Heart rattled off a few dates earlier this year in of their latest album Beautiful Broken. In June they played, for the first time, the Royal Albert Hall in London. And top add some icing to that cake, they were backed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for a truly unique evening of entertainment.
such as our own Gary) knows that Ann Wilson still has it (“it” being an incredible, powerful voice) while sister Nancy rocks on that guitar as hard as anyone half her age. Adding not just their four ing , but an orchestra full of brass, wind and strings and you have 100+ minutes of music that doesn’t just make you tap your toe, but – in the case of this reviewer – genuinely gets the hairs standing up on the back of your neck.
The opening handful of tracks are good – “Magic Man”, “Heaven”, “Dreamboat Annie” – but the wonderful “What About Love” with the added depth of the London Philharmonic behind it is just stunning. Beautiful Broken gets a look in with a couple of tracks, such as the nice and heavy “I Jump” which is followed by “Sweet Darlin'” and “Two” with the title track saved for later.
It’s the classics that I had my ears open for, though, with “These Dreams” (voiced by Nancy) and “Alone” leaving me completely enraptured. Ann’s early warning to the crowd that they would be singing before the end of the evening must surely have come true by the time those numbers had finished.
The setlist does a great job of showcasing Heart’s history and the variety of their back-catalogue. Hard rock numbers to ballads to near-metal tracks, the band just don’t want to be pegged as anything other than “superb.”
I also have to mention that despite some complaints about other recent DVDs with poor image quality, the picture on this DVD is of a much better quality. Tied to the wonderful sound and you have a disc that definitely deserves to be in your collection… and regularly in your player.
Heart Live at the Royal Albert Hall is out on November 25th and you can order it through Amazon now: [amazon text= (music only)&asin=B01M7SLCFG] / [amazon text=CD&asin=B01LZAFB0P] / [amazon text=DVD&asin=B01LZMDDD1] / [amazon text=Blu-Ray&asin=B01M0X3N8Q] (links this site)
I have just received my copy directly from the UK and playing the bluray through my new ultra 4K television and 4K bd player to match and it looks stunning sound quality is superb and with the orchestra it gives each song more emotion. As the writer has suggested it’s their classics that we all love and know that no doubt we looked forward to hearing and there are plenty of them. As you can imagine there are a number of tracks that also have a little Zeppelin edge I guess we all have our influences and why not, and… Read more »
Peter – thanks for the on the sound and audio quality. I generally review DVDs via my PC which plays onto a screen capable of 1080i which isn’t anywhere near as good as your setup so it’s nice to know the image quality is as good as the band deserves!