Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way" Achieves 1 Billion Streams

 

Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way" has achieved 1 BILLION STREAMS on Spotify.  This is the 3rd track to reach that level following "Dreams" and "The Chain".

Stevie Nicks Live in London "Let’s hope she’ll be back for one last dance"

Stevie Nicks – BST Hyde Park, London, July 12

Harry Styles helps put the seal on an evening of leather, lace and memories

By Piers Martin

Uncut

Photo By laurenfrida on IG

Things were different the last time Stevie Nicks played Hyde Park. That was in 2017, when she opened for her best friend Tom Petty and joined him during his headline set for a run through “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around”, the hit the Heartbreakers wrote for her in 1981.

Petty is no longer with us, and nor is Christine McVie, Nicks’ soulmate in Fleetwood Mac, who’d become a fixture in that band again after years in the wilderness. “Whenever I’ve been hurt in my life, I’ve always run to the stage – and it’s always helped me,” says a visibly moved Nicks at the end of tonight’s set, before gesturing to the crowd: “You’ve always helped me.”

The stage is all Nicks has known for the past 50 years – and this sell-out Friday at British Summer Time is all about her. Her corner of Hyde Park is a sea of tasselled jackets, lace dresses, Stetsons and cowboy boots. A Nicks performance, or one by Fleetwood Mac, has been a rite of passage for millennials in the 21st century, and such occasions are becoming increasingly rare. 

These days, Nicks is a strangely ageless cosmic diva whose look, like her material, has remained unchanged since her mid-’80s prime. At 76, her voice is a little hoarser, and it was touch and go whether this show would even go ahead after she postponed earlier dates in Manchester and Glasgow following minor leg surgery. 

Nicks has been on the road pretty much full-time for two years, playing more or less the same 15-song set each show, but such is her charisma and the mythology of her songbook that you want to believe that she’s not going through the motions. She talks us through her famous shawls, and rambles endearingly about the circumstances that led to Stephen Stills writing “For What It’s Worth”, which she gives a political slant here by urging us to use our vote, maybe unaware the UK had an election last week. 

Her seasoned band, led by her longtime guitarist Waddy Wachtel, who’s flanked by the equally capable Carlos Rios, are well-oiled and more than happy to lay it on thick during a combustible “Gold Dust Woman”. They tear into “Stand Back”, “Edge Of Seventeen” and “Free Fallin’” as if they’re fresh out of college. Nicks’ mystical heartland pop is still best realised in the Mac’s “Dreams” and “Gypsy”, the latter a 1982 love-letter to her nomadic self of the late-’60s. In many ways she’s been chasing that feeling ever since, which explains why the songs she performs span that golden period from 1975 to 1983, when everything went right, and which resonate so deeply with her fans. 

She brings out her voice coach, Steve Real, for “Leather And Lace”. He sings Don Henley’s part beautifully on the Bella Donna ballad, each looking into the other’s eyes, the purity in his voice contrasting with her coarser vocal.

For the encore, it’s genuinely thrilling when Harry Styles walks onstage with a guitar to play rhythm and sing “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” with Nicks, and after that “Landslide” – songs they’ve played together before but which here elevate what would have been a decent run-of-the-mill concert to an event that will be hard to forget. 

Dressed in a loose dark suit and light green shirt, a colourful songbird brooch on his lapel, Styles is a class act and seems a little overwhelmed at first, but helps Nicks deliver an emotional “Landslide” as a montage of images of Christine McVie roll across the huge screens. Today would have been her 81st birthday, Nicks points out. “Time makes you bolder, even children get older – and I’m getting older, too,” she sings in “Landslide”. Let’s hope she’ll be back for one last dance. 

Setlist

• Outside The Rain
• Dreams
• If Anyone Falls
• Gypsy
• For What It’s Worth
• Free Fallin’
• Wild Heart
• Bella Donna
• Stand Back
• Leather And Lace
• Gold Dust Woman
• Edge Of Seventeen

Encore

• Rhiannon
• Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around
• Landslide

Free Fallin'

GYPSY

Stevie Nicks and Harry Styles Hyde Park London July 12, 2024

Harry Styles and Stevie Nicks Duet in Tribute to Christine McVie at BST Hyde Park Concert Christine McVie would have turned 81 on Friday.

By Thania Garcia

Variety

Photo: MJ Hewitt

Harry Styles joined Stevie Nicks‘ headlining set for the BST Hyde Park concert series on Friday for a duet of “Stop Dragging My Heart Around” and “Landslide.” Before he appeared on stage, Nicks told the audience in London that she asked Styles to help her in commemorating what would have been her late Fleetwood Mac bandmate Christine McVie‘s 81st birthday.

“At the end of the show, since the end of last year and since Christine passed away, I would say something about her, and I asked Harry to do this with me and it’s a lot to ask someone to sing a heavy song about a best friend that died so suddenly and so sadly,” she said. “What I want to say to you is that Christine was Harry’s girl, she was my girl, she was your girl, and she loved all of you, and today would’ve been her birthday.”

