Concrete Blonde: Star Factor.

Concrete Blonde play The Arena on Saturday.

It's ironic. Nobody ever made this much fuss about Concrete Blonde before. Pretty and twisted Johnette Napolitano, 44-year-old singer/songwriter, radical and humanitarian, laughs, "It's quite staggering, really. Who'd have believed it?”

Now celebrating their 21st birthday since forming in Los Angeles at a time when Brit new wave was blistering the airwaves and genuine punk was emerging from America's backlots in the profound form of now legends such as Black Flag, Misfits, Minor Threat and Minutemen. Concrete Blonde are the band the critics often used to love to hate. When they split in 1994, nobody really cared.

So why the big fuss over their return? 

Maybe, part of it is was due to Napolitano's ceaseless crusade for the truth - no matter how uncool it is. Nearly a decade ago we spoke for nearly 90 minutes about her alien abduction experience, a story that eventually ran worldwide. Don't snigger. As Johnette says today, "Eight million people can't be making up the same story. That's too many people to call crazy liars. So it's about getting the truth out there. On the new record, Group Therapy, Tonight is about that experience." Of course: "Swinging on a star, flying around, this is so bizarre, maybe I'd better come down."

Perhaps, people have finally realised how many great songs the Concrete Blonde back catalogue contained: the pure adrenalin of God Is A Bullet, a savage indictment of gun use and violence that's dedicated to the LA Police Department; the equally punchy rock plea, Heal It Up; the lonely agonised relationship song, Joey; the epic commentary, The Sky Is A Poisonous Garden; their signature strut Bloodletting (The Vampire Song); Ghost Of A Texas Ladies Man's rolling Americana, the classic pop of Walking In London, True, and Caroline, the biting Still In Hollywood and the sublime and pretty Mexican Moon. Concrete Blonde was also a great rock band and in 2002 when rock is 'in', its melodic brilliance, songwriting honesty and sheer sense of space and feel are perfectly suited for an encore performance.

Lyrically, she's always worn her heart on her sleeve and her dark songwriting has scared the wits out of conservatists - she penned the staggering Jonestown about the massacre, arguably one of the darkest, most chilling songs ever recorded by a rock band. And then there's her duet with Andy Prieboy on Tomorrow Wendy, his stark anthem about the AIDS-related death of a prostitute and friend that Concrete Blonde also covered on Bloodletting. Napolitano's commitment to AIDS awareness was evidenced by her invitation to the LifeBeat organisation to accompany the band on tour offering materials and raising funds to further educate people about this terrible disease. Simply, she cares. Often to her own loss. Napolitano has gone through periods of alcoholism and substance abuse and she's constantly questioned her own existence.

She laughs gently, "I think about 'should I be doing this, should I be doing that', a lot. If I don't think about everybody else and what everybody else is doing, I find myself very comfortable with me and there's a really incredible freedom in not giving a flying fuck what people think of you. I don't know when that happened but I just got tired of worrying whether I was doing the right thing for everyone. It was physically exhausting and it just breaks you down. I ask myself 'Am I going to live the second half like I lived the first half? Trying to please everybody. Your family, friends, society, everything. I said 'No'. I'm half way done and, God willing, I've got another 40 years and I'm going to live that for me. I've found consequently the more I lived for me, the happier I made other people. And found what I had to offer."