{"id":863811,"date":"2026-04-01T01:49:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T01:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/863811\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T01:49:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T01:49:15","slug":"why-cbgb-holds-affection-and-regret-for-debbie-harry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/863811\/","title":{"rendered":"Why CBGB holds &#8220;affection and regret&#8221; for Debbie Harry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img width=\"1140\" height=\"855\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Debbie-Harry-Blondie-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\" class=\"attachment-single-feature size-single-feature wp-post-image\" alt=\"Debbie Harry - Blondie\" layout=\"fill\"  style=\"object-position: 50% 20%\" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" \/><\/p>\n<p>(Credits: Alamy)<\/p>\n<p> Tue 31 March 2026 23:00, UK <\/p>\n<p>New York \u2013 the city that makes people, breaks people, and welcomes every kind of people. Yet right at the heart of it all, the <a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/tags\/cbgb\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"CBGB\">CBGB<\/a> stood gleaming amid the concrete jungle. <\/p>\n<p>It seems a boringly obvious statement to make, given the <a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/who-was-the-best-selling-cbgb-band\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"calibre of artist\">calibre of artist<\/a> which emerged from its walls, but this was a club, though relatively small in terms of physical size, that represented its own little wondrous universe. The acts that played, the conversations that went down, and the stories to tell about it are endless. <\/p>\n<p>For some, it leaves a warming sense of nostalgia in its memory. For others, however, there\u2019s a melancholy that only arrived with its demise: the feeling that they shouldn\u2019t have taken for granted such a shining beacon when they had it. Debbie Harry can tell you a thing or two about that. <\/p>\n<p>Of course, it\u2019s no secret that Blondie are unquestionably one of the greatest exports to have ever been <a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/how-cbgb-shaped-blondie-into-becoming-legends\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"honed by CBGB\">honed by CBGB<\/a>. But the story is often told in regards to how the band influenced it, and not the other way around. Even as they last performed there in October 2006 as part of its closing celebrations, there were still a lot of thoughts left to be reconciled. <\/p>\n<p>In a 2011 interview, she said: \u201cOf course, at this stage of the game I remember it with both affection and regret, and I wish\u2026 I think,\u201d with this struggle to collect her thoughts, the epitome of both her happiest memories and struggles to let go of the sense of exploration that the time spent in the haunt granted. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen the World Trade Centre went down, there were a couple of weeks where I went through different stages of feeling, like anger, then fear, then a feeling of being lost, and then mourning,\u201d Harry continued. \u201cAnd then a couple of weeks further along into this process, I had a surge of, oh God, wishing it was the \u201870s again. Because it was such a great time. Even though it was a complete struggle and we had no money, it was a great energy. We were\u2026 climbing. And discovering. And what could be better than that?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In this sense, it reveals the inner psyche of a woman who, for so long, has stood as the symbol of an impenetrable icon. After all, what do stadium tours, headline festival slots, and being known all over the world really mean when you\u2019ve become jaded to their effects? Ultimately, <a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/the-first-british-punk-band-to-play-cbgb\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"How The Damned made history as the first British punk band to play CBGB\">CBGB was the electricity and spark.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>When you consider the fact that it has now been lost to the New York music scene and the wider world for the past 20 years, it makes you truly realise how much poorer we are for it. There\u2019s less sense of ambition, dreaming, exploration, and experimentation, purely because there lacks the physical space for it to happen. <\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s what makes the memory difficult to grapple with for someone like Harry. When she first arrived as a young bombshell in New York, she could never have realised what the rest of her life had in store. But if only she had stopped to take stock of where she was at the time, things could have been a lot different. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>  <a class=\"fw\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" style=\"\"> ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"28\" height=\"28\" src=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/wp-content\/themes\/far-out-magazine\/img\/google-discover.svg\" alt=\"\"\/> <\/a>   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Alamy) Tue 31 March 2026 23:00, UK New York \u2013 the city that makes people, breaks people,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":863812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[42406,245719,42408,77,269,4447,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-863811","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-blondie","9":"tag-cbgb","10":"tag-debbie-harry","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116326941909390167","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=863811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/863812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=863811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=863811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=863811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}