Styles was wearing an embroidered songbird pin, making a reference to McVie’s vocal performance in “Songbird,” the piano ballad off Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 album “Rumours.”

Styles has not appeared on stage for a performance since the end of his “Love On Tour” on July 22, 2023 in Italy. His last full-length album was 2022’s “Harry’s House,” which won a Grammy for album of the year. He has remained largely out of the spotlight since.

Nicks, meanwhile, told the crowd at BST Hyde Park that she often turns to the stage when she is dealing with something as heavy as the sudden passing of McVie: “One thing that my mom used to say to me when I was little was… When I was hurt, she’d go ‘Stevie when you’re hurt, you always run to the stage.’ And that’s what I’ve been doing since Chris passed away.”

Nicks is a headliner for the concert series that also includes performances by Kings of Leon, Kylie Minogue, the Corrs, Stray Kids, Shania Twain, Robbie Williams and Andrea Bocelli.

Harry Styles joins Stevie Nicks in Hyde Park for tributes to Tom Petty and Christine McVie The pair performed ‘Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around’ and ‘Landslide’

Kevin E G Perry Los Angeles

Independent UK

Photo: Ben Maden

Harry Styles joined Stevie Nicks as a surprise guest during the Fleetwood Mac singer’s headline performance at BST Hyde Park on Friday (July 12).

The former One Direction star, 30, duetted with Nicks, 76, on “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” which she originally released in 1981 with the late Tom Petty and his band The Heartbreakers.

Nicks performed the song with Petty in Hyde Park in 2017, just months before the rock icon’s death at 66.

On stage at tonight’s show, Nicks said of Petty: “This is a special day for a lot of reasons, to be back here because I feel his presence. I know he’s at this event and he’s happy with me here.”

Styles remained on stage to perform the 1975 Fleetwood Mac classic “Landslide,” before Nicks delivered an emotional tribute to her late bandmate Christine McVie. McVie, who died in 2022 at the age of 79, would have turned 81 today.

Nicks told the crowd: “I want you to know that Christine was my girl and she loved all of us and today was her birthday.”

She added: “All of you have helped me get over [her death] and I want you to know how much I appreciate it.”

Nicks also thanked Styles for joining her on stage, saying: “Harry, I thank you - we thank you!”

Elsewhere in the concert, Nicks urged the crowd to be politically active and said she had never voted until she turned 70. “I was too busy,” she said. “Don’t be me; vote.”

Back in 2019, Nicks joked that Styles is the “love child” of her and her bandmate, Mick Fleetwood, after praising him for his eponymous debut album.

“He’s Mick’s and my love child,” Nicks told Rolling Stone. “When Harry came into our lives I said, ‘Oh my God, this is the son I never had.’ So I adopted him.

“I love Harry, and I’m so happy Harry made a rock and roll record – he could have made a pop record and that would have been the easy way for him,” she continued. “But I guess he decided he wanted to be born in 1948 too – he made a record that was more like 1975.”

That same year, Styles inducted Nicks into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame.

“Stevie Nicks is the first female artist to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a second time,” said Styles during the ceremony. “First, with Fleetwood Mac, and now for her unforgettable solo work. With Stevie, you’re not celebrating music from long ago through the mists of time. She was standing on stage headlining a place doing her best work just three nights ago. She is forever current. She is forever Stevie.”

Harry Styles, Stevie Nicks Duet ‘Landslide’ in Emotional Tribute to Christine McVie The duo also performed "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" at Hyde Park in London

BY ETHAN MILLMAN

Rollingstone

Stevie Nicks brought out longtime friend Harry Styles to join her for hits “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” and “Landslide” during her concert at Hyde Park in London on Friday night, with Nicks taking the time to commemorate Christine McVie on what would’ve been her 81st birthday. McVie died in November of 2022 after suffering a stroke.

The show marks Styles’ first live performance since finishing his Love On Tour last year.

“Christine was Harry’s girl, she was my girl, she was your girl,” Nicks told the crowd in London on Friday. “She loved all of us, today was her birthday. It’s taken me all this time to try and be able to deal with this situation. One thing my mom used to say to me when I was little was when I was hurt, she’d go ‘Stevie when you’re hurt you always run to the stage. That’s what I’ve been doing ever since Chris passed away, is running to the stage. The only people that have been able to help me to get over this has been all of you.”

This isn’t the first time the two have played those songs live together; Nicks joined Styles to play “Landslide” at the Forum in Los Angeles at the end of 2019, and they played “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction ceremony that same year when Styles inducted Nicks into the Hall.

“With Stevie, you’re not celebrating music from long ago through the mists of time,” Styles said in his induction speech that night. “She was standing on stage headlining a place doing her best work just three nights ago. She is forever current. She is forever Stevie.”

