MONTREAL - What do the numbers say?
They say Ann and Nancy Wilson, 40 years into the ongoing saga of Heart, are not drawing pop-diva sized crowds. For the last Canadian date of their current tour at the Bell Centre Monday night, the sisters attracted about a third of the audience Rihanna and P!nk recently brought into the venue. Lady Gaga's attendance figure was up there, too.
It makes you hold your head in your hands and sigh. These grandstanding, factory-produced singers, about half the age of Heart's frontwomen, or less, might have found their lives quite different if Heart hadn't smashed the glass ceiling that kept women out of rock - until the Wilson girls decided they'd prefer to be Led Zeppelin than Joan Baez. None of these unworthy descendants are fit to hold Ann Wilson's microphone.
But frankly, who is? And how many guitarists out there are cranking it up and swaggering on the stage with the kind of abandon we saw from Nancy Wilson Monday night?
If there was a sequence during the show that illustrated how effortlessly they can bury their contemporaries in a live setting - without any dancers, fireworks or special effects - it came during the two-song encore, when Ann daringly tackled two of the most demanding performances by two of rock's most iconic lead singers.
Black Dog sounded like Robert Plant in his prime and Love Reign O'er Me (with support act Simon Townshend, Pete's brother, on guitar) was as muscular as when Roger Daltrey sang it in 1973. Both British rock legends have reprised their respective songs in recent memory and worked much harder to arrive at the spot Wilson seemed to reach with such ease.
It was a fever-inducing climax to a show that had started quietly, with Townshend in that horrifically thankless role of opening the night with an acoustic guitar while people settled in. Although he channelled his famous brother's percussive guitar style and his voice (he has, in fact, recently toured with both Daltrey and the Who), the group sitting in back of me was typical in that they made a lot more noise than he did and didn't stop running their mouths once to listen. (Talking through concerts, sadly, has reached epidemic proportions.)
Fortunately, Heart brought the volume and shut everyone up with colossal chords and powerful pipes during a 90-minute, hits-centric set that was similar to the one they delivered last time they were here, at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier of Place des Arts in 2011.
This being the Bell Centre, the band - the Wilson sisters with guitarist Craig Bartock, keyboard player Debbie Shair, bassist Dan Rothchild and drummer Ben Smith - faced an uphill battle against the arena's sad acoustics. But opener Barracuda, by sheer dirty force, made the sound quality a bit irrelevant.
If some songs - namely, the 1980s hits like What About Love, These Dreams and Alone - are somewhat of their time, they delighted the fans who came of age with them. The power ballad Alone, in particular, was a tour de force for Ann.
But it was the early rockers - Magic Man, Crazy on You and Heartless - and softer hits like Dreamboat Annie and Dog and Butterfly that turned 6,000 people into time-travelling CHOM listeners from the 1970s and threatened to give classic rock a good name. Perhaps even more impressive was the revelation that Dear Old America and 59 Crunch, from last year's Fanatic, were at least as potent as the career-making radio staples.
And best of all? Ann and Nancy Wilson are still doing it their way.
Set list:
1. Barracuda
2. Fanatic
3. Heartless
4. What About Love
5. 59 Crunch
6. Magic Man
7. Kick It Out
8. Even It Up
9. Dreamboat Annie
10. Dog and Butterfly
11. These Dreams
12. Alone
13. Dear Old America
14. Crazy on You
Encores:
15. Black Dog
16. Love Reign O'er Me
Twitter: @bernieperusse
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