Stevie Nicks at the Chaifetz Arena (Review)

Stevie Nicks at the Chaifetz Arena
Friday, June 13

I'm just going to come right out and say it: Stevie Nicks must have a magical coochie. That's all I could think about last night while watching her perform at the new Chaifetz Arena. That isn't to discredit her ample musical talent, but her feminine gravitational pull is apparent, even in a large music venue. She's got that something. And whatever it is, it's magnetic and irresistible.

Over the years her lady parts have served her well: the source of most of her song writing material has come from her love affairs. Most of these episodes were well documented, even in the pre-paparazzi days of 1970s celebrity. Successful rock-and-rollers lined up around the block back in the day for a crack at Miss Nicks. She supposedly gave quite a few of them a spin, from Don Henley to Mick Fleetwood to Jimmy Iovine, and her long relationship with uber-sexy band mate Lindsey Buckingham was a main topic in Rumours, the classic Fleetwood Mac album.

Even now, at the age that most people retire, Nicks still knows how to work it. She's still all high-heeled platform boots, gothic Lolita dresses, long blond mane and sparking shawls. Her static, uncompromising image is shockingly stubborn. Imagine a '70s punk who still sports a mohawk as an old man on the golf course. Still, Nick's image doesn't feel contrived- it's just as if she found a good thing an stuck with it.

And the fans? They love it. When she opened with "Stand Back" one would have never known that the arena was only about half full, as every older lady in the place got up out of her seat and cheered while mentally reliving her glory days.

What followed was a string of hits (including "Dreams," "Rhiannon," "If Anyone Falls in Love," "Sorcerer," Gold Dust Woman" and "Landslide") and a couple of surprising covers (Bob Seger's "Face the Promise" and a torturous version of Dave Matthews Band's "Crash").

To her credit, Nicks basically excused these covers by explaining that she and her band need to do something fun every now and then. By "fun," I'm guessing she means "sing a song that I haven't already sang 873,421 times in my life." It's cool. She's forgiven for that. She is still under the gun, however, for one part in her stage show.

There was a huge video screen behind the stage that showed mostly innocuous, appropriate swirling art (a rain shot during "Dreams," a yellow haze during "Gold Dust Woman," etc.) but during "Rhiannon" it featured a pair of cheesy white unicorns frolicking in the freaking forest. I shit you not. It was distracting and I laughed for nearly the whole song with sympathetic embarrassment for everyone on that stage. Lest you think I am a cynical party-pooper, those unicorns garnered snickers from quite a few people near me and pretty much ruined the song for us all. Lose the unicorns, Stevie, that's pushing the "mystical" and "enchanting" thing just a little too far.

This was the first "rock concert" hosted at the Chaifetz, and aside from the poor attendance (due, no doubt, to the high ticket cost), the management can certainly call it a success. The place is much smaller than an average arena, creating a cozy feeling even at a big show. It's a clean white space accented with SLU blue, but it doesn't feel cold, just new. There were helpful ushers, food and drink and a kind employee even offered to escort me to my car. Yes, the parking situation is kind of wack, but you've dealt with worse. There's just nowhere to park that feels close. I paid $10 and went for the SLU garage. It was a bit of a hike from the garage to the arena, but it's nice scenery with small ponds, bridges and sports fields to watch along the way.

Jaime Lees

photos by: alicia bailey; todd owyoung

Fleetwood Mac Recording New Album in October, 2008

Stevie Nicks performs tonight in St. Louis
BY SCOTT KIEFER - Fri, Jun. 13, 2008
Special to the News-Democrat
bnd.com

Rock icon, artist, songwriter, aunt and inspiration to millions, Stevie Nicks just reached the milestone of turning 60 years old on May 26. She sees it as a defining moment in her life that has brought about some realizations about her personal life, her career and what she needs to maintain and to change.

"It's been a wonderful, hectic, glamorous, miserable, exciting, tumultuous life," said Nicks in a telephone interview from Florida last week. "Who could ask for more?"

Nicks will perform at 8 p.m. tonight at the Chaifetz Arena at St. Louis University.

Although Nicks has this persona of being mysterious, elusive, mystical, and hard to reach, she has always been an open book during interviews ... which aren't granted often.

"My life has been such an open book anyway, so when I do interviews, there's really nothing to not talk about," said Nicks jokingly. "Sometimes I even get to set the record straight."

Nicks isn't really bothered by her recent birthday.