STOP DRAGGIN' MY HEART AROUND

RHIANNON

LANDSLIDE

Stevie Nicks Postpones Glasgow and Manchester Shows

Due to a recent leg injury requiring a minor surgical procedure that will need a few days of recovery time, Stevie Nicks’ scheduled performances in Glasgow Saturday 6 July and Manchester Tuesday 9 July have been postponed. More information will be available at point of purchase, ticketholders are advised to hold on to their tickets as rescheduled dates will be announced soon. 

Updated July 11, 2024

The Dates were rescheduled as follows:

• Manchester will now take place on Tuesday, July 16th
• Glasgow will now take place on Wednesday, July 24th

The show in Antwerpen originally scheduled for July 16th has been canceled and won't be rescheduled.  

Stevie Nicks’ show in the Irish capital proves she can still cast plenty of magic

Stevie Nicks Live Review: 

Fleetwood Mac singer flies solo in Dublin.

by Pat Carty

Mojo Magazine

Having announced the end of Fleetwood Mac to MOJO last month, Stevie Nicks’ show in the Irish capital proves she can still cast plenty of magic on her own.

Speaking in the latest issue of MOJO, Stevie Nicks confirmed what many fans had feared. That following the death of Christine McVie in 2022, a rapprochement between her and Lindsey Buckingham was not on the cards and Fleetwood Mac were essentially no more. At the same time, she offered hope for her fans.

“I would rather not be freed up from Fleetwood Mac, because of Christine. But I’m in a place when I can concentrate on my solo work. I can do anything I want now and not have to worry about stopping and going back to Fleetwood Mac,” she told MOJO’s Bob Mehr, before stating that she plans to carry on as she always has, ever since she was little girl: “To get up and dance and put on outfits and sing and tell stories.”

It's precisely what her Dublin fans - who’ve been on Nicks watch ever since she was spotted at last weekend’s Taylor Swift show and joined Swift for a night out in the city -  are here in their droves to see. That many of them have made the effort to dress in imitation of their idol only adds to the joyous atmosphere.

When the lights go down and Tom Petty’s Running Down A Dream comes out of the speakers, the excitement goes up another notch and then there she is, dressed in black, hair almost to her waist and drawers’ worth of scarves tied round her mic stand.

She begins with Outside The Rain, from 1981’s solo debut Bella Donna. As she was on the record, Nicks is joined by Waddy Wachtel (Keith Richards, Warren Zevon, Linda Ronstadt, Randy Newman) on the guitar. The veteran session player is here both to marshal the troops and act as a foil to Nicks and he gives good Lindsey Buckingham during Dreams, which is greeted with a surge of euphoria.

Is it Nick’s greatest song? Possibly. Does it show a certain chutzpah throwing it out this early in the game? Definitely. Even back in the gods, the roar along to the chorus from the floor is deafening. Wachtel throws a few Keith Richards-like shapes as ballet dancers sway on the screens during an equally useful If Anyone Falls In Love from 1983’s The Wild Heart, another million selling solo record, then Nicks pauses to start telling some of those stories.

She recalls how producer Jimmy Iovine came to her at the end of the recording of Bella Donna to say they needed a single. Fortunately, Iovine was also working with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers at the time and they had a song. Nicks went to his house and met Petty for the first time - “way overdressed” she remembers “and we did it.”

With Wachtel taking Petty’s vocal parts, the song in question, Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around, rocks magnificently as images of Nicks and all her fabulous showbiz friends in the 70s play out behind them. Despite being released in 2011, the warm FM radio sound of Nicks’ reading of Crosby Stills And Nash’s For What It’s Worth feels like it could have plucked from the same era.

The crowd sing along so enthusiastically to Gypsy from Fleetwood Mac’s 1982 album Mirage that they stumble ahead on occasion but the three-part vocal from the stage is beautiful. Wild Heart, Bella Donna, and Stand Back (Nicks gives it some trademark twirl during the latter) all land wonderfully, although a surprise Soldier’s Angel from 2011’s In Your Dreams is a more admirable sentiment than it is a song.

They’re all forgotten, however, when an exaggerated version of the intro to Gold Dust Woman is recognised. It’s also given an extended outro here, which transforms it into glorious swirling maelstrom of sound.

She brings out her vocal coach Steve Real, who acquits himself admirably and shows why he got the job, for Leather And Lace (given their past, a Don Henley appearance on the song was always unlikely) but there’s a bit of a misstep at the start of Edge Of Seventeen. The song’s instantly recognisable muffled riff sounds out only for the band to temporarily bury it under some back passing noodling, but once they get that out of their system the place nearly melts down.

While Nicks pauses before the encore, it should be noted that this show is not without its problems. She promised to tell stories and accordingly there are rambling introductions to several songs. Often as long, if not longer than the tunes they precede. For some this is manna from heaven as they hang on every word. Others would prefer Nicks sing more songs (Sara, Silver Springs, Storms, and those are just the S ones) rather than deliver monologues. We overhear one woman wondering if she’d been ripped off, while another beamingly declares she’s loving every second. On balance, it wouldn’t do any harm to rein it in a smidgen as the breaks slow the momentum.

