The Call Me Invincible Tour Makes a Pit Stop at Coney Island
Asser Levy/Seaside Park was the place to be on Thursday, August 13th 2009. The 31st Annual Seaside Summer Concert Series held Thursday nights throughout the summer in Coney Island rocked to the tunes of Pat Benatar and Blondie.
Photo by: Leslie DJ
The Donnas kicked things off with a brief set where the girls showed off their musical chops, Allison Robertson, shredded the guitar prior to, the band’s lead vocalist, Brett Anderson taking the stage. Maya Ford accompanied the opening on bass while an eager brunette played the drums filling in for Torry Castellano who was nursing an injury and unable to play. They performed a very brief set which included a performance of their smash hit “Take It Off.”
The lights onstage came up revealing members of Pat Benatar’s band, Neil “Spyder” Giraldo played some killer opening riffs on his guitar then Ms. Benatar took the stage and was greeted by a rousing round of applause and loud cheers. She smiled, waved and took a bow. She promised to get through as much of their repertoire as possible and cover each decade or at least sing a song from each album. She stayed true to her promise performing oldies like “You Better Run,” “Heartbreaker,” “Love Is a Battlefield” and “We Belong.” Prior to going into the ballad, “We Belong,” Pat asked fans to raise their cell phones in solidarity. “Spyder is gonna give you a history lesson,” Benatar declared and Spyder in about fifty-seconds gave the band’s entire history in a fast-paced speech.
- Photo By: Leslie DJ
Benatar’s set consisted of mini-detours down memory lane explaining to the young attendees all the lessons they learned through their journey and providing a brief background of some of the songs that cemented her career. In one of the funniest tangents of the evening Benatar said, “This next song I’ve been singing for more years than I like to remember. I hate this song. Every night before going on I ask Spyder, ‘Can we just not do it tonight?’ and he goes, ‘nooooo.’ So I’ma sing it for you guys tonight and when I get to the part I hate I want you guys to sing along cause I know you guys know all the words.” Then the opening bars to “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” filled the park and the audience rose to its feet, clapping and singing along.
And then came the moment everyone was waiting for, the New York return of Blondie. As they cleared the stage and loaded in Blondie’s equipment two-wigged young women shimmied away in front of the crowd to 50s music. They danced to songs like “Wild Thing” and did “The Swim” when the stage was set they blew kisses to the audience and exited stage right.
- Photo by: Leslie DJ
“It’s good to be home,” declared Debbie Harry once onstage. They opened with “Call Me” and followed it with “Hanging on The Telephone.” The crowd cheered and many who appeared to have camped out all day in order to secure decent spots stretched prior to the iconic band taking the stage. It was as if they were the ones who were getting ready to perform. The excitement was palpable many yelled out song titles in between songs and when the one they suggested was played they applauded extra hard and jumped in their spot as if they had contributed to the set list.
They performed most of their hits, “Tide is High,” “Atomic,” “Rapture” and “Heart of Glass.” The disco ball that hung above the stage glistened and rotated during the encore performance of “Heart of Glass” causing an even bigger uproar. But of course no concert is complete this summer without a Michael Jackson tribute. Towards the end of “Heart of Glass” the band broke into “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough” the song blended nicely with the rest of the repertoire.
