Television / Blondie 1977 UK Tour

Yesterday I went for a few beers with some friends in the Ousbourn area of Newcastle. One of them brought up seeing Television and Blondie playing on their 1977 tour at The City Hall. He said he much preferred Blondie and there was some discussion about whether this was largely to do with Debbie Harry. His take was that Television didn't really seem very Punk which was a fair enough comment given British audience expectations at the time.

The Television / Blondie UK tour is an interesting and much documented moment in musical history. Both bands had emerged and fraternised at the CBGBs club over the previous four years and 1977 was the moment when they both headed for broader horizons with records released and tours beyond their immediate localised New York community.

Tom Verlaine onstage with Television at the Newcastle City Hall, May 1977.

The two bands did actually have plenty in common musically although Television had a tendency to stretch songs beyond the seven or eight minute mark, something Blondie never did over the course of their career, preferring a stripped down Mod Pop sensibility.

Both though had a way with melody and an inclination towards romance and interesting, ambitious lyricism. But while there were characteristics they shared, what seems undeniable is that for the course of their UK tour people went for either one or the other. Rarely approving of both.

What also appears evidently clear is that their was a fair bit of friction, (no pun intended), between the bands themselves. No wonder really, as a while beforehand Television had effectively pinched bassist Fred Smith, at that point probably the best musician in Blondie as a replacement for Richard Hell once he exited the band. In the words of Harry reflecting in Please Kill Me, 'Boy did he make a mistake. Ha, ha, ha.'

During the tour petty rivalries seemed to surface between the bands. Blondie were restricted to using only a certain amount of the stage during their sets probably through fear that they might upstage the headliners themselves. This was surely a diktat from Tom Verlaine himself as he was notorious for such aloof, paranoid and competitive behaviour. Richard Lloyd, Television's other guitarist also almost got embroiled in a fist fight at one point with Blondie keyboardist Jimmy Destri. Although Lloyd plays it down and states in his autobiography that relations were friendly between the bands this doesn't completely appear to be the case.

The Ouseburn Valley yesterday. The man on the right saw Television and Blondie at The Newcastle City Hall in 1977.

Who emerged as victors from the face off remains unclear, though history surely suggests that if Television won the battle then Blondie emerged as victors in terms of long term career success. Television clearly weren't  built to last given Verlaine's evident narcissism, (or else downright unpleasantness, depending on how you care to perceive it), and the fact that they were never ever likely to better or even equal Marquee Moon, still to many's perspective one of the finest debut albums ever made. They were gone the following year after releasing one more record Adventure just as Blondie were beginning to hit their stride commercially. 

Still, I would love to have been there. loving both bands and finding it very hard to choose between them. It was just nice to meet a man who had.