Never mind all that now though, because Nicks is back for an encore that washes away all sins. The high notes might not be all quite there (although it must be acknowledged that, despite the very occasional slip-up, Nicks’ voice is an age-defying wonder throughout the evening), but the sound of Rhiannon, a bewitching meld of drums, guitar and the vocals of both Nicks and her two backing singers, is mesmerising. Even this is surpassed by another song from 1975’s Fleetwood Mac, the beyond beautiful Landslide. Nicks sings it in front of a collage of images of McVie, and it is as moving as it was when she sung it over Lindsey Buckingham’s acoustic guitar during the last full Fleetwood Mac shows in this building in 2015.

Surely everyone in attendance this evening would wish that wasn’t the case, but when Stevie Nicks is on form, as she is for the most part tonight, she doesn’t really need a return to the fold.

Stevie Nicks Live in Dublin July 3, 2024

Stevie Nicks in Dublin review: The singer is not ready to hand over her mantle to Taylor Swift or anyone else

The bona fide legend gives fans at the 3Arena moments they will never forget

Stevie Nicks

3Arena - Dublin

★★★★☆

by Lauren Murphy

Photos: Nick Bradshaw/The Irish Times

The first time that Stevie Nicks played Ireland in November 1989, her fellow musical entertainer Taylor Swift wasn’t even born. Yet just a few days ago, Nicks thrilled the parents in the audience at Swift’s Aviva Stadium gig by making a masked appearance in the VIP tent. Some 50,000 people found themselves in the presence of both rock and pop royalty as Swift, the biggest pop star in the world, paid tribute to her hero’s genius.

Tonight at the 3Arena, there is no sign of the Princess of Pop and friendship bracelets returning the favour, but the Swift Effect is visible nonetheless: there is a decidedly younger faction to the audience, many of them dressed in the boho-style skirts made famous by Nicks in Fleetwood Mac’s 1970s heyday.

Although there had been much (understandable) gnashing of teeth at the eye-watering ticket prices, Nicks’ first solo appearance in Ireland in almost a decade is undoubtedly an event gig. And with little chance of Fleetwood Mac reforming after the death of Christine McVie in 2022 – Nicks recently vowed that “There is no chance…. without [McVie], it just couldn’t work” – fans have flocked to the temple for the opportunity to worship their goddess.

This is no mere run-through of her former band’s songs, though. As Nicks takes the stage just after 8pm, her trademark long blonde tresses easy to spot even from the furthest point of the 3Arena, it is a solo song, Outside the Rain, that she opens with.

It’s followed by the swift canter of Dreams, before she launches into the first of several long and amusing stories about recording Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around with Tom Petty for her 1981 debut solo album Bella Donna.

Indeed, tonight’s show could have been billed as “An Evening with Stevie Nicks”, as her stories are almost as entertaining as her songs. One, which recounted living in poverty with Lindsey Buckingham (“we were so poor that our car didn’t have a reverse gear”) and their first meeting with the members of Fleetwood Mac is particularly enjoyable, and leaves many fans wondering what stories she may yet have up her billowing sleeve if she ever decided to pen a memoir.

Now 76, Nicks is clearly a little less steady on her feet and there are less “whirling dervish” spins around the stage than there used to be, and more between-song breaks as her fine band fills time or she goes to change another of her trademark capes.

Nevertheless, her distinctive voice remains in glorious fettle – whether it’s taking on a cover of Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth, a duet with her vocal coach Steve Real (standing in for Don Henley) on Leather and Lace, or on a strident Edge of Seventeen, which brings many of the crowd to their feet.

Soldier’s Angel, a turgid ballad that she dedicates to the war-torn people of Ukraine, is the only real mis-hit in a set list largely drawn from her early solo albums – while the stage visuals, although in keeping with Nicks’ mystical aura, are occasionally a little naff.

There’s even an unexpected shout-out to Irish TikTok comedian Garron Noone, whose videos Nicks says she has been enjoying, before launching into a knockout two-song encore of Rhiannon and Landslide. The former is a highlight of the evening, Nicks’ voice swarthy and impassioned as she shakes her trademark scarf-draped tambourine. The latter, however, provides a moment that will undoubtedly live on in many of the audience’s memories as images of Nicks and the late Christine McVie from across the decades are projected behind her. It’s a moving dedication and the line “And I’m getting older too…” seems especially poignant tonight, although Nicks seems adamant that she’ll be back to Dublin soon. Not yet ready to hand over her mantle – to Swift or anyone else, it seems – she tells the crowd that she has been “running to the stage” to try to cope with McVie’s death in recent years. If tonight’s anything to go by, she’ll continue to be met with a welcome embrace by Irish audiences in thrall to a bona fide legend.

