This is the kind of package that never could have happened in 1981. But in 2016 this bill makes sense.
By Jim Sullivan Capecodtimes
BOSTON – Stevie Nicks and the Pretenders, together on tour. This is the kind of package that never could have happened, say, in 1981. The Pretenders were the hard-edged, snarling voice of Anglo-American new wave, having released two A-level albums, “Pretenders” and “Pretenders II.” Nicks was the ethereal, ever-twirling enchantress from the multi-platinum Fleetwood Mac, who with the “Bella Donna” album had started her soft-rock solo career.
But in 2016 this bill makes sense. There’s nothing divisive about the camps of fans anymore (if there ever was), and the prospective demo is almost the same, the 50+ pop/rock market. (Nicks also guested on “American Horror Story” playing a version of herself, probably earning some young fans.) The Pretenders’ lead singer-guitarist-songwriter Chrissie Hynde is 65; Nicks, 68; and they both wear it well. The two hooked up and had fun during Nicks’ set for a rendition of the duet hit Nicks scored with Tom Petty, “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” with Hynde taking Petty’s vocal.
Stevie Nicks, Pretenders Lived Up to Their Legacies at Colonial Life Arena
By Erika Ryan Free-Times.com
Stevie Nicks, Pretenders; Colonial Life Arena, Columbia; Nov. 12, 2016
Over the screams of hundreds of middle-aged women, many in black shawls, a familiar voice told the crowd, “This is not the same Stevie Nicks set you’ve seen a hundred times.” And it wasn’t. After performing Fleetwood Mac’s greatest hits for 40 years, it was clear Stevie Nicks wanted us to know she’s also a solo artist, and has been for a while.
While Saturday night’s show spotlighted her September 2014 release 24 Karat Gold, she still touched on a few classics — Nicks’ renditions of “Gold Dust Woman” and “Dreams” sounded as timeless as ever. But for someone with a career as monumental as hers, sheer star power can often overpower the fact that some of the songs are unfamiliar.
“It’s a brave new world when you get to be my age — you get to do whatever you want,” she told the crowd.
24 Karat Gold is Nicks’ Songs From the Vault, so the majority of her set comprised older, lesser known songs and solo tracks she wrote years ago. She was a personable performer — throughout the show she told stories about her career and the background behind many of her songs; she even brought out one of the original shawls she wore in photos for her 1981 solo debut, Bella Donna.
Nicks took breaks between songs to talk about musical peers that influenced her, specifically Tom Petty and Prince, which later led to a Prince tribute during “Edge of Seventeen” — “I’m so sad that he’s not here with us,” she said, “but he is here with us.”
Although the Pretenders were technically Nicks’ opener, they still put on an impressive show. Frontwoman Chrissie Hynde came out with a jam-packed set, featuring plenty of songs off the band’s new album, Alone, released in October, as well as some familiar favorites.
“We’re going to play a song off our new album, you probably haven’t heard it,” Hynde joked at one point.
Alone still feels like the Pretenders, containing a modern update to their New Wave roots. The catchiness of the album translated seamlessly to the stage, as the band displayed the same infectious energy they always have — especially Hynde, whose intensity hasn’t waned.
Unlike many opening acts, the Pretenders held the crowd’s attention and enthusiasm just as well as Nicks. After only being on the stage for two songs, Nicks brought Hynde back to duet on the crowd favorite “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” sung on record with help from Tom Petty.
Both Stevie Nicks and the Pretenders delivered performances that were a tribute to long, successful careers, which was exactly what the crowd wanted. After years of touring, not every rock legend retains a fire for playing live. But Hynde and Nicks left no doubt that they still have it.
I’m so happy she has the Mac, because they’re amazing. But Nicks’ solo catalog does fine filling two hours — as she proved last night at a packed TD Garden.
The golden goddess in gossamer has huge, instantly-recognizable hits. In the ’80s she had ten Top 40 singles (not including her Mac smashes). But last night proved her “forgotten” works have equal force and beauty.
For this run of shows, she dug up brilliant pop nuggets “Bella Donna” and “If Anyone Falls,” gone from her live set since 1981 and 1983 respectively. She debuted “Wild Heart” — how had she never played that on a jaunt she dubbed “The Wild Heart Tour?” Even “Crying in the Night,” from the long-deleted, 1973 “Buckingham Nicks,” got the love it always deserved.
