Stevie Nicks Live in Phoenix Review "It may have been the strongest solo set I’ve ever seen her play."

Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks in Phoenix: The soundtrack of your life sounds better than ever

 

 

By: Ed Masley

Photos: Joe Rondone

AZCentral

Nearing the end of the downtown Phoenix concert on his co-headlining tour with Stevie Nicks at Chase Field on Friday, Dec. 8, Billy Joel paused to reflect on the apparent incompatibility this tour may represent to certain fans on both sides of the aisle.

Even Joel didn’t get it at first. Or so he led us to believe.

“I couldn’t understand the package, as they say,” he recalled after thanking his costar for doing the tour. “OK, Stevie Nicks. And Billy Joel. OK. Why?”

That got a great reaction. Lots of laughter. Then he answered his own question with a shout of “Because it sells tickets, for Christ’s sake.”

This is true. It does sell tickets.

Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks: The soundtrack of your life

But it also makes a lot of sense on levels that go well beyond the ticket-buying super-power that Venn diagram suggests.

They both had massive pop hits in the ‘70s and ‘80s, so regardless of which artist is the bigger draw for you and yours, the other one will also play a lot of songs that occupy a sweet spot on the soundtrack of your life.

You know what came out the same year as Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours”? Billy Joel’s “The Stranger.” Think about it. Two career-defining albums all but guaranteed to satisfy the same nostalgic urges.

And Joel and Nicks both know how to work a room, packing a setlist with crowd-pleasing classics while establishing a conversational rapport that draws you even deeper into who they are and what they represent.

Is Nicks a bit more heartfelt? Sure she is. Is Joel a bigger goof? Of course he is.

He wouldn’t have it any other way.

And there was no mistaking the camaraderie between them when Joel made an early appearance during Nicks' set to sing Tom Petty's part on "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around,” doing his best to channel Petty in both phrasing and inflection, then hugging it out with Nicks before he left the stage.

It was an easy highlight of the night.

Stevie Nicks was in excellent voice throughout her 90-minute set

Although this is a co-headlining proposition, someone had to go on first, and that task fell to Nicks, who more than rose to the occasion at the helm of a fantastic backing band with longtime musical director Waddy Wachtel often dominating the proceedings on guitar, from “Fall From Grace” to the cover of Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worh” and “Edge of Seventeen.”

His slide work, in particular, was consistently brilliant.

And Nicks was in excellent voice throughout her roughly 90-minute set while rocking an impressive assortment of shawls. That voice has deepened through the years, but Nicks is enough of an artist that she’s learned how to harness the power of the voice she has in 2023 and apply it in intriguing ways to classics she recorded in her 20s.

I’ll admit, I wasn’t wild about her messing with the melody to “Dreams” when she first started reimagining those early songs to suit her changing vocal range, but the “Dreams” we heard in Phoenix felt like the way it should be sung. At least in 2023.

It was a powerful performance, rocking with conviction in all the right places.

Because Nicks' image tends to leave a lot of writers searching for more synonyms for haunting and mysterious, we rarely hear about how much a song like “Gold Dust Woman” rocks in the hands of her latest collection of backing musicians.

But in Phoenix, “Gold Dust Woman” was an epic 12-minute rendition that used the Fleetwood Mac recording as a starting point and went off on a far more psychedelic journey that built to a fiery climax that was both majestic and intense. It was a highlight of her 15-song Phoenix setlist.

When Stevie went solo:How Stevie Nicks fueled her solo career with 'Stop Draggin' My Heart Around'

Stevie Nicks honored the memory of her mother, Tom Petty and Christine McVie

She took the stage to a recording of Tom Petty doing “Runnin’ Down a Dream” and set the tone for her performance with a dramatic rendition of “Outside the Rain,” which segued seamlessly into “Dreams,” the hit she took to No. 1 with Fleetwood Mac.

That was the first of several Fleetwood Mac songs in a set that found her signing off with two selections she wrote for the self-titled Fleetwood Mac album that introduced the “Rumours” lineup, “Rhiannon” and “Landslide,” the latter of which was accompanied by vintage photographs of Nicks and the late Christine McVie.

