{"id":41368,"date":"2009-02-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-24T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/alive-in-seattle\/"},"modified":"2009-02-24T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-24T00:00:00","slug":"alive-in-seattle","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/alive-in-seattle\/","title":{"rendered":"Alive In Seattle"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have this little habit which I guess I\u2019m never going to shake off.\u00a0 You see, whenever I \u201cdiscover\u201d an artist, I immediately seek out any live albums and use that as my starting point.\u00a0 If by chance said artist can\u2019t cut it live, then I move on to someone else.\u00a0 If, of course, the live stuff is great, it can turn out to be a very expensive process, because then I have to get my hands on each and every one of the artist\u2019s albums.\u00a0 So discovering Neil Young and Van Morrison some years ago just about sent me broke.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

I remember being impressed enough after listening to Alive In Seattle <\/i>to seek out Little Queen <\/i>and Dog And Butterfly, <\/i>but not too long after that it seems my interest waned and these three albums remain the only Heart CDs in my collection.\u00a0 The reason for that I discovered after playing this disc again yesterday, and it was quite clear.\u00a0 The early Heart were fabulous — the latter-day AOR Heart, not so.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

This two-disc set kicks off to a promising start with a rocking version of their debut single \u201cCrazy On You.\u201d\u00a0 Current song (at the time) \u201cSister Wild Rose\u201d comes next and is quickly followed up with an urgent cover of \u201cThe Witch.\u201d\u00a0 After a quick greeting from Ann, the girls lead the band through a faithful reading of \u201cStraight On\u201d played to an obviously affectionate crowd.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

I suppose the god-awful \u201cThese Dreams\u201d (for which Nancy takes the lead) is such a fan favorite that the sisters may feel obligated to play it.\u00a0 Or maybe they love it as much as the fans seem to, who knows.\u00a0 It\u2019s a truly horrible song, one which the writers (including Bernie Taupin) shopped around until they found takers in Heart, and which Stevie Nicks had the good sense to turn down. A definite flat spot.\u00a0 \u201cMistral Wind\u201d follows and is given an extended workout which sounds a little Zeppelin-esque (funny that).<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The best part of this set is definitely when Ann and Nancy ditch the band and reel off a few acoustic gems.\u00a0 Their harmonies are stunning and Nancy\u2019s sweet tones are best experienced without the full band treatment.\u00a0 \u201cAlone\u201d is one of the 1980\u2019s greatest ballads and it sounds even better here mainly thanks to Ann\u2019s stirring vocal performance.\u00a0 \u201cDog And Butterfly\u201d remains one of their finest moments ever as well.\u00a0 Next up is a splendid cover of Elton John\u2019s sublime \u201cMona Lisas And Mad Hatters\u201d for which Nancy takes the lead and proves she cut it, too.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The last song on the first disc is a Led Zeppelin cover, which should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the Heart catalogue.\u00a0 The girls were heavily influenced by Page, Plant and Co.\u00a0 It would become an obsession right down to Ann\u2019s Plant-style vocal delivery on so many of their songs.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it\u2019s all downhill from here as the girls tackle \u201cThe Battle Of Evermore\u201d with gusto but fall well short of doing it any justice.\u00a0 Kudos to Nancy, though, for pulling out the mandolin, I love \u2019em. The band is back to help out but there\u2019s no saving this one.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Disc two gets off to a woeful start with the ridiculous \u201cHeaven\u201d which according to Ann was to appear on the \u201cnew\u201d album.\u00a0 I presume she\u2019s referring to Jupiter\u2019s Darling<\/i>, however, it\u2019s pleasing to see they must have had second thoughts \u2019cause it ain\u2019t on it.\u00a0 It\u2019s a car crash of styles that find the band lost in some world beats and the horrible synth fills posing as all things including sitars and harps are atrocious to say the least.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cMagic Man\u201d is here and while the band are tight and offer a note-perfect reading, it just sounds a little too clean (and has too much guitar wankery) for my liking.\u00a0 I mean, I keep waiting for the guys to really let loose and shake it up but they never do.\u00a0 All throughout the gig, there\u2019s not one moment when they throw caution to the wind and really let it rip.\u00a0 Once again, the girls\u2019 harmonies are wonderful.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cTwo Faces Of Eve,\u201d slated for the new album as well (funnily enough, this one didn\u2019t make the final cut either), sounds a little like the vintage Heart of the mid-\u201870s.\u00a0 This is followed by the downright boring formulaic rock of \u201cLove Alive\u201d; even Ann sounds bored with this one, which is a shame because the original is an awesome song.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

The sheer stupidity of the new (nope, didn\u2019t make it either) \u201cBreak The Rock\u201d is unforgivable.\u00a0 It\u2019s sounds as if it was written for one of their dreadful \u201880s efforts and that\u2019s not a good thing.\u00a0 They are actually trying too<\/i> hard now to rock out, go figure.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

A solid version of \u201cBarracuda\u201d FINALLY releases the tension and the band can actually kick it when pushed by the material.\u00a0 The momentum is killed off, however, by the nightmare AOR of \u201cWild Child\u201d from their worst studio album, 1990\u2019s Brigade<\/i>.\u00a0 Of all the great stuff in their canon, they had to drag this one out and I\u2019d love to know why.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Oh, lovely, more Zeppelin.\u00a0 \u201cBlack Dog\u201d has never been a favorite of mine and this here ain\u2019t helping.\u00a0 It truly sounds terrible; you\u2019d think the girls would be more selective when paying homage to their heroes.\u00a0 I could rattle off a rather lengthy list of Zeppelin tunes that would suit them wonderfully and the subpar band is really a ways up that well-known creek now.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

The girls close the set with the lovely (if only there was more of it) \u201cDreamboat Annie (Reprise).\u201d\u00a0 Those beautiful harmonies are timeless.\u00a0 What started so well has quickly fallen away to reveal Heart\u2019s shortcomings.\u00a0 A live album should really be an affirmation of a band\u2019s talents; therefore, this set falls well short of offering anything than a few nice moments amid a shitload of mediocrity.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

So in closing, I\u2019m left with a rather vexing question in my mind.\u00a0 Can Heart cut it \u201clive\u201d?\u00a0 Acoustically I\u2019d say hell yeah.\u00a0 As an arena filling rock band?\u00a0 Maybe not.\u00a0 I can\u2019t decide if it\u2019s the lackluster band or the material chosen here, but it\u2019s really not convincing and I\u2019m past the point of caring.\u00a0 Why the hell did I keep this thing?<\/o:p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":29761,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5634],"rating":[11205],"class_list":["post-41368","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-heart","rating-rating-d-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41368"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}