Heart with Cheap Trick

CRITIC’S PICK: Heart, the band led by sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson, also play Atlanta this month. Going to see Heart is a lot like buying a Camry. You know exactly what you’re going to get — and you get your money’s worth. Perhaps its because Heart’s music was fully-formed on Dreamboat Annie, the band’s 1975 debut. The albums since have built on the sound, though haven’t varied from the approach that quickly made them an arena rock must-see act of the ‘70s, a position they still hold decades later. And what’s wrong with that? Nothing. At its best, music transports you to another time and place, and who doesn’t want to return to their teenage years, and kick it out with a band that has held their own over the years. Their version of “Stairway to Heaven,” which went viral years ago after they performed it live at the Kennedy Center, was no surprise. Rock writers at the time often referred to them as a “female” Led Zeppelin for their beautiful acoustic and harshly raucous compositions. While such a term seems almost sexist these days, Ann and Nancy Wilson have certainly proved themselves to be much more close to five decades later. Opening the show at the State Farm Arena May 10 is the aptly-titled Cheap Trick, a quartet from Rockford, Illinois, that has made a decades-long career out of repurposing tired rock ’n’ roll cliches and maintaining a lack of creativity for as many years. — Tony Paris