Just What You Needed

Before Sting got a nose job and delusions of jazz grandeur, before Chrissie Hynde turned into a meat-is-murder wacko, before Ric Ocasek started dating supermodels and not much after Deborah Harry’s junkie days, New Wave was just really cool. And not entirely accepted. I remember my sister’s friends sneering at me when they first heard The Cars’ “My Best Friend’s Girl,” with that weird little hiccup-y thing Ocasek does on the chorus. They couldn’t believe I actually bought the album. It was kind of the advent of a new generation, at least in my little hometown in Wisconsin: The stoners all listened to Rush, AC/DC, Boston, Head East; my friend and I, the only cool people in town (or so we imagined), listened to the B-52’s, Blondie, the Ramones. Well, an Ocasek-less “New Cars” and Blondie resurrect the old hits in Dallas this weekend, and you’d be fooling yourself if you thought there was anything dangerous about them these days. Blondie hasn’t done anything particularly interesting since Plastic Letters, but I’d buy a ticket just to hear “Rip Her to Shreds,” Deborah Harry’s acid ode to groupies and gossip queens from the early days. Tickets are ex-pen-sive at ticketmaster.com; show starts at 8 p.m. at Nokia Theatre, 1001 NextStage Drive. Call 214-373-8000.
Sat., May 13, 8 p.m.