Halestorm has been on an upward trajectory for twenty years and every album or tour cycle has marked a clear step forward. This time they arrive with Everest, a powerful new record, and with the momentum of their appearance at Ozzy Osbourne’s tribute and final show in Birmingham over the summer, just two weeks before the metal icon’s passing. Headlining the Olympia, the same stage where The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Jimi Hendrix Experience made their Paris debut, felt like another milestone, and the French crowd treated it as such.
The set leaned heavily on Everest but the number of established classics in the Halestorm catalogue is now staggering after two decades of recording. "I Miss the Misery," "I Get Off," "Freak Like Me," "Love Bites (And So Do I)" and the triumphant closer "Here’s to Us," which the band introduced with a celebratory drink, all felt like anthems. The Parisian audience sang every word, jumped, danced, and never dropped the energy. For this reviewer, the peak moment was their thunderous take on Ozzy’s "Perry Mason," but that likely reveals more about my age than their setlist.
It has been said many times yet it remains true, Lzzy Hale is the definitive modern hard rock vocalist. Her voice carries power and finesse, grit and melody. She commands the room with ease and still comes across as genuine, charismatic and relentlessly badass.
After years of being labeled the next great hope for rock, Halestorm have reached the point where they stand with their heroes. They are no longer the future of hard rock, they are now part of its canon: a modern-day classic.