Setlist

• Outside the Rain
• Dreams
• If Anyone Falls
• Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around
• For What It’s Worth
• Gypsy
• Wild Heart
• Bella Donna
• Stand Back
• Gold Dust Woman
• Leather and Lace
• Edge of Seventeen

Encore:

• Rhiannon
• Landslide

Stevie Nicks Takes In Taylor Swift Dublin Show

Stevie Nicks was in the VIP tent at Taylor Swifts Eras Tour night 3 in Dublin June 30, 2024.  During the show she performed "Clara Bow" for the first time, a song off her most recent album The Tortured Poets Department. In the song, she references Stevie Nicks.  In the videos below watch Taylor introduce the song mentioning Stevie and Stevie in the VIP tent capturing the moment on her phone!  Julia Roberts was also there, she's the blonde to Stevie's right with the glasses.  

"You look like Stevie Nicks
In '75, the hair and lips
Crowd goes wild at her fingertips
Half moonshine, a full eclipse"

 

“The reason I want to play this tonight is because a friend of mine is here who’s watching the show and who has been one of the reasons why I, or any female artist, get to do what we get to do. She’s become friends with so many female artists just to be a guiding hand. I can’t tell you how rare that is. She’s a hero of mine and also someone that I can tell any secret and she’d never tell anybody. She’s really helped me through so much over the years. I’m talking about Stevie Nicks!”

Mick Fleetwood Confirms New Solo Album In The Works

"LOSING SWEET CHRISTINE WAS CATASTROPHIC" 

Are Fleetwood Mac really finished?

Bob Mehr asked Mick Fleetwood 

Mojo Magazine  - August 2024

FOR MICK FLEETWOOD - the one constant figure and unwavering force during the entire 57-year journey of Fleetwood Mac- the last few years have been, by his own admission, a personal and professional challenge.

When the most recent incarnation of Fleetwood Mac-Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie, and Stevie Nicks, aided by Neil Finn and Mike Campbell-played the last show of a year-long world tour in November 2019, the drummer didn't think it would be a final farewell.

"There was a full intention, without waiting too long, that we'd go and pick things back up." says Fleetwood. "That we'd play stadiums, big shows, and festivals... and then at that point it was heading towards us saying goodbye." 

However, in early 2020- just after Fleetwood led an all-star concert tribute to late Mac founder Peter Green at the London Palladium - lockdown scuttled further touring plans. An even bigger blow to the future of Fleetwood Mac came in November of 2022, with the death of Christine McVie.

Though Fleetwood is open to the idea of adding a final chapter to the band's story, he is mostly resigned to the fact that Fleetwood Mac, or as he puts it "the mothership", may be harboured permanently.

"It's been a strange time for me," admits Fleetwood. "Losing sweet Christine was catastrophic. And then, in my world, sort of losing the band too. And I [split] with my partner as well. I just found myself "licking my wounds."

Then, last summer, Fleetwood's adopted home of Maui, Hawaii-specifically the city of Lahaina - was ravaged by a series of wildfires that killed over 100 people, and destroyed some 80 per cent of its homes and businesses, including his long-running restaurant, Fleetwood's, on Front Street.

“It was a hardcore hit for everyone on this lovely little island," says Fleetwood. "I mean, we're just Lucky to be here, but there was a lot of terrible loss, lots of people without homes, people who were badly affected.”

Nearly a year after the fires, Fleetwood says the residents of Lahaina “are making progress. And people are coming back to the island, which gives us a lot of hope of coming through this. It just takes time. Even I’m starting to think about bringing back my crazy little restaurant. It was a place where people around here would gather and commune.”

More recently, Fleetwood saw solace and found, renewed inspiration and playing music again. “I had to just get off my bottom, “he says. “I was sitting around twiddling my fingers for a long time. I finally plugged into the fact that I’m a drummer, I need to go play.” Fleetwood confirms he’s in the middle of making a new solo record, his first in 20 years. “And believe it or not, I’m actually starting to sing so God help you,” he adds, laughing.

In between work on the project, Fleetwood will spend part of the summer in the UK, where he's planning on attending Nick‘s Hyde Park concert in July, as well as shows by recent bandmate Neil Finns group Crowded House, and his old pal, ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons.

"I'm gonna get myself a vicarious fix," says Fleetwood. "For once, I get to be a punter in the audience and see them do all the work."

Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks delivered 37 songs in brilliant succession June 21, 2024

Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks conquer Soldier Field in crowd-pleasing twin bill

The rock legends delivered their greatest hits and more in a four-hour summer night celebration.

By  Selena Fragassi

Chicago Sun Times 

Photos: Ashlee Rezin

Four hours was barely enough time for the Two Icons, One Night tour at on Friday night at Soldier Field. Commencing at 7:15 p.m. and wrapping at 11:25 p.m., the catalog-busting doubleheader from Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks delivered 37 songs in brilliant succession, but still left fans wanting more.

It’s greedy to even say. The two legends are an incredible 75 and 76 years old, respectively, and the fact they are still performing at this level is a gift. Nicks just returned to the stage after an illness that sidelined her gigs in Michigan and Pennsylvania over the past week and kept apologizing for being hoarse and “not her best” (she could’ve fooled us). Joel kept using throat spray and had his own disclaimers for not being able to hit the high notes in “An Innocent Man” (no one seemed to mind).

