“Turn out all the lights, she said,” Buell intoned on a particularly ominous, seductive one of those songs a little later in the set.
Several of the songs revisited a dark new wave vibe that evoked DollHouse, another New York band who should be better remembered than they are. They got even crunchier after that with a glam/80s tune possibly titled Stop Look Listen. The show kicked off on an impressively ominous note with the crunchy powerpop Sugar Sugar (no relation to the 60s pop ditty), with a gypsy punk edge that sounded like Vera Beren in a slightly less menacing mood. “She’s got my back,” Buell explained with an appreciative wink. Backed by two guitars, inobtrusive synthesizer, drums and Joan Jett’s former bassist, Buell didn’t have anything on a laptop and she didn’t rely on her excellent backup singer to carry the tunes – although she did appreciate the harmonies. She really knew what she was doing in front of the mic, and she still does – this could be her finest hour. If you look at the video from thirty years ago, it’s obvious that Buell wasn’t out of her element with the guys she palled around with (Elvis Costello and the Psychedelic Furs’ Richard Butler, to name a couple). But the best ones – in fact, almost everything she played – had a distinctly defiant, oldschool New York edge. Some of those tunes evoked 80s new wave/popsters the Motels – especially since Buell is working her lower register with more authority than she used to – and some of them leaned back toward glamrock. So it was something of a surprise, and a heartwarming one, to see Buell pack the Hiro Ballroom last night, fronting a tight new group and airing out a bunch of first-rate powerpop songs from her new album Hard Love.
The legendary rock scenestress has written the well-received memoir Rebel Heart raised a popular daughter (Liv Tyler) and in the 80s and early 90s, she led a couple of first-class bands who were sort of thinking person’s alternatives to Blondie. At this point Bebe Buell can rest on her laurels if she wants to.
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