{"id":808266,"date":"2026-10-20T04:54:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T04:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/808266\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T04:54:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T04:54:11","slug":"in-1979-blondie-played-a-now-demolished-philadelphia-venue-they-were-attacked-with-glowsticks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/808266\/","title":{"rendered":"In 1979, Blondie played a now-demolished Philadelphia venue. They were attacked with glowsticks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Blondie<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ Chrysalis<\/p>\n

October 20th, 2026 \u00b7 2:00am BST <\/p>\n

The city of Philadelphia<\/a> has a mind of its own; on the outskirts, wide, yawning roads lay host to huge gardens and houses, idyllic forest retreats, and dusty antique shops\u2026 But the heart of the city is another matter altogether.<\/p>\n

As the coveted surrealist filmmaker David Lynch once said, \u201cI always say Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is my biggest influence\u2026 I meant every unkind thing I said about it.\u201d He often gestured ot its edgy, industrial heart, and its unpredictable, broody charm<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So when Blondie took to the stage in the city in January 1979, there was no way of knowing what to expect; the band had been brought into the fold as a last-minute replacement for the progressive rock band Rush during their Hemispheres tour, replacing the southern rock band Stillwater.<\/p>\n

It was a huge gig for the budding group, in an arena with a huge capacity of around 18,000 people; The Spectrum in Philadelphia might\u2019ve been closed in 2009, and subsequently demolished in 2010, but it had hosted the likes of Daryl Hall & John Oates, Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band, and Bad Religion, who gave the final-ever performance in the building.<\/p>\n

But on that fateful night in 1979, with the future a far-off impossibility, it was just Blondie and a swarming audience of slightly pissed-off Stillwater fans<\/a> who were altogether disinterested in the synth-infused new wave charm.<\/p>\n

The band made it through three songs until chaos ensued; during the second song, \u2018One Way or Another\u2019, the crowd began lobbing things at the stage, including glass bottles and glowsticks. It was like a thousand tiny lights, primed for attack, and Debbie Harry was having none of it.<\/p>\n

Adorned in a neon pink babydoll nightie and heels, Harry mirrored all their rage and frustration and flipped off the crowd, perhaps hoping that the punk spirit might unite them all and the band could do what they\u2019d set out to do: Play a killer set.<\/p>\n

Further reading: From The Vault<\/p>\n

Things changed when someone threw a glass bottle square at Harry\u2019s head; she threw it back, enraged, while drummer Clem Burke<\/a> used his cymbals as a shield from the onslaught until he finally knocked the whole drum kit over, absolutely fuming.<\/p>\n

The band wasn\u2019t done yet: If the message wasn\u2019t clear enough, Harry leaned into the microphone and yelled, \u201cFuck you, Philadelphia!\u201d for all 18,000 sets of ears to hear. The disaster hit the press the next day, with Marie O\u2019Donnell writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer, \u201cThe first act of the night\u2019s bill, Blondie, was treated in a way I have never before witnessed. The group was pelted with garbage by a drugged, hostile audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

We can only guess at the kind of downtrodden, disheartened conversations that bounced back and forth between the band in the dressing room that night; fame was hard, and maybe they weren\u2019t cut out for it at all. And damn, did those glow sticks sting. Luckily, Blondie didn\u2019t have to wait long until their hit, \u2018Heart of Glass\u2019, took the top spot on the US Billboard Hot 100, and the bandmates finally got their due.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ Chrysalis October 20th, 2026 \u00b7 2:00am BST The city of Philadelphia has a mind…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":808267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[42201,173019,50195,50197,96,128,24393,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-808266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-1970s","tag-173019","tag-blondie","tag-debbie-harry","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-philadelphia","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=808266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/808267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=808266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=808266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=808266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}