"Really, it is just a number," said Nicks, "but an important one. Better that the alternative. I would say. I've never been one to be obsessed with my numerical age. I really do believe you are as young as you feel, and as long as you are happy within yourself and good to others, your youth shines through, no matter what your age. It's all about change.. in lifestyle, diet, and emotionally. Age is about learning and growing, not your number."

Nicks shows no signs of slowing down.

She is currently working on writing the story for the production of a movie based on the hit Fleetwood Mac single of 1976, "Rhiannon."

"I have been working on this for quite some time," said Nicks. "It's really been a work in progress for 30 years. This is it, though. As soon as this tour is finished, I'm off to a secluded place in Europe (she didn't disclose where) to finish the writing, and do some tweaking on the finished product. After that, we are meeting with people like HBO or Showtime to hopefully do a mini-series type of movie. It is such a wonderful story, and there is so much more to be told about Rhiannon."

After that, Nicks will sign on for the all-original Fleetwood Mac tour.

"Yes, we are going to do it, at least once more," said Nicks. "All of us except Christy (Christine McVie). She is just so 'over' that whole thing. She has done it, again and again, she just doesn't want to do the touring anymore."

Nicks stated that the group will start working on material and recording probably in October, and finish an album.

"We should be getting into tour rehearsals in January or February, and get out on the road in the spring of next year."

Asked about the rumors surrounding the replacement of McVie by Sheryl Crow, Nicks said it would not be happening.

"Actually, Lindsey and I will be taking some of the songs that Christine sang on record, and we will be sharing the vocals," said Nicks. "After all, we wrote most of them anyway, and we feel it was best for us to do them instead of bringing someone else in to take her place. We want to show her our respect, and include her in the show, because she was such an important part to our group."

The lives of the members of Fleetwood Mac were definitely the rock 'n' roll soap opera of the late '70s and '80s, but Nicks doesn't like to dwell so much on the negativity and the hype that surrounded the group.

"We definitely had our moments in the spotlight," said Nicks, "and some hellatious ones out of the spotlight too. But, it's all good now. In fact, Lindsey and I are really doing good, we are friends ... for now at least."

Nicks attributes much of the high drama within the band to the creativity each member possesses.

"When you have creative people such as we are, and we are all artists, you have high emotions and feelings, and that is how we expressed ourselves -- and still do really," said Nicks. "It's hard to live with, work with and be constantly around someone who has such creativity and emotion spilling out of them all of the time, and not have conflict. It's just the way it is. But we're all fine right now."

With the movie script and the band reunion, you would think that Nicks has enough on her plate.
"I also will be working on some of my paintings, and I'm always writing new songs, poems, things like that," said Nicks.

Will there be a new solo album soon?

"That's something that I can't say will or will not happen," said Nicks. "As I said, I am constantly writing, but not just for me. Some of the stuff I do may turn up on a Mac album, or maybe I will have a solo album, I'm not ruling out anything."

Nicks has just moved into a large apartment on the oceanfront in Santa Monica, where she lives alone.

"I am in 'Stevie's Place' now," said Nicks, "all by myself. I loved my large home in Phoenix, but it was more of a bother than it was enjoyable to me. I was always wondering about redecorating this room or that room or the landscaping or the kitchen or whatever. Kind of a pain in the a--, really."

"See, that's what I mean about the creativity flowing," said Nicks. "Where I am at now, I am by myself, and can concentrate on the movie script ideas, my paintings, and my songwriting. I can get up in the middle of the night and see the moonlight on the water and watch it make a glisten on the waves, and work on whatever it is I need too, until I can watch the sun rise over the ocean. Or, I can just do whatever the h--- I want."

Nicks sees this as an advantage to herself and her family.

"I can do these things when they come upon me, and I can be in my world," said Nicks. "This is why, I realize, that I never had children, and that I will never be married. Things in my life are kind of like coming together, and yet starting over, all at the same time."

Nicks is currently on a short tour of only 15 dates in North America in promotion of the "Crystal Visions" CD and DVD project.

Nicks is also appearing this season on the PBS Soundstage music series in a two-episode concert.

"Doing the show for PBS was a thrill, and an honor," said Nicks. "Public television is something that is very important, not only for it's entertainment value, but for the educational opportunities it provides.."

During this tour, Nicks is doing all of the expected hits such as "Rhiannon," "Stand Back" and "Edge of Seventeen," but has thrown in some exciting covers as well.