But Nicks went deeper. The singer devoted much of the evening to tracks from “24 Karat Gold: Songs From the Vault,” made up of recently re-recorded demos. A little too polished on record, the material got nicely roughed up by the eight-piece band. The best of the bunch, “Starshine” dated back to 1979, when she stopped by Tom Petty’s house to have the Heartbreakers cut it with her.
“I showed up with Hershey’s powder in case I wanted to make chocolate milk,” she said. “And my guitar.”
Nicks also told stories: making records with Petty and Lindsey Buckingham, writing songs for Waylon Jennings that turned out to be duets with Don Henley, the value of high quality silk for your capes
The songs and stories made the night unique. The hits made it perfect. As she said herself, “‘Rhiannon’ has been with me at every show since 1975.” And last night “Rhiannon” was joined by “Edge of Seventeen,” “Stand Back” and — as a duet with opener Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders — “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around”
Hynde and her band kicked things off with a tough, tight set true to their raw, rock ‘n’ roll legacy. But after a few ragged numbers, Hynde slipped in the most tender tune in her catalog: “Hymn to Her.” After the mystic moment, she quietly added, “That was for Hillary.” A few minutes later, she followed it up with new song “Holy Commotion” saying, “It’s about how white surprises aren’t Christians. So do what you want with that.” Lovely to see Hynde remains equal parts punk and pop.
A trunk of treasures from Stevie Nicks and the Pretenders at TD Garden
By Maura Johnston Boston Globe
Stevie Nicks’s current tour is called the 24 Karat Gold Tour, a reference to the vault of songs that the Los Angeles-based artist has amassed over her career as a singer, songwriter, and muse. The vault’s full name? “The Gothic Trunk of 24 Karat Gold Songs” — an appellation that sums up her legacy’s many riches, among them the mega-selling albums she recorded with her band Fleetwood Mac, her indelible solo hits, her collaborations with the likes of Tom Petty and Don Henley, and her penchant for flowy outfits.
Nicks’s first two solo albums, 1981’s “Bella Donna” and 1983’s “The Wild Heart,” were reissued earlier this month. To look back on them now is to remember how blockbuster they were, spawning sinewy, catchy singles that ruled the then-nascent MTV and allowing Nicks’s singular take on American gothic — a swirl of black lace, sweeping capes, and blonde hair — to captivate a broadcast audience. Tuesday night’s exuberant show focused on those two albums while also looking backward and forward at her decades-spanning body of work.
The band, led by her longtime music director Waddy Wachtel, muscled through the set, adding heft to Fleetwood Mac chestnuts like “Gold Dust Woman” and “Rhiannon” and fleshing out the taut “Stand Back” with a guitar solo worthy of its inspiration, Prince. (A photo of the late polymath performing with Nicks appeared on the video backdrop at the song’s conclusion, and images of him also floated onscreen during “Edge of Seventeen.”) Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders, the proto-Britpop outfit who powered through an hourlong set before Nicks took the stage, helped fill in for Tom Petty on a particularly boisterous version of “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.”
Between songs, Nicks offered up a slew of origin stories — workshopping “Leather and Lace” with her then-boyfriend Henley, who would later duet with her on the recorded version; the tour-occasioned breakups that inspired the recently unearthed “Belle Fleur.” (”That’s kind of the story of how relationships end when you’re with me,” she said.) A stirring version of 2005’s “Moonlight (A Vampire’s Dream),” which ended with a fur-swaddled Nicks thrashing as the music churned around her, was followed by her confession that it was probably her favorite song of the past quarter-century, and that it was inspired by “Twilight,” the brooding vampire romance that definitely has a bit of Nicks in its DNA.
But perhaps the biggest treat of the night, aside from Nicks strutting through 19 pieces of her catalog, was the way Nicks related to the audience as a clutch of potential peers, creative fireworks waiting to be lit. “If you are a creative person — which you all are — you can always go out and follow your dream,” said Nicks after performing the 1973 Buckingham/Nicks track “Crying in the Night.” “And 43 years later, you can stand on a stage, or in your house, and do something you wanted to do since you were 21 years old when you’re 68 years old.” The message was only made stronger by its messenger, a woman who honors the power of words with every song she writes, and who remains one of rock ’n’ roll’s brightest lights.
