Heart - Alive in Seattle

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• DVD
• Heart
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DVD Reviews of Heart - Alive in Seattle

DVD Review: Heartless no more, yay!
Summary: 5 Stars

Ever since my early teens, I deeply desired to see a female Clapton, Page, Beck, Hendrix, Santana, or even Neil Young. It seemed to me that the chemistry between male and female guitarists on stage could be interesting and intense. I could not understand why such women were not out there, and finally gave up on ever seeing one. (This was way before Ford, Hind, Jett, Raitt, et. al. I was raised in a family of strong, independent women and it took me a long time to realize that this was not exactly a universal thing.)

I was introduced to Heart in the early 80s and was blown away. When I saw some Dog and Butterfly concert footage of Nancy playing the old longer intro to Crazy On You, I nearly died. Finally! Here was a woman playing guitar with real fire! She was intense and, along with Ann's incredible vocals, created a whole new image of powerful women. I think their contribution to music, to society, and to women in general, is not appreciated enough. They are a very talented pair, and it has given me great joy to watch them persist and prevail in the cutthroat, "Barracuda"-ridden business of modern music. Living well is indeed the best revenge.

This concert DVD shows them at their best. They sound and look great - talented, professional, full of energy, playful, sexy, powerful, and thoroughly enjoying the music. The Seattle audience definitely loves them, (who in their right mind wouldn't?) and the electricity of the night shines through wonderfully. The concert was recorded in High Definition video and mastered beautifully to DVD. I do have two very minor technical quibbles with the production, however. I felt that Nancy's guitars and vocals were sometimess lost in the mix under Olson's guitar. I really wanted to hear her more clearly. In all fairness, I listen in regular stereo not surround, and it may be better in surround.

The other quibble is with the style of direction of the video. While sharp, rich, and generally beautiful, it seemed to me that there were too many times when the cuts didn't fit quite right, seemed to miss the real action or were just a bit off. Could be an age/style thing, as I dislike the shaky-video/1-second jump-cut MTV manner of editing video. I compared it with the video of the mid-1990s Road Home concert, and found that video editing more tuned in and flowing. Granted, there are differences in the venues; the Paramount is bigger, and the band is more spread out on the bigger stage. This makes it harder to get good two and three shots on the fly. The earlier concert was also more laid back and acoustic-oriented with much less movement. And it could be that non-musicians just aren't as sensitive to this and don't care about it. Regardless, the performance is clearly exceptional and absolutely worth having.

They play a nice mix of old and new songs along with well done covers of Led Zeppelin's Battle of Evermore and Black Dog, and Elton John's Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters. When I discovered that they started playing Battle of Evermore in the Lovemonger days, I was thrilled. I knew they were perfect to cover such Zeppelin songs. Ann is one of very few people who could do justice to Plant's vocals, and she proves just how fantastic she is in this performance. She is in fine form here, and her voice just nails me to the wall and sends chills up and down my spine. Nancy's guitar work is as firey as ever, and they do an outstanding job of capturing the tone of their own original cuts while keeping the songs fresh, alive, and relevant. I really enjoy watching this performance over and over again.

The songs in order: Crazy On You, Sister Wild Rose, The Witch, Straight On, These Dreams, Mistral Wind, Alone, Dog and Butterfly, Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters, Battle of Evermore, Heaven, Magic Man, Two Faces of Eve, Love Alive, Break the Rock, Barracuda, Wild Child, Black Dog, Dreamboat Annie. There is also a small picture gallery on the DVD.

As a fellow military brat from the Northwest, I am doubly proud of these two very talented women. Their musical gifts have enriched my life and I am very grateful that they continue to share those considerable gifts with all of us. I am looking forward to the Jupiters Darling CD due out soon, and hope they do a DVD of the tour supporting it.

Every Heart fan should have this DVD, without question. Get it now!

Description of Heart - Alive in Seattle

Classic Rock Music CDs

• Music > Styles
• Pop
• Rock