Watch Arcade Fire Cover The Pretenders’ “Don’t Get Me Wrong” With Chrissie Hynde
![](https://static.stereogum.com/uploads/2018/04/Arcade-Fire-and-Chrissie-Hynde-1523541272.jpg)
On their current European tour, Arcade Fire have been getting loose, experimenting and tweaking their setlist. That is a good thing. In Dublin, they paid tribute to the late Dolores O’Riordan by covering the Cranberries’ “Linger.” In Manchester, they played their early deep cut “Vampire/Forest Fire” for the first time in seven years. And earlier today in London, they brought a new wave eminence to the stage.
As Pitchfork reports, Chrissie Hynde, longtime frontwoman of the Pretenders, joined Arcade Fire’s traveling circus last night. With Arcade Fire backing her up, she sang “Don’t Get Me Wrong,” the Pretenders’ 1986 classic, and she looked positively amped at the prospect of singing the song with the full Arcade Fire roar behind her. The band also shared a video of them figuring the song out backstage with Hynde, including a bit where she definitively tells them not to do something goofy.
At the end of the show, Hynde rejoined Arcade Fire as they played their own rousing classic “Wake Up.” The show’s openers, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, also helped out on that one. Apparently, the National’s Bryce Dessner was in the mix there, as well, though I couldn’t pick him out of the crowd onstage. That “Wake Up” video is a hell of a thing, and it makes me wish I’d caught this tour in the US. Below, watch fan footage of the “Don’t Get Me Wrong” and “Wake Up” performances, as well as the backstage practice session.
Figuring out a Pretenders song, with the lady herself keeping us on track. @ChrissieHynde @DJWindows98 @ParryReed pic.twitter.com/5mLlLMksMP
— Arcade Fire (@arcadefire) April 12, 2018
Chrissie Hynde didn’t even look mad about the camera phones!