Famous 70s and 80s rock outfit Heart took the stage at Billy Bob’s Texas in the Fort Worth Stockyards Friday and rocked solid from 10:30 p.m. to after midnight.From the opening number until the end of the show, the band didn’t stop pulling out hit after hit – much to the crowd’s delight.
Guitarist Nancy Wilson, jumped, kicked and worked the stage with a sexy swagger like it was 1973. The crowd fed off her energy as they clapped and danced to every song along the way.
Singer Ann Wilson’s vocals were steady and on key all night long. Every high-pitched scream of “Barracuda” and “Crazy on You” were reproduced flawlessly.
The band, that now consists of the Wilson sisters along with guitarist Craig Bartok, keyboardist Debbie Shair, bassist Ric Markmann and drummer Ben Smith, worked mostly through the hits of Heart’s catalog, from “Straight On” to beautiful acoustic versions of “These Dreams” and “Dreamboat Annie.”
The band also broke out a few surprising covers such as a fantastic version of Tom Petty’s “You Wreck Me,” which featured guitarist Nancy Wilson on lead vocals. Nancy Wilson had flipped some of the lyrics around such as when she sang “You be the boy in the corduroy pants/I’ll be the girl at the high school dance.”
A little later in the set, the band played two outstanding Led Zeppelin pieces, “Black Dog” and “Misty Mountain Hop,” both from Zeppelin’s untitled fourth album.
Ann Wilson’s Robert Plant impression in “Black Dog” was spot-on as she sang “Hey, hey momma said the way you move/Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove.” Smith’s drumming made it obvious he is a John Bonham fan and even played some fills verbatim from the Zeppelin record. Nancy broke out her Les Paul guitar for the Zeppelin tunes, resembling the same sunburst Les Paul model as that Jimmy Page had.
If you closed your eyes, it was like the closest thing anyone could get to seeing Zeppelin play today.
Heart put on a great show, and after the band’s encore was over, the crowd still wanted more. But as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end.
