Chrissie and JP share their unusual relationship in song (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Irving Plaza
17 Irving Pl.
Saturday, September 25, $34.50, 8:00
212-777-6800
www.myspace.com/chrissiehyndejpjones
Last month, longtime Pretender Chrissie Hynde gave New Yorkers a sneak peek at her her latest project, previewing songs from FIDELITY! (Rocket Science, August 2010), the debut album of JP, Chrissie & the Fairground Boys. Hynde, Welsh singer-songwriter JP Jones, and Big Linda guitarist Patrick Murdoch performed an intimate show at Rockwood Music Hall, with Hynde looser than ever, joking about her age and calling herself dirty names, immediately setting up a warm, friendly rapport with the audience, a few of whom spoke a little too much to Hynde, who eventually had to only somewhat playfully call for security. Meanwhile, Jones could barely take his eyes off Hynde, amazed that they were together, in one way or another. The new album is centered around the are-they or aren’t-they relationship between the fifty-nine-year-old Hynde and the thirty-one-year-old Jones. “His time is tomorrow / mine was yesterday,” Hynde sings on “Perfect Lover,” the opening track of the album. “I found my perfect lover / but he’s only half my age / He was learning how to stand / when I was wearing my first wedding band/ I found my perfect lover / but I’ll have to turn the page / I want him in my kitchen / and standing on my stage.” JP, Chrissie & the Fairground Boys will be standing together onstage with their full band on September 25 at Irving Plaza, playing their songs of unrequited love and love gone wrong, including such beautiful numbers as “If You Let Me,” “Courage,” and “Leave Me If You Must.” They ended the Rockwood Music Hall show with a funny, improvised version of Moby Grape’s “Murder in My Heart for the Judge,” by the 1960s group that Hynde said was the major influence on her new group, so look out for that one as well. Massachusetts-based singer-songwriter Amy Correia opens up.