Photos: Full heart and full house

RIO RANCHO — The day before International Women’s Day, three trailblazing women took to the stage in Rio Rancho.

A language of love: Heart gets ready for RR show

Nancy Wilson talks last tours ahead of Rio Rancho stop

After the well-respected Lucinda Williams opened at the Rio Rancho Events Center March 7 with several songs calling for world peace and calling out current leadership, Heart inspired love and excitement from the crowd. The center was chock full of fans who were eager to hear the Wilson sisters live on their last tour.

Ann and Nancy Wilson started and finished strong, as they always do, and it was clear that their last tour would not disappoint. 

The duo, paired with a very skilled band, according to Nancy in a previous interview, played classics like “Dog and Butterfly”, which was inspired by Ann’s large dog chasing a butterfly in the yard back in the day, according to her. They also played fan favorites, including “These Dreams”, a combination of “Alone” and “What About Love”, a cover of both Led Zeppelin and The Who, “Little Queen” and more.

After the first couple of songs, Ann took a moment to encourage something of the crowd.

“I know it’s tough right now but you gotta keep trying (to spread love),” she said.

Later on, Nancy shared a solo act dedicated to Eddie Van Halen, an iconic Van Halen guitarist who died in 2020. She said when Van Halen was a “baby band” just starting out, Van Halen came to her for acoustic guitar advice. He remarked on her skill with the guitar, she said.

“But I told him ‘You didn’t say ‘for a girl’,” she joked.

Van Halen, at the time, was using an old guitar, so she gave him a new custom one. Then she laughed and said in the dead of night, after she was already asleep, she got a call from Van Halen.

“And he played me a song over the phone,” she said.

She added that later on, the roles were reversed and Heart went to Van Halen for advice.

Heart kept it real throughout the show, and the end was no different. Ann told the crowd that they wouldn’t “play that little game” where they would walk off stage and wait for the crowd to get loud and come back. But the band played two more hardcore songs before leaving. To the crowd’s pleasure, they ended on “Barracuda”, which has been described as Ann’s rage towards a misogynistic industry rumor during the 1970s. 

After the show, as fans exited the center, people could be heard saying nothing but good things about the show.