Heart of LIZZIE.

When I was in high school – it must have been my junior or senior year because I wouldn’t have been allowed to go to Indianapolis to a rock concert unchaperoned before that, and besides I know for a fact that my first 2 concerts were Rod Stewart and Black Sabbath, both in 1977, because I kept the t-shirts until I was 30 – I saw Heart at the Indiana State Fair.

I was already a fan. Barracuda was everywhere (at least where I grew up in Disco Sucks territory). I had the Little Queen album, played it to death (literally) while I stared at that picture on the cover of Ann and Nancy and the boys as rock and roll gypsies or whatever. This was the era of me trying desperately to be turned on by girls and if any women were going to turn me on it would be Ann and Nancy Wilson. But I was more turned on by their clothes, and the rest of the band behind them. Turns out I didn’t want to fuck them, I wanted to be them, riding around in that covered wagon full of long-haired rock and roll boys.

It all sounds like a cliché now, but at 16 I didn’t know from gay icons.

I was a Heart fan, but after that concert I was obsessed. Crazy on You started with Nancy in a spotlight for that long gorgeous acoustic intro and when the band kicked in the whole stage lit up and I was lost forever. This youtube clip might be the same tour I saw. It looks like how I remember it.

Not just Heart, but that particular Heart concert at the Indiana State Fair in the late seventies is deep in the DNA of LIZZIE. In my mind, this kind of huge outdoor venue is where LIZZIE lives. It’s funny because we’re here in Houston doing the show in a 500-seat theater now and everyone keeps referring to it as “our small space.” Someone yesterday used the word “tiny.” 500 seats is bigger by a few hundred seats than any space the show has ever been produced in. We're gettin' there.