She also made her way through countless highlights of her solo years, from the pulsing synth and slide guitar of a “Stand Back” that appeared to have a harder edge than the recording, to the a cappella break of “If Anyone Falls.”

And the heartfelt nod to her friendship with Petty, whose image flashed across the screen as she sang “Free Fallin’,” was exactly as sweet as she meant it to be.

It was after “Dreams” that Nicks reminded everyone that she was born in Phoenix.

“As soon as I get here, I think I’m gonna miss the ocean,’” she said. “And I get here and I don’t miss the ocean.”

As Nicks was preparing to finish her encore with “Landslide,” a bittersweet highlight of that first release with Fleetwood Mac, she dedicated the song to her brother, Christopher, with whom she shared a home in Paradise Valley, Arizona, for 25 years.

It’s as emotional a song as you could ever hope to hear. And after bringing her performance to a vulnerable finish with that undisputed classic, she talked about having met McVie in 1975.

“It’s kind of an empty world without her,” she said.

Then she teared up while recalling the words of her mother, Barbara Nicks, who died in 2012.

“And I want you to also know that my mom always used to say to me, ‘When you are hurt, you run to the stage.’ And I run to the stage every night.”  

It may have been the strongest solo set I’ve ever seen her play.

Stevie Nicks was a tough act to follow. But Billy Joel managed

Stevie Nicks Made History at KIA Forum Los Angeles

Stevie Nicks Weaves Memories + Music with Emotional Concert at the Forum in LA — and Makes History in the Process

 

By Adrian Garro

Rockcellar

Photos: Ashley Osborn 

A decoration on one of the pillars outside the Kia Forum in Inglewood, Calif., on Dec. 2 highlighted the many tours that have brought Stevie Nicks to the venue’s stage over the years.

After an incredible, sold-out evening this past Saturday evening, Nicks has now played the Forum 25 times — the most concerts put on at the venue by a female artist, according to the facility itself.

From her (many) tour stops at the Forum with Fleetwood Mac to her own robust solo career and beyond, Nicks knows the Forum more than most. Throughout her two-hour concert, you could feel the comfort and familiarity she felt as she dazzled her adoring audience with a mix of solo hits and favorites and the Fleetwood Mac classics that made her one of the most beloved singers/entertainers in history.

“I sing and I dance around my apartment, my house, and I do it because it makes me feel like I’m 25 and that’s good — because I’m not,” Nicks cracked at one point, one of her many moments of amusing banter between the 17 songs she and her band performed.

Stevie has been on the road for parts of the past two years or so, either on headlining dates, appearing at festivals or on a co-headline bill with Billy Joel. This Los Angeles stop was a headlining show, which afforded Nicks the chance to take her time and really dig deep — both in terms of the songs she sang and the thoughtful stories and anecdotes she provided between them. It effectively made the Forum feel much more intimate than it already does as if we were all gathered around a storytelling session with one of the greats.

Helping to create this atmosphere of warmth was an audience featuring quite a few women in obviously Stevie-inspired outfits, head-to-toe shawls, scarves and the general style that she has proudly and unapologetically shown off for decades.

Support for the night came from Ingrid Andress, a Nashville-based singer/songwriter with a few Billboard hits and four Grammy nominations to her name. Andress, who wore a Slipknot shirt that she’d modified into a fashionable performance outfit, was a revelation, performing on piano and on vocals accompanied by a guitarist.

She, too, told stories between songs (“I have four siblings and we were all homeschooled for a bit, so if you think I’m weird — that’s why”), raved about the thrill of opening for Stevie Nicks and turned in the sort of performance that clearly won her a nice chunk of new fans and set the tone for Nicks’ headlining set.

Nicks made it abundantly clear that performing is where she feels the most at ease, even at age 75. At one point she quoted her mother, saying, “My mom used to say to me, ‘Stevie, when you’re hurt, you run to the stage.’ And this has been very hard for me, with the loss of Christine. So, I run to the stage, and I basically run to you. And I thank you for making me better, every single time I come on stage. Thank you so much, you’re always in my heart.”