Here are two exclusive previews from The US Festival 1982, a new feature-length documentary that has been in the works for the past four years. Watch a clip featuring Fleetwood Mac above, and another with the Police below – then find out how you can help complete this important project.
Set for release in 2017, the film will tell the story behind the US Festival, one of the most legendary and innovative music events. The US Festival 1982 promises extensive video of the crowd experience and interviews captured that weekend, combined with new comments from artists and event organizers. The original audio and video has been remastered, and all of the new interviews were shot in high definition.
However, there is still work to do. Director Glenn Aveni recently launched a Kickstarter fundraising campaign to help generate the necessary funds to finish things up – and according to Aveni, they’re in the home stretch. “In our case with this film, we have been working on it for a while, and so we are pretty far along,” he says. “The B-roll footage – music, crowds, etc. – is all in place. The interviews are done. Some of the music is cleared, and the rest (that we want to use) is all negotiated and priced – both with the artists and with the relevant labels.”
Since access to a time machine seems unlikely at the moment, we can all be grateful that the US Festival sprang to life thanks to music fan Steve Wozniak, who also had a huge interest (and highly influential hand) in technology. That meant the festival was well-documented on audio and video.
As a co-founder of Apple Computers with Steve Jobs, Wozniak (“Woz” to those who knew him beyond a handshake) had made enough money to have a lot of fun. He decided to use his good financial fortune to throw a big party that would bring people together, using music as one of the common threads and bonds. A company, UNOSON (an abbreviation for “Unite Us In Song”), was created to produce the giant three-day outdoor concert that he envisioned.
Woz knew that what he was planning would take an army – he eventually would employ over 4,000 people, most of them hired locally – and together they built what is to this day the largest outdoor music venue – from scratch. He was no concert promoter, so he brought in the concert promoter, Bill Graham, to produce the event. Working with Graham was, of course, an experience that left Woz and all involved with a lot of colorful stories.
“The Kinks had a contractual obligation to go on at a specified time, but decided they wanted to take the stage at dusk to benefit from the stage lighting,” Aveni recalls. “Bill Graham was notorious for running shows like a military operation. He cajoled, pleaded, even threatened the Kinks to take the stage at the prearranged time, only to be rebuffed.”
Then Graham remembered seeing Kinks manager Elliott Abbott pull up backstage in a new Mercedes coupe, so Graham instructed one of his crew to lift Abbott’s car on a forklift and drive it over to the edge of the man-made lake just behind the stage. Graham now commanded the Kinks to perform as scheduled, “or the Mercedes goes into the lake!” The Kinks took the stage. In retaliation, however, Abbott would not allow the Kinks to be filmed, therefore there is no footage of the Kinks in this film – or anywhere else. In hindsight, Dave and Ray Davies have said they regret that this performance was not filmed.
A sea of more than 400,000 music fans came to San Bernardino, Calif., to camp out and have a good time with an incredible lineup of performers spread across three days. The Police, Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the Grateful Dead and Talking Heads were among the heavy hitters on the bill.
With the temperatures leaping past the 100 degree mark, fans were grateful for the advance planning that the organizers had put in. The event featured water cannons, misting stations (now common, they made their debut here) and 150,000 US Festival-branded water bottles that went a long way toward keeping festival goers hydrated.
The stage was as innovative as it was massive. It sprawled to the size of a football field, with 400,000 watts of power. Giant video screens were installed – the first of their kind, they were visible during the day – and organizers also employed digital delay in another pioneering move that improved sound in the back. A satellite uplink sent the musical experience all the way to Russia, something that few believed that Wozniak could pull off.
Appropriately, five air-conditioned tents housed a technology expo with the latest software, video games and computers. There were showers, shade tents and plenty of portable toilets. In short, Woz made sure that everything that anybody might possibly need to have fun and not have to worry about anything, was present and accounted for.
“We heard that there were all kinds of new techniques – hydration systems for the audience, all of these new techniques – so that it would be the opposite of Woodstock,” drummer Stewart Copeland of the Police recalls in this exclusive clip from the film. “Instead of it being a disaster, it would be a noble enterprise where everybody came out feeling better than they went in.”
