The sisters Wilson bring the 2014 edition of Heart to the stage of the Count Basie on Friday night, followed on Saturday by the long-delayed “homecoming” of Ms. Lauryn Hill.
Classic rock institutions have come and gone, then come and gone again — but few FM-fatales have outlasted their peers, the industry as we knew it, and maybe even the whole blamed genre like Ann and Nancy Wilson, the sister-act at the Heart of one of North America’s biggest border-crossing bands. With a catalog that spans the chunky guitars/ cheesy synths of the mid 70s (“Magic Man,” “Barracuda,” “Crazy on You”), and the platinum-plated power ballads of the 80s (“These Dreams,” “Never,” “What About Love”), the 2014 edition of Heart hits the stage of the Count Basie Theatre for a theater-scale set of big singles and deep album cuts.
Take it here for tickets to Friday’s 8 pm show ($49 – $149) — and take it around the bend for details on the Count’s guest for Saturday.
Her 1998 solo debut The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill earned her an instant place in the pop pantheon, a gripload of Grammys, and a high-bar of expectations that prompted a relative fade from the inner-circle spotlight — while recent headlines have focused on her 2013 prison stretch for tax evasion. With a new song called “Consumerism” launched into last year’s holiday shopping season mix, Ms. Lauryn Hill made a public “Homecoming” with a slate of theater-scale shows at venues in the greater NYC area. That “intimate” tour was originally scheduled to take the former Fugee to the Count Basie Theatre as the sole Garden State stop on the Jersey-born Hill’s road itinerary — a setting “where she can once again live and breathe the art that has brought her to the forefront of our psyches, and has earned her place as being one of the most prolific (?) and thought provoking artists of our time.” The original December 22 engagement was abruptly rescheduled to February 7 — and then postponed again, with apologies, to this Saturday night, August 9. But then, the unexpected has always been the norm for a star whose highly personal path has seen her challenge the industry establishment, the pop-media radiation field, her own steadfast fans, and the accepted routines of art and commerce. Tickets (scaled back to $35 – $50, with no meet ‘n greet option) can be reserved right here.
