Heart return with first live gigs for over four years

Heart have played their first live shows together in almost half a decade around and on New Years Eve.

The first date took place on December 27 at a more intimate venue, the Yaamava Theatre in Highland, California. The rock band then played two other arena shows in California and their hometown of Seattle on December 28 and 31 respectively.

These were their first shows since 2019 and featured a career-spanning setlist including hits such as ‘Magic Man’, ‘Crazy On You’ and ‘Barracuda’. Heart then finished the evening with a cover of Led Zeppelin‘s ‘Stairway To Heaven’ reprising their famous performance of the song at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2012 which brought Robert Plant to tears.

They also included their own renditions of David Bowie‘s ‘Let’s Dance’ and two other Zeppelin covers, namely ‘The Ocean’ and ‘The Battle Of Evermore’.

Heart will continue their reunion by supporting Def Leppard and Journey on select dates across their co-headlining run of the US later this year.

“We’re gonna see how it works with the Heart thing, whether it feels like a level up,” remarked Ann Wilson of the reunion shows in a recent interview with 96.1 KLPX out of Tucson, Arizona. “If it does feel like a level up, then we’ll keep doing it. But that’s what it has to be. It can’t just slide down into jukebox time.

“It’s gotta be real. No going through the motions. No phoning it in. No just getting on some kind of circuit just to take people’s money and play the old songs again and again and again. No, we’re gonna make it cool, really make it cool.”

Check out fan-filmed footage of the show and view the setlist below:

Setlist:

‘Bebe Le Strange’
‘Never’
‘Love Alive’
‘Roll the Dice’
‘Magic Man’
‘Little Queen’
‘Straight On’
‘Let’s Dance (David Bowie cover)’
‘These Dreams’
‘Drum Moment’
‘Mistral Wind’
‘The Ocean (Led Zeppelin cover)’
‘Alone / What About Love’
‘Barracuda’
‘Crazy on You’
‘The Battle of Evermore (Led Zeppelin cover)’
‘Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin cover)’

In other news, Nancy Wilson appeared in a recent TV show that aimed to find the UK’s favourite guitar riff.