"We have to do the hits that the fans expect," said Nicks, "but, we've thrown in a Dave Mathews song, and a Bob Seger song, plus a couple of other surprises."

"This is gonna be more of a rock and roll show," said Nicks. "I can't wait to perform at St. Louis, because it was one of the better shows I did last year with Tom Petty.

"Tom asked me to come out and do six shows, and do just six songs on each date," said Nicks. "And I was thrilled. I've always had this fantasy about being a member of the Heartbreakers. Tom helped me to make that dream come true. It was so much fun that we ended up doing 23 days. And for Tom to foot the bill for my expenses for that many dates -- and believe me it ain't cheap -- says a lot about my friend.

"After the tour was over, he gave me a gold, five-point sherriff's badge with five diamonds on each point with an inscription on the back that read 'To Stevie, our honorary Heartbreaker.' That was one of my most special moments in life, and I will probably never get the chance to do something like that again."

Nicks is really looking at a new lease on life.

"With all that I have going right now, it seems as though I have just started my life all over again. To h--- with counting my birthday numbers, who needs 'em anyway?"

Quick hits

1. Coke or Pepsi: Coke. Coke Zero, actually.
2. Favorite Dessert: Red Velvet Cake
3. Religous or Spiritual: Spiritual
4. On your Ipod: Madonna to Justin Timberlake, Motown to Classic Rock.
5. By yourself or with others: By Myself.
6. Obama or McCain: Wouldn't you like to know.
7. Worst part of touring: The hectic schedule.
8. Best part of touring: Playing for my fans.
9. Passion: Music and painting.
10. Marriage: Never.
11. Landscape: The ocean.
12. Best friend: Lori Nicks. (background singer and sister-in-law).
13. Paparazzi: Not an issue.
14. Tour bus: Hate 'em. That's why I fly only.

At a glance

Who: Stevie Nicks with Peter Cincotti
When: 8 p.m. today
Where: Chaifetz Arena at St. Louis University
How much: $65 and $45
How:www.metrotix.com, or 314-534-1111.

Mick Fleetwood uncorks passion for wine

Rock legend and winemaker advocates a more accessible wine experience
The Aspen Times

ASPEN — Some decades ago, Mick Fleetwood had little interest in wine. And who could blame him? Several times a year, on his early visits to the U.S. — he says the experience was very different in Europe — the British-born Fleetwood would subject himself to the discomfort and degradation of ordering wine to go with dinner. No matter how good the bottle may have been, the process left him with a bad taste in his mouth.

“It was people sitting in a restaurant, quivering in their boots, thinking, ‘What are we going to order?’” said Fleetwood. “In truth, they were just told what to like. And I remember sitting there drinking, and thinking, ‘Oh, I’m supposed to like this — and not necessarily liking it.’”

Fleetwood turned his attention away from oenology, and focused instead on music. It proved to be a wise decision; he has never seemed to need outside prodding to know what sounded good to his ears. In his earliest days, it was blues-rock — first with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, then, beginning in the late ’60s, with the earliest incarnation of Fleetwood Mac. In the mid-’70s, with the addition of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, the band’s sound took a sharp turn, toward radio-friendly pop-rock. It was an assured stylistic change, however, as Fleetwood Mac turned out such essential ’70s works as 1975’s eponymous album and 1977’s “Rumours.”

A decade and a half ago, Fleetwood had another abrupt about-face, this time in his offstage life. It was almost certainly a good thing; Fleetwood Mac was one of the primary symbols of rock ’n’ roll excess, mid-’70s-style, and Fleetwood himself was never known to exclude himself from the party. His 1990 memoir, “Fleetwood: My Life and Adventures with Fleetwood Mac,” recounts his cocaine addiction and bankruptcy. And in looking to switch things up, Fleetwood decided on a new beverage to go with his new ways: wine.

“Probably about 16 years ago or so,” said Fleetwood, by phone from his home on Maui. “That was a journey that started really from a change in lifestyle. My crazy rock ’n’ roll lineage wound down a bit; my home life changed. I started entertaining at home, not going out so much.”

(An aside: The life change apparently did not include going any easier on his drum kit. Not long after this adjustment, Fleetwood played a New Year’s Eve gig at the old Double Diamond in Aspen, on a bill with rockabilly singer Billy Burnette, a member of the latter-day Fleetwood Mac, and then little-known singer, Sheryl Crow. I happened to be backstage in the company of Fleetwood, and we had a pleasant drink and conversation. He was then called to his drum set, and started playing the show while we were still sharing our moment together. Standing a few feet from the six-foot, six-inch Fleetwood as he played, I was shaken by the force of his drumming, and his near-manic energy.)

