Classic rocker Lee Aaron, the Metal Queen herself sang her big hits and some tasteful blues and jazz, Sept. 22.
The diminutive singer was in a great mood, beaming and really paying attention to the audience and upon observing one enthusiastic fan was singing every word with her, brought him to the front of the stage for a quick chat. Powerline was among the first songs played.
She let her leather lungs loose on “Stand Tall,” showing she has lost none of the energy or power she had back in her mid-80s heyday.
While I would have expected the crowd to want the hits and nothing but the ’80s metal hits, there was a request for some of her jazz and blues project from a few years back, which she gleeful provided. She applied those leather lunged pipes to a dark blues numbers called “Chained to a Fence in Mississippi,” and blew the crowd away with her raw power.
But it was back to the hits, even European hits as she said she rarely played “Sweet Talk,” the third single from her album “Body Rock” though it was a huge hot for her in Europe, before launching into the big power ballad.
She was full of stories about the early days, about video shoots and about her life today, and apologized for rambling.
She wound down her set with “Barely Holding On,” which she said she doesn’t play often in Canada. She confessed “all this screaming is making me thirsty.” But she can still scream on key.
The band got to show their diversity on her big hit “What Cha Do To My Body,” as she rapped one verse and turned another bluesy.
She ended her set with a scorching version of her signature hit “Metal Queen,” and told the story about how her manager convinced her to dress like a wild gothic warrior woman for the video.
