Dallas Review - Stevie Nicks feels just as relevant today as she did when she released Bella Donna back in 1981

What did we do to deserve Stevie Nicks? 
by: KEATON BELL
Red Dirt Report

NORMAN, Okla. – For over 40 years, the Fleetwood Mac front-woman has managed to charm her way into the lives of anyone with two ears and a heart. Past the tales of cocaine binges and rock and roll excess lies an artist responsible for some of the most enduring music of the 20th century. How else do you explain the fact that in the year 2016, Stevie Nicks feels just as relevant today as she did when she released Bella Donna back in 1981?

Nicks has essentially raised her own coven of gold dust women, with acts such as Charli XCX, Haim, and Taylor Swift all openly citing her as a large influence. When she recently appeared on American Horror Story: Coven, you were just as excited as your parents were at the image of the 68-year old Nicks still kicking it, top hat and all. And would Florence + The Machine, with their mystical imagery and love-lorn lyrics, even exist today if it weren’t for the guiding influence of the original White Witch?

What it all boil’s down to is Nicks’ downright lovability. While her contemporaries focused on experimental sounds and forced musical intellectualism, Nicks has always been an unabashed softie. Her music is from the heart, often shamelessly emotional, and always sincere. You’re not just spinning a record when you put on Stevie Nicks, you’re listening to a woman bare her soul and asking you to do the same in return. That confessional style of music is universal, whether you’re young or old, male or female, a hopeless romantic or an eternal pessimist.

These attributes and more were all on display Sunday night when Nicks took the stage at the American Airlines Center as a part of her 24 Karat Gold Tour. I may have been just one of 20,000 adoring fans packed into the arena, but the intimacy and spirit Nicks performed with made you feel like it was a one-on-one experience. 

Full Review at Red Dirt Report

Review Stevie Nicks Live in Dallas October 30, 2016

Stevie Nicks, Pretenders go deep in AAC show
By Robert Philpot
dfw.com + Photo Gallery (15 Photos)

DALLAS Stevie Nicks announced early during her concert Sunday at the American Airlines Center that she would be shaking things up a bit, not playing the kind of set list her fans had been used to hearing for decades. Then she and her band quickly played her 1983 hit If Anyone Falls, a reassuring sign that although she’d be playing some unfamiliar material, the show wouldn’t be all obscurities.

And it wasn’t But it was weighted heavily toward deep cuts and non-hits, including a song that dated back to 1973 and her Buckingham-Nicks days, and others that for one reason or another never made it on to an album — at least till the 2014 release of 24 Karat Gold: Songs From the Vault found a home for songs such as Starshine (which Nicks said she wrote while hanging out with Tom Petty) and Belle Fleur.

This is a risky strategy for a classic-rock artist, even if there’s advance publicity about it. On a “school night,” fans often want to hear the hits, but Nicks’ fan base is so passionate that the less-familiar songs were well-received, and in some cases — the title cut from The Wild Heart segueing into the title cut from Bella Donna — stirred a rapturous reaction.

But about a third of the show was hits, from Nicks’ solo career and from Fleetwood Mac, with some excellent twists and turns — bringing out Chrissie Hynde from the Pretenders, who opened the show, to do the Tom Petty parts on Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around; extending Gold Dust Woman with Nicks going into a possessed-looking dance (while the big-screen image of her appeared to be turning into melting gold) that ended with her hair covering her face; singing Leather & Lace with background singers Sharon Celani and Marilyn Martin doing the Don Henley parts; the expected but still climactic intensity of Rhiannon, a song Nicks somehow manages it invest her entire self (and possibly more) in every time she performs it.

There was warmth and humor in Nicks’ show, during which she told the stories behind several songs (including how she wrote Leather & Lace for Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter, then asked for it back when they split up, and how Prince’s Little Red Corvette helped inspire her hit Stand Back, which he played on). For all the intensity of her singing, the chattier portions of her show were laid-back and personal, including the long introduction of her band (longtime guitarist/musical director Waddy Wachtel, rhythm guitarist Carlos Rios, pianist Darrell Smith — who performed a lovely intro to Moonlight (A Vampire’s Dream) — organist Ricky Peterson, bassist Al Ortiz, drummer Scott Crago and the background singers), all of whom she treated like old friends.

Speaking of old friends, the Pretenders blasted through a tight first act, with Hynde in a great mood, greater voice and appealing loose form. She came onstage wearing a cowboy hat and, a few songs in, doffed her jacket to reveal a sleeveless “Everything is Bigger in Texas” T-shirt. The band leaned hard on some of its earliest stuff — Mystery Achievement, Talk of the Town, Message of Love, the Kinks cover Stop Your Sobbing — but not at the expense of later songs like Back on the Chain Gang, Don’t Get Me Wrong and I’ll Stand By You.

And the band was on fire — starting off great and really getting locked in about midset, especially showy guitarist James Walbourne and Martin Chambers, the band’s longtime, sledgehammer-force drummer, with bassist Nick Wilkinson and pedal-steel player Eric Heywood making more subtle contributions.

Back in 1984, Hynde wrote the lines, “I’m not the kind I used to be/I got a kid, I’m 33, baby.” That was more than 30 years ago, but she seemed like she was 33 again Sunday night. She also wrote Time the Avenger, which she didn’t perform Sunday night, but she sure let us know that she’s not read for time to get her just yet.