Such limitations aside, both performers gave it their all amid a winding summer stadium trek that also marked their first time sharing a stage in our city. The pinnacle came as they joined together to duet on “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” Nicks’s 1981 collaboration with the late Tom Petty.

Even while being able to hear “Gold Dust Woman” on the same night as “We Didn’t Start The Fire” was itself a total rock and roll fantasy, it still was a mere tease of the voluminous songbooks from two music icons who have been performing a collective 118 years.

“If it seems like I’m rushed tonight, I am,” Nicks shared as she opened the festivities, donning her iconic black velvet, witchy ensemble in the near 90-degree heat, and explaining she had to curtail her typically juicy storytelling between songs. She still managed a few gems, like recalling working with Petty, and the tale of hearing Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” on the radio years ago and desiring to cover it. Nicks did so on this night, using the track’s political overtones to pivot to an endorsement to vote, lamenting she didn’t do so until she was 70 years old.

The 14-song set was almost identical to her headlining date at United Center last June, with the addition of “Leather and Lace” as her gifted vocal coach Steve Real filled in for Don Henley’s parts. But something felt heavier on this night, in the wake of her recent interview with Mojo in which she declared there’s “no chance of putting Fleetwood Mac back together in any way.”

There was a new immediacy to hearing “Rhiannon” and “Dreams” and of course “Landslide.” The latter was flanked by a slideshow of throwback images of Nicks and the late Christine McVie. As their baby faces took over the screens, the lyrical line “even children get older” took on more meaning and became a cornerstone of the entire night. It was hard not to reflect on time passed, how much has changed, and yet how much this music and coming-of-age songs still have a hold on us.

As Billy Joel reigned in the second half of the night, that sentiment carried over. It hit a fever pitch on “Piano Man,” as Joel let the audience take over the last verse. It soon morphed into a spirited acapella singalong, thousands of camera lights held high in the air, as the capacity crowd begged him to “sing us a song tonight.”

Nostalgia waved over the performer during moments like these in the 23-song set delivered from a bare-bones stage. After serenading the crowd with a snippet of “My Kind of Town,” he thanked everyone for “making me a lucky man … I had no idea I’d still be doing this at 75.”

He also recalled a time when he could do flips off the piano, admitting, “I’m a little too long in the tooth now.” And he tore through some of his most gilded works, sticking heavily to cuts from 1977’s “The Stranger,” 1978’s “52nd Street” and 1980’s “Glass Houses.”

Other standouts included the opener “My Life,” in which Joel showed his never-wavering dexterity on the keys, as well as a barbershop rendition of “The Longest Time” featuring four of his multi-talented bandmates, and a rousing edition of “We Didn’t Start The Fire” with Joel on guitar.

Unexpected moments included a cover of The Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up,” foreshadowing that band’s impending takeover of Soldier Field, and several of Joel’s eight-piece backing ensemble getting moments to shine. Among them was Gary, Indiana, native Crystal Taliefero aceing Ike and Tina Turner’s “River Deep Mountain High,” and Mike DelGuidice offering an unreal operatic turn with Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma.”

Friday night was an incredibly special moment to see Joel live — even if the venue was a big change from his home-away-from-home at Wrigley Field. The gig falls smack dab in his long-running residency at Madison Square Garden and just ahead of his 150th and final show at the legendary New York venue on July 25.

Stevie Nicks Live in Chicago June 21, 2024 with Billy Joel

Review: Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks at Soldier Field was a night reliving the years with a couple of music icons

By BOB GENDRON

Chicago Tribune

Photos: John J. Kim

It’s good to be Billy Joel. The veteran singer-songwriter admitted as much Friday at a packed Soldier Field, where he and Stevie Nicks concluded the 2024 stretch of their ongoing Two Icons One Night trek. And really, how could he not?

Primarily seated at a grand piano that rotated on a turntable, and surrounded by a versatile eight-piece band, an affable Joel entertained a football stadium’s worth of people while barely breaking a sweat amid a punishing heat wave. Holding court with recognizable oldies, laissez-faire attitude, goofball humor and his trademark flyswatter, he inhabited the titular role of his signature tune, “Piano Man.”

Sure, the stage was far grander, and the tip jar transformed into merch stands hawking $100 sweatshirts. Yet the gist of Joel’s 135-minute concert connected to the feeling of performances given in bars everywhere by pianists who always take the same requests and still manage to smile: comfort, reminiscence and sing-a-long melodies that slosh around in your head.

At Joel’s outdoor establishment, nostalgia, familiarity and professionalism ruled. The most recent song he sang dated back to President Clinton’s first term. The slickest visuals amounted to the backdrop screens depicting an iPad revealing finger-swiped images of historical figures cited in the listicle anthem “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” Joel’s retro-minded approach proved wise. A production with the extravagance embraced by modern pop stars would’ve looked silly.