And Wozniak, for all of the money he sank into the festival in 1982 (and the subsequent sequel in 1983), called it a bargain. “I paid to see a million smiles,” he said.
Find out more information and how to contribute to the Kickstarter via this link. There is also an official Facebook page for The US Festival 1982, where you’ll find news updates and additional items related to the film.
According to the Kickstarter description, the film will run over 100 minutes with 40 percent of the running time devoted to live performances. There are no shortage of incentives available for fans who want to help support the film. They can purchase a copy of The US Festival 1982 on DVD and Blu-ray and also as a digital download. There are replica event t-shirts available (just in case your own original has seen better days) and for the high rollers, if you want to contribute $10,000, they’ll let you suggest your own list of incentive demands.
Review: Stevie Nicks reminds me: We’re strong
by Courtney Devores Charlotte Observer
Photo: Benjamin Robson - View More
I can never remember a time that I didn’t consider myself a feminist. Even as a little girl, I never considered myself “less than.” I never doubted that I could do what I wanted to do. So this week I wonder: Why is that?
Part of it was probably that my mother was often the main breadwinner in our house, devoted to a job she didn’t always like but that kept us insured while my dad floated from psychology and social work to construction jobs.
The other part, I think, was growing up watching women such as Stevie Nicks, Debbie Harry, Chrissie Hynde and Madonna – women who wrote their own songs, headlined their own shows, and worked with men but didn’t rely on them for their success. This was normal to me.
Watching Nicks and Pretenders frontwoman Hynde on Thursday at Spectrum Centre, I was reminded of that early female power. The endurance of Nicks’ friendship with backup singer Sharon Celani, who has been with her since the start of her solo career, plus her obvious generosity as a boss whose band members have been with her for decades, and her witchy-earth-mother persona, were reminders of her strength and ours.
I’d been worried by reports of the 24 Karat Gold Tour’s “VH1 Storytellers”-style vibe that the show would be a low-key one, heavy on ballads and adult-contemporary songs.
But the format was what made it so special.
Nicks seemed stiff her last time through town, with Fleetwood Mac. This night, freed of having to squeeze in Mac’s plethora of hits, she was physically looser, vocally stronger, and spoke at length and off the cuff.
She and her eight-piece band – coming on after a Pretenders’ set where Hynde sported an Elvis tee and a smoky voice that’s still perfection – reveled in lesser-known tracks. Those included “New Orleans,” which she wrote as Hurricane Katrina loomed, and “Starshine,” which she cut from an album because she didn’t like the label-approved version.
“Because I can do that,” she said. “Girl Power.”
Her stories about writing the encore “Leather and Lace” for Waylon Jennings and Jessie Colter, and its evolution – on the advice of then-boyfriend Don Henley (who would tell her, as she was writing it, when the song wasn’t working) – were precious and funny.
She performed “Bella Donna” and “Wild Heart” – title tracks to her first solo albums – in the same silk chiffon shawl she donned on the back cover of “Bella Donna.” The garment is intact after 35 years, she said: a testament to the fabric.
The most emotional performance was “Moonlight (A Vampire’s Dream),” a song inspired by the second “Twilight” film that launched Nicks back into recording after a self-imposed, nine-year break. And “Crying in the Night” was a treat for fans of the pre-Mac “Buckingham/Nicks” album: It stood up, 45 years after being written.
Nicks performed expected hits, from “If Anyone Falls” and “Dreams” to “Stand Back,” “Rhiannon” (“that brat, she joked) and the set’s pre-encore capper, “Edge of Seventeen.” That featured photos of Prince – “the white-winged dove” – projected above the band. Nicks ended the song with a line from “When Doves Cry.”
“Gold Dust Woman” served as a showstopper, with Nicks dancing and shaking her hair, then challenging the audience – many of whom were in her age bracket – to do the same when they got home.
Stevie Nicks & The Pretenders The Spectrum Center November 10, 2016 Charlotte, North Carolina
Stevie Nicks rolled into Charlotte, North Carolina on November 10 and she brought the Pretenders along with her on her 24 Karat Gold Tour. Now, just stop for a moment and process something. Those two acts have almost 100 years of musical experience between them. Just take a few minutes to think about how amazing that is and of all the amazing music that they have given to us. With that in mind, we knew that we were in for a treat at this show because we were about to witness musical royalty up on that stage.
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