Heart Concert Review with Joan Jett and The Blackhearts
                                

Heart has been in Rock and Roll for over forty years.  The staying power and success of a band with siblings is rare in the music industry.  Their debut album Dreamboat Annie is indisputably their strongest album.  The album was released in 1976.  Most of the crowd became a fan of Heart in that great decade we remember as the Eighties.  These Dreams and Bad Animals were the soundtracks of so many of the female fans’ lives. Don’t get me wrong, the guys were singing along too (just not as fervently as the women).  The lyrics of “Alone” are relatable to every woman who has ever struggled with feminism and independence.

Openers Joan Jett and The Blackhearts are being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year.   Punk rock and Joan Jett are synonymous.  Joan Jett was a founding member of The Runaways.   Joan Jett and The Blackhearts started the show with “Bad Reputation”.  Petite Joan Jett was looking especially well in skintight gray bodysuit and laced up leather jacket.  She looked great at age fifty-six perhaps due in part to her vegetarianism.  “Cherry Bomb” a hit from The Runaways was up next and some new songs were part of the setlist including “Any Weather”, a song co-written by Dave Grohl.  The rendition of “I Love Rock and Roll” was solid but felt rote.  The hit “Crimson and Clover” was next and the audience loved singing along to every single word of the song.   Ending the night on a great note, “I Hate Myself For Loving You” was energetic and an anthem for women who always fall for the bad boys.

 

 

Heart started with their standard “Barracuda.”  If they started with another song, I think their fans would be surprised.  Heartmongers, Heart fan club members, abounded in the floor in front of the stage.

Ann Wilson who is sixty-four and Nancy Wilson who is four years younger looked and performed great with a classy style.  Nancy wore a little black dress with a sheer collar and sheer sleeves along with tattoo designed leggings.  A brilliant, sparkling bracelet adorned her left hand.  Ann was dressed in black tunic and pants with multiple long sparkly necklace.  Ann Wilson’s skill as a female rock vocalist is almost unparalleled.  She is a soprano with a three octave range.  Her voice was amazing still after over forty years.

They performed “What About Love” next and a man took his girlfriend into the aisle, got down on one knee and proposed to her.  Kevin and Lisa became engaged during the song.  Congratulations were handed out by everyone around them.

 

 

“Alone” was sung along to like we were all in the shower.  The feeling when a crowd is singing with all they have is like no other.  You feel a comararderie with the people around you.    Ann talked about who when she was growing up, she wanted to sing like Aretha Franklin.  The next song  was an Aretha cover “Ain’t No Way”.  They ended the night with “Crazy On You” with the introduction played acoustically by Nancy.  Their encore was reliable as well with Led Zeppelin covers of “Immigrant Song”, “No Quarter”, and “Misty Mountain Hop”.