Besides, who needs choreography teams or pyrotechnics when faithful readings of doo-wop classics get the crowd on its feet? Or when a short snippet of “Hey Joe” — the bluesy revenge tune popularized by Jimi Hendrix — generated pleas for Joel to continue to the next stanza? With cameras panning the audience for reactions and consistently displaying that most fans knew every word to every chorus of Joel’s songs, following the work-smarter-not-harder observations outlined in “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)” seemed a foregone conclusion.

No artist has more successfully traded on their back catalog than Joel. Though his contemporaries keep cranking out LPs, he figured out long ago that traditional release-and-promotion cycles could be bypassed without consequence at the box office. Joel recently said, for him, writing amounts to self-torture and fostered unhealthy addictions. With apparent seriousness, he also suggested that hardly anyone makes albums nowadays, which might surprise those who pay attention to the contemporary music scene.

No matter. Save for three originals, including one (“Turn the Lights Back On”) issued earlier this year, Joel effectively shut off the creative spigot decades ago. Rather than toil in a studio, he spent a majority of the past 30 years filling seats on his own terms. The singer ranks in the top 15 highest-grossing touring artists of all time. Banners touting his streaks of sold-out shows hang from the rafters of multiple East Coast arenas. Next month, Joel will end his unprecedented run of 150 sold-out hometown shows at Madison Square Garden, culminating a residency of the singer playing the venue on a monthly basis for 10 years.

Nice work, if you can get it. Joel mentioned he’s been lucky to do the same job since he was 15. Now 75, his head bald and neatly trimmed facial hair snowy white, the New York City native showed a levity that tended to escape him in the past. Joel derided one of his albums (“Streetlife Serenade”), placed his rock-star moves beneath those of Mick Jagger (a slowed and abbreviated version of the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up”), paused and stared at his watch to elicit a pun (“The Longest Time”) and jested about the lack of special effects.

He also half-jokingly offered a disclaimer regarding his uncertainty about reaching upper-register notes. It contained plenty of truth. Joel’s midrange and low-end scope remain solid. His falsetto, too, admirably blended with group vocals. But attempts at hitting or holding lofty highs failed. A rough ride through “An Innocent Man” found him not only ceding choral elements to others, but stumbling amid verses.

Fortunately, the vocal snafus were limited. Joel activated black-tie crooner mode for an apropos stab at “My Kind of Town,” stood on an imaginary streetcorner for the cascading doo-wop of “Uptown Girl” and unveiled tonal elasticity for the moonlit ballad “New York State of Mind.” Eyebrows arched and eyes wide, he often looked as if he was ready to bite into a tall triple-decker club sandwich when he went all-in on mid-tempo material. Ironically, the most soulful Joel got occurred when multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Crystal Taliefero led a cover of “River Deep — Mountain High” in the middle of “The River of Dreams.”

Brassy horns provided additional assists and paired well with Joel’s stable piano lines. Steadiness, sentimental journeys to fictitious neighborhood joints and check-ins with common characters steered Joel’s direction. Aside from a cover of Puccini’s operatic aria “Nessun dorma” sung by band member Mike DelGuidice, there were no surprises or diversions, and scant edginess to interfere with the breezy moods. Even songs about lust (the drab “Sleeping with the Television On,” the prophetic “Sometimes a Fantasy,” the clever “Only the Good Die Young”) blushed with a high degree of innocence.

“I am not an innocent man,” Joel declared toward the end of the show. Fair enough. His music and persona, however, thrive on that illusion.

Joel boasts more hits than Nicks, yet the Fleetwood Mac legend possessed more depth, charisma and grit. Almost a year to the day since her memorable 2023 show at United Center, the 76-year-old faced several challenges she avoided then. The opening slot forced her to trim her set and curtail her amusing song introductions, though she injected some storytelling by talking at a rapid clip. The biggest issue concerned Nicks’ voice.

She twice apologized for hoarseness and leaned on backing vocalists for extra support. Despite the shortcomings, which extended to overly sharp nasal deliveries, Nicks demonstrated why she continues to enjoy a late-career surge in appreciation and influence. Feisty and forward, the twice-inducted Rock and Roll Hall of Famer kept it real by presenting her raspy, warts-and-all singing without artificial enhancements. Her body language did the rest.

Twirling, curtseying, bowing, air drumming, tracing human silhouettes, leaning into a ribbon-festooned microphone stand as the wind blew her various shawls, capes and wraps: Nicks embodied a magnetic combination of physical energy and mystic mystery. After a threatening version of the serpentining classic “Gold Dust Woman,” she confessed her animated movements represented the struggle to live out the song.

For “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” Nicks invited Joel to step into the role originally occupied by Tom Petty. The duet lacked requisite heat. Joel’s tendency to stare at what appeared to be a TelePrompter scrolling the lyrics snuffed out any potential chemistry. Nicks’ collaboration with her vocal coach, Steve Real, on “Leather and Lace” fared better.

In terms of rock stars overstepping their bounds, one could fault Nicks for imploring people to vote before soon divulging she neglected to cast a ballot for most of her life. Yet given the way she attacked the cautionary “Stand Back” and raised her arm in triumph at its close, you might want to think twice before going after an icon who is having another moment.