Continue to full article

Rock legend Nicks mixes her music with Mac’s

By DAVID DORSEY • news-press.com • June 13, 2008

HOLLYWOOD, FLA. — Her blond hair waving and her costumes flowing — and oftentimes spinning — Stevie Nicks mesmerized a sellout crowd of 5,000 fans with her mystical blend of classic rock.

Nicks, who celebrated her 60th birthday May 26, opened at the Hard Rock Live venue with “Outside the Rain” as she launched into an hour and 50 minutes’ worth of songs.

Nicks covered a mix of her own material and that of the band that made her famous in the 1970s — Fleetwood Mac.

But she also put her own spin on the works of others, playing the Dave Matthews Band song “Crash,” a Bob Seger cover and Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll,” the first song of the encore.

Performing with nine others on stage, Nicks took to the center, flanked by a guitarist, a rhythm guitarist, bass player, drummer, percussionist (he banged on African-style drums among other instruments), a keyboardist, piano player and three background vocalists, including her sister-in-law.

The two drummers came in handy, teaming for a drum duet that energized the crowd before being rejoined by Nicks and the rest of the band for the final song of the set — and her best song — “Edge of Seventeen.”

As the drummers showed off their skills, Backstage, Nicks changed into a white gown. When she came out and turned around and stretched out her arms, her back to the crowd, her arms resembled wings. She transformed herself into the image of a white-winged dove.

“Stand Back,” and “How Still My Love,” were included in her set along with Fleetwood Mac’s “Rhiannon,” “Gold Dust Woman,” and “Landslide,” the latter of which she dedicated to her late father, with snapshots of her and her dad flashing on the big screen behind her.

The emotional moment drew a standing ovation, as did the final song of the evening, “Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You,” a song she dedicated to injured U.S. troops who were stationed overseas.

Stevie's revolving door of opening acts.

Mandy Moore will be opening for Stevie in Boston on June 22nd and in Toledo on June 25th. Myspace

Mandy is the third act to be opening for Stevie on this short June tour. Shawn Colvin and Peter Cincotti are the others.

Landslide.... Hard Rock Live.... June 7, 2008

Stevie Nicks will sing songs people want to hear

Stevie Nicks vows to stick with fan favorites for her show here

By Kevin C. Johnson
STLtoday.com
POST-DISPATCH POP MUSIC CRITIC
06/12/2008

Stevie Nicks vows to stick with fan favorites for her show hereBy Kevin C. Johnson

When Stevie Nicks comes to Chaifetz Arena this weekend, her fans won't have to worry about her dropping "Gold Dust Woman," "Rhiannon," "Landslide" or other staples to make room for new material.

First of all, Nicks, 60, hasn't released new music since 2001's "Trouble in Shangri-La"; her latest release is last year's "Crystal Visions — The Very Best of Stevie Nicks."

Second, Nicks just isn't into deleting hits from her set.

"People aren't happy with you for doing that, and we've all tried," she says. "The Eagles tried it, Fleetwood Mac tried it, I've tried it. We try to do it because we want to do something different. But then when you do it, you find your audience going to the bathroom or going to buy a T-shirt.

"They've leaving because they're not familiar with what you're doing and don't care. So all we can do is take the nine or 10 songs they're coming to hear, build a set around those songs, add four or five songs, and mix it around, change the sequencing. Then it appears to be different to everybody."

Nicks, who will rejoin Fleetwood Mac for a tour next year, says her show has changed since the last time fans saw her.

She put "Beauty and the Beast," "Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You" and "Outside the Rain" back into her show, and added songs by Bob Seger and Dave Matthews Band.

"Has Anyone Ever Written Anything for You" is performed in front of a video montage of American soldiers in noncombat situations.

"It's great, but I couldn't look back at the video," says Nicks, who believes she'd lose it if she did. "It's beautiful and poignant. It had everyone in tears."

Nicks, who filmed a PBS "Soundstage" episode to air this summer, had more to say about her music and tour.

Q. When you look over your solo repertoire with a collection like "Crystal Visions — The Very Best of Stevie Nicks," are there any regrets?