As Stevie explained, her current tour was put together as a means of coping with the loss of her dear friend and longtime Fleetwood Mac band mate, Christine McVie, who passed away in November 2022. Throughout the show and especially during the encore finale “Landslide,” photos of Stevie and Christine from all eras of their time together flashed on the screen behind the stage, the songs taking on a eulogistic tone with the emotions clearly being expressed by the singer.

The early days of Fleetwood Mac after she and Lindsey Buckingham joined the band, she explained, provided steadily increasing paychecks as the group became more successful — a far cry from her previous experiences being “cut off” by her family after moving to Los Angeles in pursuit of a music career. As the paychecks grew in volume and finances became more stable, though, Stevie said she found herself sometimes going to her bedroom, stripping her mattress off the bed frame, placing it straight on the ground and lying down on it as a means of keeping herself grounded despite her world expanding in all directions.

“I’m still Stevie, I’m still me,” she recalled saying to herself in those grounded moments. “It all has to do with the gypsy in me, I guess.”

These were the sorts of stories that made up a good portion of her set, each more entertaining than the last. Just as there were visual tributes to McVie, there were also notable moments of homage to the late Tom Petty — with both Nicks’ collaboration with him on “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” and a beautiful cover of “Free Fallin” in the encore, photos on the screen reflecting various live performances they’d given together over the years.

From start to finish, this was as meaningful and expressive a concert as one could expect. Throughout, Stevie’s voice sounded pristine — so much so that some in the crowd said things like, “She’s amazing, there’s no weakness in her voice whatsoever.”

Stevie Nicks has helped soundtrack the lives of millions — and this show demonstrated that as important as her music may be to her audience, it’s that same audience that is just as crucial in keeping her spark alight.

Or, as she said more succinctly during “Edge of Seventeen”:

“I just want you to know that this is what I sing for.”

Stevie Nicks’ set list:

Outside the Rain

Dreams (Fleetwood Mac song)

If Anyone Falls

Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around

Fall From Grace

For What It’s Worth (Buffalo Springfield cover)

Gypsy (Fleetwood Mac song)

Wild Heart

Bella Donna

Stand Back

Soldier’s Angel

Gold Dust Woman (Fleetwood Mac song)

I Sing for the Things

Edge of Seventeen

Encore:

Free Fallin’ (Tom Petty cover)

Rhiannon (Fleetwood Mac song)

Landslide (Fleetwood Mac song) 

Review Stevie Nicks San Diego Nov 29, 2023

One night with Stevie Nicks entranced audiences with her mystical vocals, lost loves and ‘Dreams’

by Katerina Portela

The Daily Aztec

Magical.”

That is the word that best conveys the feeling in the air on the night of Nov. 29 when Stevie Nicks performed in San Diego State University’s Viejas Arena.

The crowd gathering before the concert was an ebb and flow of glitter, draped in beaded scarves and dark hats — a reflection of Nicks’ own iconic style. 

A remarkable range of ages was present that night, from Nicks’ older white-haired fans to newer fans running in flowing dresses, all of whom contained the same excitement to see the so-called “White Witch.” 

“When did I become a Stevie fan? I’ve been a fan my whole life!” said Denise Hughes, attendee and SDSU alumni. “Well, I was born in 1980, so you could say I became a fan in 1982!”

Former frontwoman of Fleetwood Mac, one of the biggest bands of the ‘70s and ‘80s, Nicks launched her solo career with her album titled “Bella Donna” in 1981. The album and her following work established her as both an extraordinary frontwoman and a platinum-album-selling solo songwriter and performer. 

After such an illustrious career, Nicks shows no signs of slowing down as she continues to write new music and perform today.

“I love Stevie’s independence,” said fan Hillary Addelman. “(I love) that she’s a woman with a vision and that she branched out with Tom Petty and other musicians, following her own dream. If it’s anything like her last concert, her storyline that goes with every song of hers makes it an intimate experience. It’s not just a song, it’s a story.”

The love for Stevie Nicks had not been contained within the older generation, as the crowds of parents and children showed, but has passed down from generation through records spinning in growing households and children coming to share their parents’ love for Nicks’ music.

