LIVE PHOTOS: Australia Opening Night - Stevie Nicks | Dave Stewart | Brian McFadden. by Charles Newbury

STEVIE NICKS LIVE

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

November 19, 2011 - Sidney Meyer Music Bowl

IN YOUR DREAMS TOUR

with Special Guests DAVE STEWART 

& BRIAN MCFADDEN

Check out Charles Newbury Photography at the links below... Tons of really great shots!

Stevie Nicks Gallery

Dave Stewart Gallery

Brian McFadden Gallery

Review & Photos: Stevie Nicks Melbourne Nov 19th | by Stacie Mayer

STEVIE NICKS 

“IN YOUR DREAMS TOUR” 

AUSTRALIAN – REVIEW

by: Stacie Mayer
ModernMadusa

On Saturday November 19, 2011 Stevie Nicks kicked off her Australian tour in Melbourne. The rainy weather failed to dampen the anticipation and excitement of those at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl.

Brian McFadden was the opening act, performing acoustic versions of a number of his hit songs. He also threw Adele’s “Someone Like You” and NSYNC’s “This I Promise You” into the mix. Forget about what you think about Brian McFadden, he is a gifted musician despite his minor role in boy band Westlife.

Dave Stewart from the Eurythmics was Stevie’s support act, and also one of the people heavily involved in producing her new album. Other than his Eurythmic songs, I was unfamiliar with Dave as a solo performer, but after last night, I am a fan. A gifted guitarist, his band of colorful characters made for an entertaining precursor to the main event.

There was only a short wait for the crew to get the stage ready for Stevie. She came out all guns blazing, belting out “Stand Back” like only she could, followed by “Secret Love”, the first single off her new album.

If only the haters could have heard Stevie perform “Secret Love” last night. Clearly, the X-Factor production quality was not up to standard that night, as she and the band were near perfection.

Stevie made it clear that this was not a Greatest Hits tour, but a tour to promote the new album. While she threw in some Fleetwood Mac classics like “Rhiannon” and “Dreams” and several of her solo hits, it was the new songs that made this concert all the more special.

Along with every new song she performed, came a story of where she got the inspiration to write them. It was actually two years ago (almost to the day) that Stevie was in Melbourne, touring with Fleetwood Mac. She went to see one of the Twilight movies at the cinema, and oddly enough that was what prompted her to write “Moonlight (A Vampire’s Dream)” and begin working on a new record.

“Soldier’s Angel”, a song from her new album, was an emotional moment of the night. Stevie told a story of how in 2005 she went to visit a military hospital to speak with the injured soldiers. She arrived there a rock star without a care in the world and left with a heavy heart after hearing all those stories. As she was leaving an emergency Medi-Vac arrived, there were doctors, nurses, and stretchers everywhere. She wrote the song “Soldier’s Angel” as a tribute to those who have fought in the war in the Middle East.

The highlight of the night for me was being there in person to see Stevie perform “Edge of Seventeen.” The percussion, drum, and guitar solos at the beginning of the song were beyond amazing.

Another special moment was Stevie and her voice coach performing “Leather and Lace.” It once was a song that was never included in her sets due to it being a duet. Their voices complimented each other nicely, and it made for a beautiful rendition of the Stevie Nicks and Don Henley original.

If you were not fortunate enough to attend her Melbourne shows, Stevie’s Live in Chicago DVD, filmed in 2008, is currently on sale at JB HiFi for $9.99; and while you’re at it, pick up a copy of her new album In Your Dreams. The DVD is a perfect reflection of the incredible live performer Stevie is, and the CD has some beautiful new songs from her.

Stevie Nicks is everything I wish I was: a singer, a performer, a poet, a writer, talented, successful, and an inspiration. I can only hope that Stevie will make the trek back to Australia sometime soon. Seeing her live once is not enough.

PHOTOS HERE

PHOTOS | VIDEO: Stevie Nicks | Dave Stewart | Brian McFadden - Melbourne Night 1

Bit of a wrap-up on the first Melbourne, Australia show from Saturday Night at Sidney Meyer Music Bowl... No official reviews yet, I expect they will come over the course of the next few days after the second Melbourne show at Mornington Racecourse, which is in progress as I write this.  There was a lot of positive reaction on the show from fans who attended - all happening during and after the show via facebook and twitter... Some really cool photos were posted (see below).  The first two photos below are by: @steven2082 on twitter.  Stevie looks incredible!

Huge audience on opening night in Melbourne... Great to see!!  From everything I've seen and read, the rain that had been pouring down all day somewhat eased off during the concert so the many that had lawn seats outside the covered seating didn't get completely swamped... 

Stevie's setlist appears to have stayed intact from her shows in the US.  No additions or changes from the latter October shows. She's playing 6 new songs from In Your Dreams... Stevie did her traditional Edge Walk during Edge of Seventeen... So fans at future shows in the front... position yourselves... She's coming your way!  Surprised there were no jumbo screens on either side of the stage.  Maybe the venue couldn't handle it.