A. I have no regrets. I did everything pretty right. The only thing was in 1986, with the tranquilizers (she says it was Alonpin). I got through the pot and the cocaine and the Kool menthols and still worked. But the tranquilizers stole my soul. It was a very sad time. I curled up and didn't do anything. I could have made one or two more Fleetwood Mac records, and my own repertoire would've been 30 to 40 percent bigger.

Q. You released "Timespace — the Best of Stevie Nicks" in 1991. What makes "Crystal Visions — the Very Best of Stevie Nicks," the very best?

A. Some of it is live, some of it is hot new mixes, some of it is video with me sitting and doing commentary over each video and telling people what the song is about and what was happening in my life when the song was being made. That's interesting and fun to me because it's not just greatest hits.

Q. Dixie Chicks and Billy Corgan both covered "Landslide." What's the preferred version?

A. I love the Dixie Chicks, and I love Billy Corgan's version, crazy as it was. I'm friends with the Dixie Chicks and I got to sing it with them in a four-part harmony, and they brought it back in a huge way. Now the version I do is different, and the Dixie Chicks made that possible.

Q. Your songs have been heavily remixed by dance-music technicians, including the Deep Dish remix of "Dreams" on "Crystal Visions." How do you feel about your material getting this treatment?

A. I love them. I work out to all these dance remixes. With Deep Dish, they asked whether they should use my old vocal, or another singer, or if I could sing it over. I said I'll be there in an hour. It was a thrill to put a brand-new vocal on it, though it sounds similar to the old (one). My voice doesn't change.

Q. Destiny's Child used "Edge of Seventeen" for its hit "Bootylicious." What was your thought on that?

A. I know Beyoncé fairly well, and she's a doll. She asked me if she could do it, then she called and asked me to be in the video. As a writer, 50 percent of that song is mine. Every time that song is played, Beyoncé and I make the same money.

Q. When can we expect the next Stevie Nicks studio project?

A. I don't know. That's why I'm doing more greatest hits and going back in the vaults and finding cool stuff that might bring people out to Borders and Starbucks to buy a record. I can do a solo record, but what will happen is 1,000 hard-core fans will buy it and push the send button and send it to 5 million others. That makes me wonder, why bother? People are stealing our songs.

Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You

Stevie performing at the Hard Rock Live, Hollywood, Florida, June 7, 2008

Stevie Nicks talks Crow

06.10.2008 9:29 am
Stevie Nicks talks Crow, Winehouse on way to Chaifetz Arena Friday
By: Kevin C. Johnson

Stevie Nicks has somehow managed to escape my interview clutches these past 20 years I’ve spent writing about music, and my chat with her last week was worth the wait.

Nicks, a longtime favorite of mine who performs at Chaifetz Arena on Friday, called my home office last week in the midst of a tornado warning that made national news. She was watching the news reports while at a tour stop, asked if I was OK, and said if I needed to hurry off the phone at any point because of the weather, it was cool.

She was a great interview, chatty, revealing and forthright. The interview runs in the Post-Dispatch in Thursday’s Get Out, and will be online at http://www.stltoday.com/, but her comments on Sheryl Crow and Amy Winehouse are only found here.

Crow made some headlines recently when she suggested she’d fill in for Christine McVie on the Fleetwood Mac tour next year. But Nicks shot down the idea of her friend joining her on the road with the veteran band.

“Sheryl and I discussed this in the nicest of ways. Sheryl has a new baby, and a new baby is all encompassing. We decided it wasn’t the best idea,” says Nicks. “I had to explain to her the ups and downs of being in a band like Fleetwood Mac. You sign your name on the contract and it’s like being in the Army. You don’t have your own life anymore. That’s why I went solo.”

There will be no second female vocalist with Nicks on the Fleetwood Mac tour. Instead, a backing singer will step up to the plate. “We’re excited about this, because now there are five or six songs we love that we can put back into the show,” says Nicks.

Nicks, whose past problems with substances are well known, has words for the constantly troubled Winehouse about getting her act together before she’s forgotten. Nicks’ advice comes from a loving place, she says.

“I will always think of myself as a drug addict, and it’s hard to tell a drug addict to stop doing drugs. They have to wake up and say I’m done, have that epiphany, get on a plane and go to rehab and stay there for two months,” says Nicks.

You gotta love Stevie Nicks.

Tickets to her concert Friday are $45-$95, available through MetroTix outlets, www.metrotix.com, and by calling 314-534-1111 (go to MetroTix’s web site and get half off lower level tickets using promotional code MAC, up until 5 p.m. Tuesday).