“Fleetwood Mac was how I woke up every morning, so I have my dad to thank for that,”  Addelman said. 

Review Stevie Nicks Live in San Diego November 29, 2023

Stevie Nicks spun an expertly calibrated musical web at her San Diego concert

BY GEORGE VARGA

San Diego Tribune

Photos: K.C. Alfred

The veteran solo star and Fleetwood Mac mainstay was engaging throughout her performance at SDSU’s Viejas Arena, which benefitted from an unusually clear and well-balanced audio mix in a venue long noted for its booming acoustics and slap-back echo.

Stevie Nicks has been in a select class since she sang and spun her way to stardom in the mid-1970s as a member of Fleetwood Mac. Five decades later, she has risen to an even more select class as her often-stirring Wednesday night concert at San Diego State University’s Viejas Arena reaffirmed.

Along with fellow Rock & Roll Hall of Famers Bonnie Raitt, Patti Smith, Chrissie Hynde, Debbie Harry of Blondie and San Diego native Ann Wilson of Heart, Nicks is among the very few women artists who rose to prominence in the ‘70s who continue actively touring and recording in their 70s. Moreover, Nicks is the only one to be inducted twice, first with Fleetwood Mac in 1998, then as a solo artist in 2019.

That unique distinction could have allowed her to rest on her laurels at Viejas Arena, where Nicks last performed in 2018 on what appears to be the final tour by the now-dormant Fleetwood Mac. At 75, she could have easily just picked up her presumably hefty paycheck — the 8,000-seat arena was at near-capacity — and coasted through a low-gear, cruise-controlled show.

But the husky-voiced troubadour sounded like she still had some things to prove Wednesday, performing with palpable conviction throughout. And when she sang the refrain “I don’t want to stop now” as her 1981 hit, “Edge of Seventeen,” built to a mighty climax — 90 minutes into her nearly two-hour performance — it sounded more like a vow than an aspiration.

“Thank you so much for being a part of my life. I’ll see you again, I promise,” Nicks told the cheering audience when the song concluded.

That promise came true minutes later when she returned to the stage for three encores. But it’s likely Nicks was referring to a future tour, since she clearly was enjoying herself at least as much as her audience. The enthusiastic crowd included a significant number of women — younger, older and in between — whose concert attire paid homage to looks Nicks popularized back in the 1970s and 1980s, including leather and lace, top hats and enough capes and shawls to stock a store or two.

Accordingly, when Nicks briefly left the stage several times during her 17-song set, it was to exchange one cape for another. Her microphone stand was decorated with two black scarves, a trademark since her early “witchy woman” Fleetwood Mac days. To cheers, she happily modeled what she said was her original “Bella Donna” album-cover cape.

In her introduction to the 1982 Fleetwood Mac favorite, “Gypsy,” Nicks recalled how she and guitarist-singer Lindsey Buckingham — then her paramour — rose from obscurity to fame after they joined Fleetwood Mac in 1975. The couple quickly went, she noted, from earning $200 a week, to $400, to $800, to $1,500, to $500,000 a year, and more.

“We got rich, fast!” Nicks affirmed. She added that, when she longed to relive her days as a struggling musician working as a waitress, she would “put my mattress on the floor.”

Nicks spoke freely between most of her selections, but it wasn’t the kind of quick, impersonal banter one often hears at concerts.

She warmly recounted first meeting and singing with Tom Petty on her 1981 solo hit, “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” a collaboration instigated by Jimmy Iovine, her producer and boyfriend at the time. Prior to her potent version of the Stephen Stills-penned 1967 Buffalo Springfield hit, “For What It’s Worth,” Nicks encouraged her fans to vote in the next election.

“I myself never voted until I was 72,” she said. “I was busy! I was busy being famous ... I didn’t want to do jury duty.”

Accompanied by a polished six-man band and two female backing vocalists, led by guitar ace Waddy Wachtel, Nicks opened the concert with a pair of songs that served as a template of sorts for the evening.

