Heart Concert Review

[DaveH]

Disclaimer: I’m no @Steve Haynie so please cut me some slack. This review, however, would only be a shadow of what it is now had Steve not laid down the gauntlet so many times prior. So here we go…

Cheap Trick. I’ll just come out and say it, their show sucked. Polar opposite experience from when I last saw them 25 years ago. I am going to blame the sound guys for most of this (we were seated behind the mixing where you usually get the most balanced sound). They opened with ‘Dream Police’, but it took me until the chorus to identify which song it was, which is bad.

At this point in their careers, who really has anything to prove anymore? They are both quite established. Are there shenanigans such as the main act screwing with the opener’s act/sound still happening at this level? Or is CT’s crew just really that bad?

Dream Police had Rick wielding his checkerboard Standard. For the second number I thought I was going to get to hear ‘Brontosaurus’ (they played the lick a few times) but then went into ‘California Man’, He was playing a square Heritage(?). For ‘Southern Girls’ he broke out a korina Vector. ‘Ain’t That A Shame’ had him on a black SG. I was pretty detached by this point since the sound had not improved much, and my ears were wanting the set to be over. They did close with a short version of ‘Goodnight Ladies and Gentlemen’,which had Rick playing his famous 5-neck. I also saw Rick with LP’s, a Tele, and a red Firebird throughout the show. Tom played the same hollow body 12ver the entire show (is that a Dean? Sure looked like it), and when Robin played it was always a Tele. They played for one hour on the dot.

 

Heart was totally awesome! The sound guys were on their game, great balance and mix. There was a lot of dialog from the sisters with the audience, which was both fun and enlightening. Ann sat down for a fair portion of the show due to a knee replacement she had gotten three months earlier. Her voice for the most part was on par for being Ann, but she struggled some on the really high stuff (you have to give her a break, she turns 74 next month). I know nothing of singing/voice, so maybe it will come back as they proceed through the tour(?)… But my guess is her voice won’t last for the entire tour. Hope I’m wrong, because last night was a real treat, I’m glad we were on the first leg of the tour.

The set list did not disappoint, even though I’m not a fan of a couple of their mid-80’s ballads. But I digress. Ann did an acoustic performance of one of her solo projects (Tripsetter) which was really good, and Nancy did the acoustic solo tribute to EVH which was quite impressive. The entire band, although not “Heart”, did a fantastic job. There was a very interesting drum solo towards the end that involved bows… Really freaky! And I don’t even like drum solos. I thought for sure they would do ’Battle Of Evermore’, but it did not happen. So for the set list, in order:

- Bebe Le Strange

- Never

- Love Alive

- Roll The Dice

- Magic Man

- This Is Now (Ann's Tripsetter cover)

- Little Queen

- Straight On

- Let's Dance (Bowie cover)

- These Dreams

- Dog And Butterfly

- Dreamboat Annie

- Going To California (Zeppelin)

- You And Me (Nancy's EVH tribute)

- The drum solo (with violin/cello bows)

- Mistral Wind (Zeppelin)

- Alone

- What About Love

- Barracuda

The hotties were few and far between, but this is the first show I have been to in a decade and we are all getting older… So I suppose there were a LOT of hotties there, they just aged. I had to conjure memories of decades past and use my imagination. 😂

All said and done they played for nearly an hour and a half. Very glad the wife and I went, her thoughts mirrored what I have said.