Not many people can say they made Robert Plant cry. If you have not yet seen Heart’s cover of the Led Zeppelin classic Stairway to Heaven from the Kennedy Center Honors, look it up on YouTube. The stunning performance moved Plant to tears, while the emotion was evident on the faces of John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page. The performance ended with a standing ovation.

"It is pretty indescribable. It was a situation where it’s like, hey no pressure... it’s just the President, the First Lady and Led Zeppelin and you are playing Stairway to effin’ Heaven," Heart’s Nancy Wilson told GayCalgary Magazine. "It couldn’t have gone better. The fact that you could see when you watched the performance how skeptical they all were at first about anybody trying to pull that off. It went quite well, it was all of the beautiful orchestration and the choir as the song went to level after level. It was so well planned and executed that they were surprised and thrilled, and we got to be part of that. I couldn’t have been more pleased about how it all turned out. To see them truly being honored as they deserved was really the best of all. It is right up there with life moments; there are only a few moments you are going to get like that in your life. When you have a baby for instance that is an incredible life moment you never repeat. Playing at that event is in the top 5 life moments, maybe even top 3. To be there with the President and First Lady too, that was a heavy room with some amazing people in it. Rock music has become full-fledged in America to its fruition - when moments like that are shared by the world it is a cool thing. To see the Obamas just grooving was amazing! It was just so cool."

The December 26th performance capped off a full year for sisters Nancy and Ann. They released their autobiography Kicking & Dreaming. Musically they released the Strange Euphoria box set and an album of new material called Fanatic. Additionally they received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Heart hits the road for a cross-Canada tour in support of Fanatic that brings them to Calgary March 10th and Edmonton March 11th.

"It was sort of a self-perpetuating year. We started doing the book with Charles Cross and Sony wanted the box set so it was kind of a retrospective going on with all of that simultaneously. In order to feel like everything was not retrospective we wanted to do a new album. We got really tired last year because we worked way too hard and put out a bunch of stuff. I think it was just the year for it, felt like the time to do it all. It snowballed into the Kennedy Center Honors. Sometimes you have a dark year and others you have a full on year like last year. I would never want to do a year like that again, it is so much but at the same time it was all good."

It was also announced in December that Heart would be inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame on April 18th. The induction was a long time coming for the sisters, who have been rocking since 1974.

"We have romanced the Hall of Fame last year, we reached out to the voting group and people that are on the committee. We sent books and box sets to them and went Hey! Here we are! Our fans were so livid that we haven’t been included the last few years so we made a bit of extra effort to grease the palm a little bit," Nancy said, laughing. "Maybe it worked or maybe it was just the right time. When Jann Wenner called me personally I was like oh my god! It is really exciting."

It is surprising that it took nearly 4 decades into their career to finally write a book. Kicking & Dreaming shares the many stories of their life and has received high praise from critics and fans alike. It was time to take the plunge, Wilson explained.

"A lot of people have been doing books lately and rock books were becoming popular. We had started a book a couple of times over the decades and didn’t finish it. Because Charles Croft, one of our Seattle buddies came up and said what do you think, is this a good time now? we said yeah let’s do it. Things fell into place because there was more of a call for it and the perfect writer for it."

Those that attend the concert will see why Ann, 62, and Nancy, 58 can out-perform artists decades their junior. They bring a catalog of songs that include These Dreams, Barracuda, Crazy on You, and Dreamboat Annie, and the show will also fit a few songs from Fanatic.

"We do a couple of songs depending on the venue. In arenas we can get away with three of the rockers from Fanatic. We do Dear Old America and Ann introduces it saying it is a song dedicated to our Dad who was in World War II. He had a hard time coming home. Even though his war wounds were physical he had more than physical wounds to come and re-assimilate into society. So that song is about our Dad and that helps people have an interest.  Even if it isn’t a familiar sounding song there is a story they can connect to and anyone who has respected service people can go there. ... You can tell [when] people see us play new stuff and it is so much fun to play, they are happy to see us do it because they can see we are into it."

One of the best moments in the show is the song Alone. When Heart last played in Calgary, the final moments of the song was greeted with a lengthy standing ovation.

"It is a really great moment in the show. It is stripped down to a keyboard, guitar and a voice, just three women on stage. It is the most powerful moment in the show. The song itself is one of those tireless torch songs, it could have been in any decade, from world war two or world war one even. It is just one of those songs. I am really happy we took the production away from it and let the song speak for itself. Ann’s voice is just a force of nature and she just slams it every time, it is ridiculous."

It was Canada that got behind Heart when they released their first album Dreamboat Annie, which was recorded in Vancouver and released in 1976. The Wilson sisters are excited to return to Canada.

"We are excited! We love playing in Canada, we used to live in Vancouver for quite awhile. We are from Seattle, we are north westerners so it is our kind of weather and country. We love the seasons of it and the people are good, not so jaded and American. There is a sweet soul to Canada that we always enjoy when we go there. It will be a mix of new and classic stuff. It will be different from our last tour, we have new outfits!"

Heart has influenced many female artists over their career from their never give up attitude to the awe inspiring talent. Nancy is one of the best guitarists in music, and Ann’s voice is magic that is best experienced live. The combination is truly special.

"It is interesting because we don’t really fit a genre too well. We are an androgynous band. The way we approach rock n roll is in a democracy with men. We were leaders and the most noticeable of female bands but as women we always try to be genderless and think about music in a non-gender-specific way. We are trying to think like humans and be counted as equal humans like the rest of us all. When you put a point on the fact that we are women out there doing this, it’s true there aren’t as many women out there doing rock and roll. A lot of women since we started doing this have come to us and said, you give me strength and inspiration and courage to do this too, I wouldn’t be doing it if it wasn’t for you. Since we were sort of dogged marine corps types going into this we thought of course more women would just do it too, but not so much. Now it is an interesting and cool thing that we have helped more women move into music. Music is really rewarding but it is also a minefield."

Now that they are Hall of Famers, Heart has truly cemented itself as rock icons.

"10 or so years ago we were saying, are we legends yet? Did we earn it yet, can we get arrested? It is a longer harder road to go than you think it is. In our case in 1976 it was a long time ago when we started. It doesn’t ever get handed to you, you have to earn it inch by inch and decade by decade. This last year was one of those moments were we got to look at each other and go, hey I think we are legends now. Cool! Let’s play this out and rock this. It is happening now and is a really good time for us. We might only have a couple of years left, but we can walk and talk and rock. The shows are not geriatric that is for sure, we’ve been taking our vitamins. A lot of it is just experience; you learn how to do it better for longer, and the love of doing it takes over. It is important stuff this rocking life."