It was June 19, 1988. My best friend and I were going to see Heart! We’d never been to a Heart concert before and this was their tour for Bad Animals.
I was almost exclusively into heavy metal then, but when my friend and I heard the Little Queen album and listened to it in the basement of my parents’ house where my dad had some amazing JBL speakers set up, (not consumer grade -the industrial grade) that late 70s hard rock by the Wilson sisters sounded amazing.
My friend was also mostly into heavy metal, but he recognized the talent in Heart and especially those voices! Everyone talks about Ann’s voice and it’s amazing, but Nancy has a beautiful voice too and it really complements her sister’s voice well in harmonies.
The whole band was top notch. There was a song called Sylvan Song and then Dream Of The Archer that were kind of like one big song and it was unlike anything either one of us had ever heard. We had to go see this band!
It was decided. I got their new album Bad Animals so we’d know their new songs. The highlight of the album was Alone, but There’s The Girl was also a great song. The title track was a lot more hard rock. It was good. Their 70s music on another level though!
We got tickets and when the day came I drove us the 50 miles or so to Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, MD.
I will never understand it, but Heart had the lamest opening act a hard rock band could have: Michael Bolton!
Now maybe he had a good voice. Maybe if you’re into his style of music he’s good, but we liked rock and roll and this mellow, sort of easy listening music Bolton was singing was just not what we wanted to hear. His set probably seemed a lot longer than it really was.
When you’re psyched for a hard rock band, you don’t want to hear an opening band play easy listening music.
Fortunately Heart’s set was everything we hoped it would be and we left there that night happy that we’d gone to the show. It’s nice to have seen Heart when they were in their prime.