X and Blondie: How Enemies Become Frenemies Become Friends

Tonight, Blondie and X are playing at Roseland, the last stop on their big Aging Fabulous Legends Of Punk tour. (It’s not really called that.) Tickets are $70 on Ticketmaster and about the same on Stub Hub. They’re like old pals now, according to USA Today: “’I think there’s a lot of respect’ between the group’s members, says X bassist John Doe.”

Superfreaks will remember the live version of “Nausea,” recorded in 1982 in San Diego, released on “Beyond and Back: The X Anthology.” Exene gives an introduction:

“Well. Well, well, well, well. I bet you guys wish Deborah Harry and Blondie was playing tonight, right? I bet you just wish it was Debbie Harry up here, didn’t you? I met her the other night and she was really snotty to me. I just went up and I said, ‘Hi Debbie, my name is Exene and I play in a band called X’ and she went, ‘I know.’ And then she just walked away. I was being really nice. And this is dedicated to Debbie!”

Back in 2010, Exene addressed those good times:

She was just being punk rock. We’ve always been friends. I haven’t seen her in a while. But, you know, we were all very bratty towards each other. It was just … instead of a handshake, it was a snarl. Just brattiness like, How the fuck are you? We were just that way. We wanted to dismantle everything. And we really thought we were going to.

And now everyone is all friends and on tour! I guess some things got dismantled. Time passes.