GOING OUT / Deborah unveils this year's Blondie

THERE'S a great moment on Deborah Harry's recent album Debravation (Chrysalis). It's in the middle of a dodgy cod-techno number called 'Lip Service'. Suddenly the music stops and Deborah speaks; as cool and imperious as ever she was, she reads from Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Raven'. Fittingly for such a devoted Warholian, Harry's best moments since the demise of Blondie - her exploding wigged showbiz mother from hell in John Waters's kitsch movie, Hairspray, and her great 'Well Did You Evah]' with Iggy Pop on the Red Hot & Blue charity album - have had a large element of self-parody about them. But when she sings on stage, as in the semi-legendary residency at the Borderline in London with which she restarted her rock'n'roll career a few years back, it's all for real. Her band for this tour will feature Chris Stein, the former partner and Blondie guitarist with whom she wrote many of those perfect pop songs, now happily recovered from the long illness through which she nursed him. Deborah Harry plays Cambridge Corn Exchange, 0223 357851, tonight; Bournemouth Pavilion, 0202 297297, Mon; Manchester Apollo, 061-236 9222, Wed; Sunderland Empire, 091-514 2517, Thurs; Glasgow Concert Hall, 041-227 5511, Fri; Liverpool Royal Court, 051-709 4321, Sat; and then tours for another two weeks (071-221 2213 for further details).

(Photographs omitted)