Review from Rock the Park

Ann & Nancy

Heart had a big place in my heart back in the day too. There was the local connection — Ann and Nancy Wilson are from Seattle, but the band really got off the ground in Vancouver — and they were gorgeous, but most importantly they could rock.

And they can still rock. Ann Wilson’s voice is a thing of wonder, high and clear but tinged with just the right amount of smoky rasp. Nancy wields her guitar with a swagger befitting her idol, Jimmy Page.

“Heartless,” from 1978’s Magazine album, was a standout — the inherent funkiness of the tune really came through on the big stage.

It was interesting to watch the connection the band made with women in the audience. I watched several gals well into grandparenting years elbow their way to the front of the pit to commune with the high priestesses of 70s rock. There, they swayed in nostalgic bliss to the romantic fantasia of the Nancy-voiced “These Dreams.”

But the band took it up to another level altogether with the one-two punch of “Crazy on You” and “Barracuda,” the former of which was a tour-de-force for Ann.

London Free Press

Heart’s still in it: Ann and Nancy Wilson’s new CD marks a rocking return

Ann & Nancy 2010

New York Daily News:

It may be hard to believe but Heart still has a pulse.

One of the first hard rock groups to be fronted by a sister act, Ann and Nancy Wilson, the band started beating in the 1970s before flatlining in the early ’80s when they experimented with a new sound.

When they returned to their roots in 1985, fans responded, sending three albums into the top five.

Now, Heart is pumping again. They play the MGM Grand at Foxwoods on Saturday, featuring songs from “Red Velvet Car,” their first studio album in six years.

“We have been steadily working in our little rock ‘n’ roll sweatshop, in the soul of our rock ‘n’ roll planet,” says Nancy Wilson in a voice that is more of a coo than the strong instrument she projects from the stage.

The CD is scheduled to drop on Aug. 31. To the guitar-playing sibling with the strawberry blond hair, it brings hope that it will return the band to the lofty heights it last enjoyed with “Heart” (1985), “Bad Animals” (1987) and “Brigade” (1990) — when singles like “These Dreams,” “Alone,” “What About Love” and “Never” sent the blood rushing through the veins of fans.

“It took a couple of years,” Wilson says, “what with being a mother and all” — she’s been married to filmmaker Cameron Crowe since 1986 and they have twin boys born in 2000 — “but we just used our time wisely.”

She first worked on the lyrics and “guitar ideas” with bassist and bandmate Craig Bartock.

“Craig is a whiz at bringing it all together,” she says. “We then brought Ann in and [producer] Ben Mink, who gave us some really cool ideas. He can make acoustic rock sound harder than electric.

“This is a true Heart album,” she says of the 10 tracks. “You get the whole arc of personal stuff with the extreme rock stuff. There is not an inauthentic, fictitious bone in the body of this album.

“We’ve been under the radar the past few summers. We’ve gone out with Journey a couple of times, [but this tour] is our own thing, and getting to Foxwoods is very important for us.”

After they emerged in 1976, the Wilson sisters were considered the first ladies of arena shows, a Seattle-based garage band that flourished with songs like “Crazy on You,” “Magic Man” and “Barracuda.”

Then, “the hair band thing and the Seattle grunge thing ended” and they went away “with our tails stuck between our legs.”

Heart almost stopped beating. Their music had become more pop, even folksy. “I really thought this was it.” Then came the transfusion of hard rock that got them rolling again in the mid-’80s. Now, they’re hoping to ride “Red Velvet Car” to the top of the charts once again.

“We’ve outlived the average rock band a couple of times over,” says Nancy Wilson, 56. “We’re not a hair band anymore. We’re now a heritage band who can actually sing and play.

“Acoustic is way harder than any electric guitar can do. But we do it. And we do it well. I really feel the fans are going to love what’s on ‘Red Velvet Car.’ We’re excited about taking it on tour.”

Source

Lilith Kansas City: Even it up / Gimme Shelter

Listen to this newest addition to the setlist: A mash between the Heart classic “Even it Up” and RS hit “Gimme Shelter”!

Thanx to GW for the find!

Pix from Lilith Fair in San Francisco

Mercurynews.com has posted a bunch of pix from the July  5th Lilith Fair. Click on the picture to go to the gallery.

Ann Wilson, July 5th 2010,

Heart (review from spinningplatters.com) click here for more pictures

Heart aren’t given enough respect by the feminist movement. More than any riot grrl band (not to devalue the importance of riot grrl), they opened the rock world to women in a huge way. They were the first rock band where the women were the songwriters and also took control of the leads. Nancy Wilson is the kind of guitarist that could show Jimmy Page a thing or two, and at this show, they made sure to keep this set as metal as they could. The whole set was devoted to the edgier, heavier Heart. Only in the middle of the set, where they played a few decent songs off their upcoming record, Red Velvet Car, did things mellow. Nancy took lead vocals from her sister on the strongest of the new songs, “Hey You,” and then played a powerful reading “Alone,” with the stage bare aside from the Wilson sisters and keyboardist Debbie Shair (Ironically, this was the only time all day that only women were on stage).

Ann Wilson’s voice has only improved with time, with a soulful richness that is incomparable in any genre of music. They closed the main set with the near-perfect closer of “Crazy On You” and “Barracuda,” which is still one of the greatest riffs in musical history. They managed to avoid any of their sappier stuff like “These Dreams” and “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You.” In fact, my only complaint about their set was the encore, which was a cover of Led Zepplin’s “What Is and What Should Never Be,” which left the majority of the crowd kind of confused, aside from the handful of people that recognized the song. It’s a weird song, and kind of took the energy away from the set, which would have been better served by “Magic Man,” or even a slightly more intense Zeppelin cover, like “Rock & Roll” or “Battle Of Evermore,” both of which Heart have been known to cover in the past.

Heart: an active creative force!

Nancy Wilson

A Nancy audio bite at KSHE95.com (click on link to hear the audio)

Nancy Wilson told us that Heart has always opted on being an active creative force — rather than playing it safe by just being a touring nostalgia act: “Y’know you’re really driven — I think if you’re an artistic soul, then you’re driven to do your art; And if you only care money, then you’re not. Then you’re driven to only tour and do the old hits forever, y’know? I think we’re pretty artistic about it. We’re really happy to still be able to enjoy going out and playing live as well as be creative and be writers.”

Cook with Fire from Wendover June 11th 2010

Here´s a flaming part of that new song on the setlist (the opening song on the Dog & Butterfly album).

by the shooter Grrrlfan:

The camera police were crawling around the place like a hungry flame in the dark but I managed to get this clip. Seriously, they took my friends camera at the door and tagged it, but not mine (because it was hidden). They let people with phones take pictures and that was it, but they were limiting that too. No offense to anyone for breaking the rules but this needed to be posted here. Heart is still SO amazing and awesome LIVE. This is another segment of Cook With Fire with Ann Wilson singing (still in stellar form) as an addendum the other short clips of this on youtube. And Nancy’s rig sounds so HOT too. They really were cooking with it! This show is an incredible example of rock Goddess artistry evolving and in process still. Don’t miss this tour seriously. We took a fun bus in from Salt Lake City to see this.

New arrangement for Dog & Butterfly On Red Velvet Car tour

Plus a tiny piece of “What is and should never be”… bad sound… but Ann is so bad-ass!!