CONCERT REVIEW: 50 years later Heart holds up as Seattle rockers play Toronto

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Heart

Thursday night

Coca-Cola Coliseum

RATING: ***1/2 (3.5 out of four)

*****

You can’t keep a good woman down.

In this case, Heart’s formidable lead singer Ann Wilson, who not only recently emerged from a successful battle with cancer – thus sporting short grey hair instead of her usual long brown locks- but also broke her elbow in three places after slipping on ice.

The second part of that sentence explains why Wilson is currently performing Heart’s Royal Flush tour, which pulled into Toronto’s Coca-Cola Coliseum on Thursday night, in a wheelchair as she rests her injured body part on a pillow while belting out hit after Heart hit and two Led Zeppelin songs (Going to California, The Ocean Song) – again no easy feat.

But when you possess one of the best voices in rock – just watch her make Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant cry with Heart’s cover of Stairway to Heaven during the British hard rock band’s 2013 Kennedy Centre honors (the same year the Seattle group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) – Wilson wasn’t going to let an injury get in her way.

In fact, the opening montage through the 50 years of Heart’s existence showed the weeping Plant if just for a second, prompting cheers, and later Elon Musk, leading to a round of loud boos.

After opener Lucinda Williams, who Ann called one of her favourite artists, Heart – with a three-guitar lineup consisting of Ann’s 71-year-old sister Nancy Wilson, Ryan Waters and Paul Moak and the rhythm section of bassist Tony Lucido and drummer Sean T. Lane – began with Bebe Le Strange and Never.

Then it was time for what Ann called “a first gen Heart song,” Magic Man and the crowd nearing 7,000 went nuts.

Also worthy of standing ovations – that didn’t come til the end of their hour and 40 minute show – were Straight On which morphed into David Bowie’s Let’s Dance, These Dreams, with Nancy on lead vocals, Crazy on You, plus their sweet harmonies-filled acoustic set Dog & Butterfly, Dreamboat Annie, and Going to California.

Also enjoyable was Nancy’s story about touring with Van Halen – “yeah, we partied with Van Halen, not everyone can say that,” and giving guitar virtuoso Eddie Van Halen one of her acoustic guitars in an impromptu moment and he turned around and wrote a song on it that he played over the phone to her the next morning in her hotel room but she was asleep and hasn’t heard it since.

He also told her she played acoustic guitar really well, “for a girl”, but she didn’t object telling the crowd: “It wasn’t the moment.”

She, in turn, later wrote a short instrumental called 4 Edward, which she played Thursday night.

Meanwhile, two of Ann’s biggest vocal numbers. Alone and What about Love, were shortened and turned into a two-song medley but all was forgiven by the time of the encore punctuated by the rocking The Ocean Song and the scathing Barracuda which the sisters wrote about an early offensive marketing ploy to cast them as lovers instead of what they were – female rock pioneers.

“The real thing don’t do the trick, no, you better make up something quick, you gonna burn, burn, burn, burn, burn it to the wick, ooh, barra, barracuda, yeah,” sang Ann, having the last laugh to the very end.

*****
SET LIST:

Bebe Le Strange

Never

Magic Man

Love Alive

Little Queen

Straight On / Let’s Dance

These Dreams

Crazy on You

Dog & Butterfly

Dreamboat Annie

Going to California

4 Edward

Drum solo

Mistral Wind

Alone / What About Love

ENCORE:

Sand

The Ocean

Barracuda