Chrissie Hynde, KOKO

After a spectacular turn at this year's iTunes Festival alongside the ever-incredible Blondie, Chrissie Hynde is back in the UK this winter to promote her new album Stockholm. Her debut solo release has received critical acclaim, and certainly captures some of the magic of the best of her 35 years at the helm of The Pretenders, even featuring guitar-toting cameos from Neil Young and (seriously) American Tennis pro John McEnroe.
Partnering Hynde with the eternally-sexy Debbie Harry was a masterstroke by the iTunes Festival organisers, and by all accounts their show was a riotous, wise-cracking, sponsor-baiting return to the good old days. Chrissie's set at James Lavelle's Barbican-based festival Meltdown, by contrast, treated fans to a great deal more from the new album amidst Pretenders classics, with a sound as unique and identifiable as her fashion sense setting the scene for a voice which has lost nothing with age, still as defiant and tremulous as ever.
Her UK tour will be sure to follow this pattern, mixing old and new to showcase a return to form for an enduring talent, as well as a healthy dash of well-pitched covers (Morrissey's 'Every Day is Like Sunday' made an appearance at Meltdown, as did hits by Jarvis Cocker and Neil Young). Together, it all sounds like a combination not to be missed!