Bob Gendron is a freelance critic.

Setlist from Soldier Field June 21:

Stevie Nicks

• “Outside the Rain”
• “Dreams” (Fleetwood Mac cover)
• “If Anyone Falls”
• “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around”
• “Gypsy” (Fleetwood Mac cover)
• “For What It’s Worth” (Buffalo Springfield cover)
• “Stand Back”
• “Bella Donna”
• “Gold Dust Woman” (Fleetwood Mac cover)
• “Leather and Lace”
• “Edge of Seventeen”

Encore

• “Rhiannon” (Fleetwood Mac cover)
• “Landslide” (Fleetwood Mac cover)

Fleetwood Mac Albums Chart Update Worldwide

 Fleetwood Mac this week on the Album Charts world wide... 

UK Top 100 Albums Chart

11 (10) 50 Years: Don’t Stop

24 (32) Rumours

UK Official Vinyl Albums Chart

8 (14) Rumours

SCOTLAND Official Albums Chart

16 (26) Rumours

67 (Re-entry) Fleetwood Mac

IRELAND Official Albums Chart

10 (9) 50 Years: Don’t Stop

25 (26) Rumours

USA BILLBOARD TOP 200 Albums

39 (36) Rumours

174 (181) Greatest Hits

USA Top Album Sales

18 (19) Rumours

USA Best Selling Vinyl Albums

14 (10) Rumours

CANADA Top 100 Albums Chart

37 (33) Rumours

AUSTRALIA Top 50 Albums Chart

30 (31) Rumours

AUSTRIA Top 75 Albums Chart

60 (75) Rumours

BELGIUM Top 200 Albums Chart

173 (133) Greatest Hits

138 (141) Rumours

DUTCH ALBUMS Top 100 Albums Chart

21 (18) Rumours

DUTCH Top 33 Vinyl Albums Chart

16 (16) Rumours

GREECE Top 75 Albums Chart

29 (33) Rumours

67 (Re-Entry) Greatest Hits

SWEDEN Top 60 Albums Chart

46 (50) Rumours

The Ultimate Music Guide to Fleetwood Mac Available June 21 2024

 

Uncut Ultimate Music Guide: Definitive Edition - Fleetwood Mac 

The 172-page Definitive Edition Ultimate Music Guide to Fleetwood Mac.

Available 21st June 2024.

ORDER HERE

There is also a limited edition hardback version of the 172-page Definitive Edition 

Ultimate Music Guide to Fleetwood Mac. Only 250 copies available!

ORDER HERE

Decades before Beyoncé, Fleetwood Mac were taking relationship lemons, and serving them up to the world as lemonade. Whether it was maintaining continuity against unlikely odds after the departure of their original guiding light Peter Green or turning their personal intrigues into melodic gold with Rumours, the band’s coping strategy became a key marketing point – as the band crested each vicissitude with an outpouring of new songs. 

Still, even a band that doesn’t shy away from motivational affirmations (see: “Don’t Stop!” “On With The Show”) might have to acknowledge that the passing of Christine McVie in 2022 likely spells an end to any subsequent reformations of Fleetwood Mac, a band that created spellbinding music for its reliably enormous audiences for over 50 years. Even Mr Resilient himself, Mick Fleetwood, admits these days it would be “a tall order” to do anything as Fleetwood Mac. “…But stranger things have happened.” 

It’s the band’s incredible legacy that we celebrate in this 172-page definitive edition of our Ultimate Music Guide to Fleetwood Mac. From our curated selection of classic interviews, you can enjoy a vivid inside track on the band’s saga, its key players, and the drama that unfolded around them. As we dive deep into the music, our team of expert writers reveals the evolving Mac sound: from the melancholy blues tones of their earliest triumphs through to the sophisticated pop rock that brought them their greatest successes. In our foldout timeline, we take a – literally – sideways journey through the band’s career.

Fleetwood Mac always fought hard to field a winning team, but there was life for its members outside it and we have taken the opportunity in this edition to dig deeper into the solo careers of its members in reviews and interviews. In 2020, Christine McVie looks back humbly on her achievements and decides she’ll soon be shutting up shop, songs-wise. We review the erratic solo work of Peter Green while Rob Hughes tracks down the close associates who would meet him once a month to jam in his front room. We have tea on Lindsey Buckingham’s patio. 

Excitingly, we also discover a long-lost conversation with Stevie Nicks. She and her dog Shulamith are being driven to a Fleetwood Mac rehearsal, while we sit rather in awe of her candour and insight. It’s a bittersweet conversation to look back on from the viewpoint of 2024. On the one hand, Stevie is out there now playing a well-received solo tour, where she hits her Mac songbook hard. On the other, her tender recollections of Christine McVie’s return to Fleetwood Mac in 2013 only remind us more acutely of her absence now. 

“The second people saw she was coming back, the tickets just sold,” Stevie tells us. “I tell her, Chris, it’s all about you – everyone wants to see you. And we’re thrilled. It’s kinda fun to see it through her eyes…”