Ann Wilson Brings Led Zeppelin’s Black Dog to Life in Electrifying Encore

On August 18, 2021, Ann Wilson headlined the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, as part of her U.S. tour. The venue billed the evening as “Ann Wilson of Heart,” with an 8:00 p.m. showtime and seated admission. It was a full-capacity rock room setting that suited her classic-rock repertoire and powerhouse voice.

The night unfolded in two sets that blended Heart staples with handpicked covers, then closed with an encore devoted to Led Zeppelin. Wilson walked back out to deliver “Going to California” and then a fiery take on “Black Dog,” a finale order documented by the show’s setlist from the floor that night and later write-ups.

Fans who weren’t there can verify the moment through the official upload titled “Ann Wilson – Black Dog (Led Zeppelin Cover) @ Hampton Beach 8/18/2021.” The video presents the Casino Ballroom stage, Wilson’s band, and the thunderous crowd response, preserving the exact place and date in the clip’s title and description.

Wilson toured 2021 with The Amazing Dawgs—Tom Bukovac on guitar, Tony Lucido on bass, Paul Moak on guitars/keys, and Sean T. Lane on drums. That lineup forged such chemistry that she issued the concert EP Howlen Live drawn from that year’s shows, underscoring the road-tested edge behind her Hampton Beach performance.

Across the evening she balanced Heart favorites—“Magic Man,” “Even It Up,” “Love Alive,” and “Barracuda”—with classic-rock touchstones, including The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” Aerosmith’s “Dream On,” and Queen’s “Love of My Life.” The two-set pacing set up a Zeppelin-centric encore that framed the night’s narrative arc toward her final burst of hard-rock voltage.

Her “Black Dog” arrangement kept the core character of the original: taut stop-start riffs snapping behind a call-and-response vocal lead. Onstage, you see Wilson cue the band with phrasing that mirrors the a cappella entrances, then slam into the riff with precision—an interpretation that respects the blueprint while letting her phrasing carry the drama.

The band behind her gives the song its muscular spine. Bukovac locks the riff with Moak’s textures, Lucido’s bass underlines the rhythmic stutter, and Lane’s drums drive the song through the turnarounds. That interplay lets Wilson stretch notes and dynamics without losing the groove—a veteran singer fronting a unit built to handle Zeppelin’s rhythmic games.

This kind of Zeppelin homage is firmly in Wilson’s wheelhouse. Nearly a decade earlier she led a famed “Stairway to Heaven” at the Kennedy Center Honors with Heart, a performance that cemented her credibility interpreting the band’s catalog and deepened audience expectations for any Zeppelin moment she chooses to take on.

“Black Dog” itself arrived as the opening track of Led Zeppelin’s untitled fourth album in 1971. Written by John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page, and Robert Plant, it was released as a single in the U.S. on December 2, 1971, and reached No. 15 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song’s call-and-response design remains one of rock’s most recognizable templates.

Live, Zeppelin used “Black Dog” as a showpiece. After debuting it in March 1971 at Belfast’s Ulster Hall—the same concert that premiered “Stairway to Heaven”—they kept it in rotation through 1973, often bringing it back as an encore medley with “Whole Lotta Love,” a history that underscores why the song works so well as a closing salvo.

Both of Wilson’s encore choices that night trace back to Led Zeppelin IV, one of the best-selling albums in rock history. Pairing the acoustic reverie of “Going to California” with the jagged thunder of “Black Dog” let her move from hush to roar while nodding to two contrasting corners of the same canonical record.

“Going to California” is a quiet, Joni Mitchell-inspired Page–Plant composition from that 1971 album, and Wilson’s decision to set it before “Black Dog” gave the encore a narrative rise—from reflective folk textures to hard-rock exclamation point—before the lights came up and the crowd filed into the seaside night at Hampton Beach.

Context adds another layer: Wilson was 71 that summer, a fact that highlights the stamina and range she brought to the Casino Ballroom stage. For listeners who have followed her since the 1970s, the performance felt less like a novelty cover and more like a veteran vocalist conversing with the classic-rock canon in real time.

After the tour, Wilson’s team shared multiple videos from the Hampton Beach date—among them “Black Dog,” “Going to California,” and Heart favorites—so the night’s arc can be revisited in sequence online. Those uploads, and coverage noting the specific Hampton Beach provenance, help lock the performance in the public record.

Taken together—the documented setlist, the official video, the seasoned backing band, and a song with a storied history—the Hampton Beach “Black Dog” stands as a precise snapshot of Wilson’s 2021 artistry. It captures a singer with deep Zeppelin ties, using arrangement and dynamics to make an arena standard feel immediate again on a New England summer night.