Stevie Nicks, The Reigning Queen Of Rock & Roll, The Road & 2025 Pollstar Live Hall Of Fame Inductee
by Bob Mehr
Pollstar
It was somewhere around 1960 when Stevie Nicks stepped on stage for the first time. Nicks was just 12 years-old she made her debut, bringing a bit of rock ‘n’ roll showmanship to her El Paso grade school talent show.
“Me and my friend Colleen, we choreographed a tap dance routine to Buddy Holly’s ‘Everyday,’” Nicks recalls. “We practiced on my porch for weeks ’til we got it perfect. All the people there really seemed to like it, and I was hooked.”
More than six decades later, Nicks’ dedication to performing and the affection of audiences remains undiminished making her a much-deserved inductee into Pollstar’s 2025 Live Hall of Fame. “The ability to go on stage and put on makeup and outfits and sing and dance and tell stories, that’s such a big part of who I am,” says Nicks. To wit, as this story was going to press, Nicks announced new arena tour dates slated for August and October.
As a member of Fleetwood Mac – a group which she joined in 1974 – Nicks would come to define the band’s transformation from blues-rock band to global pop superstars. In the early-’80s, at the height of the Mac’s multiplatinum peak, she ventured off into a solo career with the equally successful Bella Donna, eventually earning distinction as one of the only women elected to the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame—twice.
These days, multiple generations of stars – including the biggest contemporary acts, from Taylor Swift to Beyoncé to Lana Del Rey – all pay homage to Nicks. At 76, she’s arguably at the height of her cultural relevance and popularity, playing massive shows throughout the world. “Look at the power and joy she brings to people,” says her friend and longtime bandmate Mick Fleetwood. “She’s like Edith Piaf. They love her. They feel her.”
“She’s a force,” notes Nicks’ longtime collaborator, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench. “Artist after artist – mostly women – talk about her as a creative influence, as an example of someone who just shone through in the midst of all the men in this business. She’s had a huge impact on things in a way that people don’t even realize.”
Fellow Heartbreaker Mike Campbell – who toured with Nicks as part of Fleetwood Mac in 2018-2019 – says it’s her total commitment that makes her so compelling. “She has a way of connecting with people in this very passionate, real way,” notes Campbell. “And I think that’s why she’s so beloved. Stevie’s really unlike any other rock star I can think of.”
For Nicks, the importance of playing live has taken on a new meaning since the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. After being forced off the road in 2020 and 2021, Nicks returned to the stage 2022 and has been going strong ever since, headlining her own shows and sharing bills with fellow rock vet Billy Joel.
The pandemic pause was difficult and frustrating for Nicks, but the time away also helped reinvigorate her. “I feel like I’m a better performer than I’ve ever been,” Nicks says. “And maybe that’s because of the years we had off and were banished from the road. I certainly appreciate being able to go on stage now more than ever.”
Campbell notes that Nicks has devoted herself to maintaining her greatest gift, her voice. “Stevie’s such a unique singer, but she also has a really strong work ethic,” says Campbell. “She has her vocal coach on tour who works with her every day. And she still sings great because she works at it. She doesn’t just coast along.”
Tench, who filled in on tour with Nicks a few summers ago, notes that her powerful contralto remains a thrilling instrument. “It was astounding to be on stage every night and listen to that,” says Tench, “to listen to her sing like that night after night.”
In 2025, Nicks also continues to find deep connection with her veteran backing group, which includes close decades-long collaborators like singer Sharon Celani and guitarist Waddy Wachtel. “When I walk on-stage, I couldn’t be prouder of my band,” notes Nicks.
“The thing about Stevie is she’s real rock and roller, and I don’t use that term loosely,” says Wachtel, who’s known Nicks since 1970 and has been her band leader since the early-’80s. “We get out there and try and put the songs across in a genuine way. We’re trying to present them the way those records affected people originally. That’s an important thing.”
These days, Nicks’ concerts are less elaborate stage productions, and more deeply felt story sessions. “I just wear one cool outfit for the whole thing and tell a lot of tales,” Nicks says. “I have a really good time putting my stories in and out of the songs. That part has been fun.”
Nicks’ recent FireAid performance was one of the night’s most poignant. She told tale of her harrowing evacuation from her Palisades home, which she was certain would be destroyed by the encroaching inferno. Giving full credit to the heroic firefighters, especially a team from Santa Rosa who saved her home, Nicks dedicated to them a stunning rendition of “Landslide,” a song she wrote in 1973 that has come to mean so much to so many.
According to Pollstar Boxoffice Reports, Nicks has averaged 10,200 tickets and $1.2 million gross per show. Her career gross, listed at $320 million, is much higher with her Boxoffice reports only dating back to 2001. If you add in Fleetwood Mac’s Boxoffice total of $600 million and her solo career launched in 1981 she easily crosses the $1 billion mark.
Nicks’ top-notch team includes manager Sheryl Louis of CSM Management, Creative Artists Agency’s Jeff Frasco, lawyer Jamie Young, longtime executive assistant Karen Johnston and Kristen Foster of Full Coverage Communications.
Now with her solo arena tour and a series of major stadium shows withoel planned for the summer of and fall of 2025 – at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, and Ford Field in Detroit – Nicks plans on carrying on as she always has: bringing her special alchemy of music and magic to massive audiences across the country, and around the world.
“That’s what I’ve done since I was a kid, since I was a little girl,” says Nicks. “And I’m still doing it. I don’t intend to stop.”
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