The first was the moody “Outside the Rain,” a choice cut from her 1981 solo debut album, “Bella Donna.” The second was the 1977 Fleetwood Mac classic “Dreams,” which in 2020 became an unlikely internet hit on TikTok.

Both were delivered with skill and authority, as were Nicks’ subsequent selections. She wisely didn’t attempt to hit notes no longer in her reach, but infused each song with emotion and meaning. And she twirled just a few times, slowly. But when Nicks stretched out, as she did on an extended version of Fleetwood Mac’s “Gold Dust Woman” that surged with power, her vocal intensity was palpable.

She was equally compelling performing deep solo album cuts, such as her 2011 anti-war lament, “Soldier’s Angel,” as she was when essaying Petty’s “Free Fallin’ ” and her 1975 Fleetwood Mac classic, “Rhiannon.”

The concert’s most poignant moment came at its conclusion. That was when Nicks paid tribute to Fleetwood Mac keyboardist and singer, Christine McVie, who died last Nov. 30 at 79 from an ischemic stroke.

Nicks’ spare version of the wistful love ballad “Landslide” found her accompanied by just acoustic guitar and piano, as vintage photos of her and McVie were shown on multiple LED screens. Nicks didn’t write the “Landslide” lyrics “And I’m getting older too / Oh, I’m getting older too” in tribute to her fallen friend and band mate. But when she sang them Wednesday, they served as an elegy and a world-wise declaration of endurance and resiliency.

Fleetwood Mac Billboard Year-End Charts 2023

Billboard Magazine recently published its 2023 year end charts and Fleetwood Mac is all over the place showing up on multiple charts. Mostly for "Rumours", but still for an album over 45 years old, this is pretty impressive!

#1 - Billboard 200 Artists - Duo/Group

#2 - Top Rock Albums Artists

#3 - Top Rock Albums - “Rumours”

#3 - Rock Streaming Songs - “Dreams”

#3 - Rock Digital Song Sales Artists

#3 - Top Artists - Duo / Group

#3 - Top Rock & Alternative Albums Artist

#3 - Catalog Albums - “Rumours”

#4 - Top Rock & Alternative Albums - “Rumours”

#4 - Rock Streaming Songs Artists

#5 - Vinyl Albums - “Rumours”

#6 - Top Rock Artists

#6 - Catalog Artists

#10 - Rock Digital Song Sales - “Everywhere”

#11 - Rock Digital Song Sales - “Dreams”

#11 - Top Rock & Alternative Artists

#12 - Top Album Sales Artist

#16 - Tastemakers Albums - “Rumours”

#25 - Billboard 200 Albums - “Rumours”

#28 - Top Rock Albums - “Greatest Hits”

#29 - Top Rock & Alternative Albums - “Greatest Hits”

#31 - Top Canadian Albums - “Rumours”

#36 - Rock Streaming Songs - “The Chain”

#52 - Top Artists

#135 - Billboard 200 Albums - “Greatest Hits”

Stevie Nicks Street Angel and Trouble In Shangri-La Vinyl Coming Soon

Stevie Nicks' fifth and sixth solo albums, "Trouble in Shangri-La" and "Street Angel" coming soon to vinyl in limited edition transparent sea blue and transparent red vinyl. 

Roughtrade in the UK posted the information with a link to pre-order. I'm sure Rhino will soon provide information for a north American release.

STREET ANGEL

30th Anniversary Edition of Stevie Nicks’ fifth studio album, pressed on transparent red vinyl. Originally released in 1994, the album peaked at #45 in the US, and #16 in the UK. The Gold-certified album features the singles “Blue Denim”, “Maybe Love Will Change Your Mind,” and “Street Angel” featuring David Crosby.

Pre-order

TROUBLE IN SHANGRI-LA

Stevie Nicks’ sixth studio album pressed on Transparent Sea Blue vinyl. Originally released in 2001, the album reached #5 on the Billboard 200 and has been certified Gold by the RIAA. The album features the hits “Sorcerer,” “Every Day,” and “Planets Of The Universe,” which reached #1 on Billboard’s Hot Dance chart.

Pre-order