My wife and I were fortunate enough to attend Pat and Neil's Thursday night concert at the Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls, Ontario. As anticipated, Pat and Neil took the stage as scheduled at 8:30pm precisely, with Pat dressed in black pin-striped pants, black top and black jacket and Neil dressed in a two-piece black suit with a white tee shirt underneath. What better song to open their "All Fired Up" tour than with their high-powered anthem of the same name? The next song took me by surprise as they broke into the original electric version of "We Live For Love". Over the years, this song has become one of the staples of their acoustic set, but Pat still showed her remarkable vocal talents in reaching the high notes, sounding at times like a nightingale. After this, Chris broke into a heavy drumbeat for the beginning of "Shadows of the Night", but Neil seemed to be playing the riffs to another song. Pat stopped the music and apologized to the audience, saying that this was a new tour and they still had to work out some glitches. She then asked Neil if he wanted them to start again, but he seemed to have no difficulty in picking up where they left off. After "Shadows", Pat introduced "Invincible" as being from the soundtrack of one of the worst movies ever made (The Legend of Billie Jean). Pat sang with the passion and conviction that usually accompany this song and Mick played a brief bass solo, which he made look effortless. Before the next song, Neil was caught standing at the microphone instead of being at the keyboards, but made a mad dash to correct himself in time to play the introduction to "Painted Desert", after which Pat told the audience to "Get close to their loved ones," during the next song, which was "River of Love" from the Innamorata album.

Their brief acoustic set opened by Neil talking about their February appearance on The Young and the Restless, and they proceeded to play the number they performed on the show, which was "Every Time I Fall Back". Towards the end of this number, Pat and Neil alternated singing the lines, which I thought was very effective. Neil then moved back to the keyboards to play a newly written intro to "We Belong". The crowd responded with cheers once the familiar strains were recognized. "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" seemed to stir the crowd, particularly when Pat held out the microphone for everyone to sing. "Hell is for Children" followed with Pat still promising to play the song at every concert until all the children in the world are safe. Neil mentioned that the next song "Should have you all dancing," as they played "Love is a Battlefield", which indeed had much of the audience dancing in their seats and the band left the stage to thunderous applause and cheers.

The crowd rushed excitedly to the front as they came on to play the encore. The first encore was "Promises in the Dark", which again had everyone singing and the final number, "Heartbreaker", proved to be another crowd favourite as everyone stood up and started dancing. Neil's loud guitar solo at the end of the song proved to be a fitting climax to the performance as the band left the stage to a standing ovation.

After seeing Pat and Neil perform quite a few times in recent years, I found it difficult to imagine they could get any better, but they certainly seem to have stepped their performance up another a couple of notches, proving to be another great concert, serving to whet our appetites for their upcoming Summer tour.

Set list:

1. All Fired Up
2. We Live For Love
3. Shadows of the Night
4. Invincible
5. Painted Desert
6. River of Love
7. Every Time I Fall Back
8. We Belong
9. Hit Me with your Best Shot
10. Hell is for Children
11. Love is a Battlefield
    Encore
12. Promises in the Dark
13. Heartbreaker