Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo - 35th Anniversary Tour
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There's a line in the Pat Benatar hit "Heartbreaker" that goes "You're the right kind of sinner to release my inner fantasy." Change just one letter and 'sinner' becomes 'singer' and boy was Benatar the kind of singer that, in her '70s and '80s heyday, conjured up countless fantasies with radio mainstays like "Hit Me With Your Best Shot," "Fire and Ice," "All Fired Up" and many others. This set, filmed last year on the last day of Benatar's (now billed as Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo to give guitarist/hubby/songwriting partner the equal credit he was denied in the early days) 35th Anniversary Tour is more or less a performance of greatest hits culled from the first half dozen or so albums. Benatar's voice remains in great form and Giraldo's guitar work is exciting throughout and while each song is recognizable, most have undergone slight changes to their arrangements. "All Fired Up" is appropriately a chance for Giraldo and the rhythm section to jam out, "Sex as a Weapon" is a bit slower and with an element of funk and other tunes like "Love is a Battlefield," "Shadows of the Night" and "Invincible" are also given interesting tweaks. Benatar addresses the crowd a couple times; once to tell the appreciative crowd that she and Giraldo, who she refers to by his nickname Spyder, have been married for 32-years, and again with an emotional intro to "Hell is for Children" that explains how and why the song was written and why it's performed at every show. Pat also tells the crowd before "Promises in the Dark" that it was the first song she and Giraldo wrote about their own relationship. A couple of surprise cuts are included in the form of "So Sincere" and "Let's Stay Together" and the show ends raucously with "Heartbreaker." This nice live retrospective is actually presented in triple disc form as 2-CDs + the DVD. Get your copy here.
Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo - 35th Anniversary Tour
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