Another”. Debbie was dressed in an all in one dress with killer heels to match. Her choice of colour was Orange. Her hair reminded me of Tina Turner’s hairstyle, only Debbie’s was blond. After “One Way or Another” opened the show, that was followed by “Union City Blue”, then “Hanging on the Telephone”. The first trio of songs certainly got the crowd up and on their feet.
The Olympia Theatre offers the fans a chance to get up close and personal with their chosen acts. Despite my seat being up on the Upper Circle, I still felt I was able to connect, and I felt like I was included. My arms were black and blue from waving and clapping my hands through the brass rail that was at the front rows. Just before she went in to her smash hit “Maria”, Debbie waved up to where I was sitting which sent the upper circle in to a frenzy. I was delighted she responded to the crowd and was waving up towards my direction not only once but twice: the black and blue arms paid off!
It was a brilliant show from start to finish and the fans were treated to all her greatest hits from, “Heart of Glass”, “Atomic”, “Call me”, to “The Tide is High”. The show was so fast that Blondie didn’t even have time to announce their next track. It went from one to another without any intro. Just as I thought the show was over, the band returned back on stage where the blew the roof off with a cover of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “Relax”.
Blondie were brilliant – they met all my expectations. I would highly recommend anyone to go and see them live should we ever have the privilege to host another Blondie show here in the Olympia, or any other Dublin venue for that matter. This time around at the Olympia, their staff seemed to be quite relaxed about people taking photographs, so the fans just snapped away.
While waiting on Blondie to come on, their backing group Silhouette from Northern Ireland entertained us very well. The 4 piece band consist of a female leader who also played the bass, a girl on the keyboards and fiddle, a chap on the guitar who was just as good as Slash from Guns and Roses, and a man on drums who was another brilliant musician. You may have heard them from the 2013 Discover Northern Ireland tv commercial.
Please note: We did try to take some photos at the gig, but they didnt turn out too clear. Thankfully a very talented photo journalist called Debbie Hickey has agreed to allow us to use some of her pics from the Olympia gig! All images of Blondie on this page are hers, and you can find more of Debbie’s Blondie pics over on GoldenPlec, an Irish music website.