Peter Cincotti was just announced as Nicks’ opening act.

Lindsey Buckingham UTS Tour Stats (update)

Managed to find additional dates and tour grosses for Lindsey's Under The Skin Tour. Additions to the list are marked with an asterisk.

Stevie Nicks at Hard Rock Live (Review)

(photo - Hard Rock 2007)
Stevie Nicks

Saturday, June 7

Hard Rock Live

Browardpalmbeach.com

Better than: Watching Stevie Nicks 10 years from now.

The body of Stevie Nicks turned 60 last month. Her voice has been 60 for a while.

Maybe it was all that coke in the '70s, or maybe it was that her vocal cords weren’t durable enough to handle her preferred mode of singing. I suspect it was the latter — Stevie’s always cited Janis Joplin as a prime influence, but she never had Janis’s chainsaw pipes, nor the dubious good fortune to die at 27. In the '70s, Stevie Nicks performed like a blues shouter even while her recorded output highlighted a voice better suited to witchy balledeering, and even back then her fans worshiped her primarily as a crone in the making.

She’s not in-the-making anymore — now she really is a crone, and her fans love her for it. They went genuinely apeshit at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino last night, with the first twelve rows erupting into near-moshing when guitarist Wally Wachtel ended a long solo by segueing into “Edge of Seventeen." The Hard Rock isn’t known for volatile crowds, and the reactions down front were more intensely physical than anything Aerosmith ever got in the same venue. Nicks fans are passionate people.

They’re also, I might add, exactly the same demo you might have seen at a Hillary Clinton rally a few short months ago. They are overwhelmingly white, female, and middle-aged, with a few old hippies tossed in for grit. There’s plenty of lesbians and skinny young white girls who can’t dance, but are willing to try. I counted four blacks in the auditorium. All of these people are madly in love with a white, 60-year-old woman with a sometimes-grating voice and a history of relationship trouble. Their devotion is so intense that, when fully demonstrated, it looks a little creepy.

In the case of the Nicks fans, you can understand why. Despite the shocking limitations of her vocal range — which I’m pretty sure doesn’t even span an octave anymore — Nicks’ performance is surprisingly muscular. Heartfelt too, which is even weirder (how a singer can stay attached to a song like “Gold Dust Woman,” which implores you to “Rock on ancient woman/follow those who pale in your shadow,” is anybody’s guess). Since Stevie’s touring in support of a greatest hits package (Crystal Visions), her current show sticks mostly to the lollipops that even non-Nicksians can dig, but she never sounds tired of the material. Last night, she seemed most engaged when tearing into the most obvious of chestnuts, like a huge, raucous version of “Stand Back” or the long slow build of “Rhiannon,” which she brought to an acceptably molten climax (she’s been fiddling with the end of that song since 1975, and only now has she finally gotten it right). She only seriously faltered when she tried doing something new, like a version of Zep’s “Rock’n’Roll” which was a whole helluvalot more staid than the original, or a version of Dave Matthews’ “Crash Into You” that made you appreciate Dave’s charms as a singer.

The set was under two hours but felt a little longer, probably because Stevie kept darting backstage to change bits of her costume. Since all of her costumes were pretty much identical, it’s hard to say why she bothered. If I were her, I would have used that time to do something about my boots. Stevie Nicks’ footwear looks like some kind of medieval torture device, equipped with huge, cruel heels that force her to do the entire show en pointe. This may be the reason Stevie refused to move around the stage during the show. Not once did she come over to our section, off to the side of stage left. She remained glued to the five feet around her monitors at center stage, and though she seemed mobile enough in that circumscribed little area, it would have been nice to see her up close — especially since those of us at the sides of the arena couldn’t see the video screen mounted behind the drummer (I assume that’s where it was mounted — like I said, I couldn’t see it). We were starved for visual stimulation, but Stevie didn’t care.

The long-time Stevie fan sitting next to me noticed this, and complained about it. She also noted that Stevie should stay the hell away from Dave Matthews songs, and commented on the unfortunate state of Stevie’s vocal cords. Even so, she said she “loved the concert” and thought it was “wonderful.” This is what it means to be a fan of Stevie Nicks, or even Hillary Clinton: it’s not the execution that matters, but the gusto of the attempt.

--Brandon K. Thorp

Stevie Nicks - Hard Rock Hotel - June 7, 2008 (3 Pics)

Stevie Nicks performs in concert at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Florida on June 7, 2008.
Photo/Michael Bush