Brian McFadden opened the show with Dave Stewart following in an amazing top hat!  Dave also joined Stevie on stage during her set for likely most if not all the 6 new songs being played (looking for confirmation on what songs Dave played on).  Whether it was because of the rainy weather, Stevie skipped the dresses tonight and stuck with an outfit similar to what she wore during her spring Rod Stewart tour.. Doesn't look like she broke out the white outfit to end the show with Edge of Seventeen. 

Once reviews for the show are published, you'll see them here.

The first 5 photos are by Charles Newbury - More photos by this photographer are on the way as he's working both shows.

Andrea Beattie (Music Editor at MX Newspaper) with Stevie Nicks and Kirsty Cuzens

LANDSLIDE

DREAMS

Photos: Lindsey Buckingham - The Joint 11/14/11

Lindsey Buckingham Live in Tulsa

The Joint - Hard Rock Hotel & Casino

Final US Seeds We Sow Tour Date

Check out the 40 pictures in the gallery

Photos by Kevin Pyle

Stevie Nicks Heads Down Under, Reveals Why Vegas Isn't an Option for Her

This weekend, Stevie Nicks continues her lengthy tour in support of her current album In Your Dreams with a string of dates in Australia.  The dates kick off Saturday in Melbourne, and she'll wrap things up December 10 in Tasmania.  For this round of dates, Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, who co-produced In Your Dreams, will be joining Stevie, and she says she's had so much fun working with him that she'd love him to be involved in the next Fleetwood Mac album as well.

"[Dave's] one of those people that walks in the room and he doesn't even have to say anything and you start laughing," Stevie tells ABC News Radio.  "He's just instantly funny.   And, he gets up everyday and he looks at the world through the eyes of a child.  And, it rubs off on you and you feel like a child.  And, he has big dreams and he shoots for the stars...you start to become like that when you're around him, and that's where I want to be."

Someplace Stevie doesn't want to be, however, is in Las Vegas, doing a permanent residency, like Elton John, Celine Dion or her pal Rod Stewart, with whom she toured with earlier this year.  Though she's now in her sixties, Stevie isn't interested in giving up her nomadic existence, staying in one place and letting the fans come to her.  "I could never do that.  Never.  I could never stay in one place like that," she tells ABC News Radio.  "I think that for somebody like Rod Stewart, who has eight children and a brand new baby I think that this is fantastic.  Celine Dion, you know, she wanted to raise her babies and not be traveling all over the world." 

Stevie notes that her situation is vastly different from that of Rod, Celine or even Elton -- she's not married and she's not a parent.  "I don't have that.  I have a dog," she notes.  "So I would never be able to stay in the one place and be in the same dressing room every night and have the same audience.  I couldn't do it." 

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

STEVIE NICKS INTERVIEW: No Fleetwood Mac in 2012... She's So Not Done!

Hot Ticket
Sydney Moring Herald

She's worked and played hard in her 63 years but Stevie Nicks isn't done yet.

Stevie Nicks does not like other people speaking on her behalf. So, sitting in a big, plush white reading chair in her cavernous suite at the Radisson Hotel in Sydney's central business district, she swiftly cuts down some of the rumours that have recently sprouted from the mouths of strangers and loved ones.

That one about Lindsay Lohan planning to play the Fleetwood Mac frontwoman in a biopic? Not even close; Nicks says if anyone's going to do it, it will be Reese Witherspoon, who is a friend. ''She's very down to earth,'' Nicks says while sipping on a large, shapely glass of iced tea. ''If we don't do it soon, though, she's going to be too old.''

And what of the recent claim, by her ex and fellow Fleetwood Mac member, Lindsey Buckingham, that the band will either tour or release another album next year?

Nicks, who is here touring to support In Your Dreams (her first solo album in a decade), responds firmly, like a school-marm chastising her charges for talking in class.

''There isn't going to be anything of Fleetwood Mac next year,'' she says. ''I'm taking next year [to support this record] and it's not going to be done until I say it's done.''

What would Nicks be without her steely determination? It's what helped the writer of such classics as Rhiannon, Dreams and Landslide weather an eight-year addiction to Klonopin, a drug that itself was meant to wean her off cocaine but instead chucked nearly a decade of her life into confusion.

It also inspired her new song, For What It's Worth, which is about what happened after Nicks defied her rehab doctors in 1995.

''I had been in rehab for the Klonopin and I'm completely sober and everything is different,'' Nicks says. ''[The doctors] say, 'Don't do anything big … Give yourself a year.'''

Nicks's response? To go on tour with Fleetwood Mac and have a ''forbidden romance'' with a man who ''saved her life'' by supporting her in this endeavour. Who was he? ''I'm not going to say,'' Nicks says.

Of her future plans, though, the 63-year-old will say this: ''I'm so not done.''

STEVIE NICKS, WITH DAVE STEWART

November 29, 7pm, Sydney Entertainment Centre, Darling Harbour, ticketmaster.com.au, 13 61 00, $135-$195.