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Heart, JOAN JETT and Cheap Trick reminded fans why they can go out on Rock Hall package tour
from: azcentral.com
By Ed Masley | Photo by Greg Pender
The Rock Hall Three for All is a brilliant premise for a package tour -- three artists whose induction to the Hall of Fame was long denied on one bill dusting off their greatest hits and more in sets that left no doubt that you were seeing three iconic acts in action.
Heart headlined at Ak-Chin Pavilion in Phoenix over JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS, with Cheap Trick playing to a fairly packed and extremely receptive house in the opening slot at the very un-rock-and-roll hour of 6:45. But more on Joan and Robin later.
Ann and Nancy Wilson sounded great in a set whose highlights ranged from raucous renditions of classic-rock radio triumphs as timeless as "Magic Man," "Even It Up," "Barricuda" and "Crazy On You" to tender ballads, including a Ne-Yo track they recorded for "Beautiful Broken," their new album, with Nancy on lead vocals.
When I spoke to Nancy prior to the show, she told me "Alone" had emerged as "the touchdown moment of the night" for her after freeing the song from what she labeled "the production bombast" of the '80s, stripping it down to one acoustic guitar, a piano and a voice. And that certainly proved to be the case at Sunday's concert, although in my notebook, it seems it was also the "holy (expletive)" moment of the night. Ann's vocals, which were soulful and emotional throughout, were especially powerful on that one. I got chills.
Heart is a blast to watch
Nancy was a blast to watch, with her high kick on "Crazy on You" and her jumps and her overall presence. And she more than earned her vocal spotlights, playing mandolin while singing lead on an understated arrangement of "These Dreams" and then holding the spotlight for the previously mentioned Ne-Yo track, a soulful ballad that could almost be a mainstream country hit called "Two."
Even Nancy's introduction to "These Dreams" was entertaining.
"This is one of those songs that you probably heard at the store," she said. "You probably heard it at the gas station. And you heard it at 7-11 and at the dentist's office. But it's a good one and we survived with this song through the '80s and lived to tell."
The sisters also took the opportunity to praise their fellow Hall of Fame inductees.
"Those bands are the real thing," Ann said. "They have some skin in the game. This is the real thing tonight. There's no Auto-Tune. There's no ProTools. This is skin up here."
It's a sentiment echoed one song later.
"Like Ann said, you know, we've just got skin up here," she said. "There's no mirrors, no smoke. This is the real deal."
It was the real deal, like it was in the '70s, when the Wilson sisters and their bandmates were making the male-dominated rock-radio landscape safe for female artists who wanted to rock as hard as any of their long-haired male contemporaries.
Ann reflected on those days in an impassioned speech about rock-and-roll gender equality as an intro to "Even It Up."
"Back in the 1970s," she said, "we wrote this next song. And we were some of the only women who were out there doing rock bands yet. But in our mind, the whole thing wasn't about female power. It was about men and women working together as equals."
And if that song didn't put that point across when it turned up on "Bebe le Strange," it either meant you just weren't listening or you were too misogynist to wrap your head around the idea of women in rock, which is kind of pathetic.
Other highlights of their set included a tasteful arrangement of "What About Love," a reckless tear through "Kick It Out" from "Little Queen" and Nancy's acoustic-guitar introduction to "Crazy on You."
After bringing the set to a spirited close with "Barracuda," they returned to end the night with two Led Zeppelin covers -- a hard-rocking "Immigrant Song" and a "Stairway to Heaven" that allowed for Ann to take some vocal liberties while staying true to Robert Plant's iconic live aside, "Do you remember laughter?"
The punkish abandon of JOAN JETT
JOAN JETT led her BLACKHEARTS, which included longtime right-hand man KENNY LAGUNA on keys and harmonies and drummer THOMMY PRICE, who joined in 1986, through a raucous succession of hits that offset all the staples you'd expect with a handful of songs from "Unvarnished," her latest release, that more than held their own against those staples (in part by being cut from practically the same cloth).
After setting the tone with the punkish abandon of "Bad Reputation," she followed through with the stuttering proto-punk greatness of "Cherry Bomb" by the RUNAWAYS before leading the crowd in a spirited singalong of Gary Glitter's "Do You Wanna Touch Me."
Then she dipped into "Unvarnished" for a song called "TMI," which found her channeling the glam-rock swagger, punkish attitude and killer (if unvarnished) pop hooks that defined her music in the '80s. After that, she reached back to the RUNAWAYS to blow the dust off "the very first song I ever wrote," as she announced, "You Drive Me Wild," which brought some blues-punk flavor to the table and featured a throat-shredding scream going into a solo that rocked like Johnny Thunders showing off his best Chuck Berry licks.
In terms of audience reaction, the set may have peaked when she followed the new "Any Weather" with a massive singalong of "I Love Rock 'n' Roll," the kind of song most artists couldn't hope to follow. But she followed it just fine, playing "Crimson and Clover" and "I Hate Myself for Loving You" before saying goodnight with her version of Sly and the Family Stone's "Everyday People."
Cheap Trick: A crowd-pleasing set
Cheap Trick made the most of their opening slot with a crowd-pleasing set that rocked through many of the classic songs on which their long-held and ongoing status as the most beloved power-pop sensations in the history of rock and roll has come to rest.
They opened the show with "Hello There," the same way they opened the live "At Budokan," their mainstream breakthrough, and kept the focus squarely on the early years with "Hot Love," "California Man" and "Candy."
Then, they shared a new one, "No Direction Home," that like Jett's newer songs, tapped into everything that made those early records matter in the first place.
Robin Zander's voice was in excellent shape and he was remains a charismatic front man, still introducing "I Want You to Want Me" as "I Want YOU to Want ME!" When he dropped to his knees at the end of "Dream Police," a member of the crew ran out and draped a sequined jacket over his shoulders, James Brown-style.
And then there's guitarist Rick Nielsen, always a joy to watch. He made his way through one of rock's most intriguing collections of zany guitars, from the five-necked monster to one with the Beatles' faces on it, and turned in an especially neurotic reading of his rant on "Dream Police."
Other highlights included "On Top of the World" and Tom Petersson leading his bandmates in the Velvet Underground's "I'm Waiting for the Man" before bringing their set to a climax with their most iconic songs played back to back to back -- "I Want You to Want Me," "Dream Police" and "Surrender." And at that point, there was only one place to go, bringing it back to the Budokan with "Goodnight Now."
There's a reason these guys are the subject of cult-like devotion, and it showed. |
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