Chrissie Hynde remains outstanding: the Pretenders, at Usher Hall, reviewed

A few hours before the doors opened for the Pretenders’ Edinburgh concert, Chrissie Hynde posted a message on her social media channels. The gist being that, while she appreciated the support of the band’s most devoted fans – the ones who travel from city to city and country to country to attend multiple concerts – she was, to be frank, getting sick of seeing the usual suspects plonked six feet in front of her at every damn gig. She was therefore formally asking her hardy but apparently increasingly tiresome acolytes to cede the front row to ‘local faces’. This would, she said, help keep ‘it new’ for the band each night.

Hynde has always been pretty punchy, but this seemed a bit much, even by her standards; not so much biting the hand that feeds as gnawing it clean off. I duly went along to the Usher Hall expecting fireworks.

Would I arrive to find Hynde personally dragging repeat offenders from the stalls? Would fans be gluing themselves to the apron, like some greying pop culture scion of Extinction Rebellion? No such luck. In the event, the singer seemed happy enough with her paying audience, the crowd appeared unwavering in its adoration, and it was hard to argue with the effectiveness of the outcome. Perhaps more artists should treat ’em mean to keep ’em keen.

In a changing world, Hynde is a fixed point of absolutes. She’s no chameleon; at 73 she looks exactly the same as she ever did, a rock and roll Dorianne Gray in black T-shirt, thigh-high boots, skintight jeans and crow’s nest hair. Perhaps more remarkable is the fact that she sounds the same, too. Her voice, which has always been a miraculous thing, remains outstanding.