Stevie Nicks - Boston Review Number 45!

Stevie Nicks
by Brian Callaghan
EDGE Contributor
Wednesday Jun 25, 2008

Before going to the Stevie Nicks concert at the Bank of America Pavilion Sunday night, there was significant worry she might have crossed over into the realm of self-parody. Would it all be a mess of lace shawls, dervish spins, bleating vocals and freaky hippie chick dancing?

While all of those elements featured prominently in Nicks’ show, the star acquitted herself well, putting on an entertaining and musically formidable concert of songs from both her Fleetwood Mac and solo careers.

Nicks is now 60, but looked much younger. With her long straight blonde hair and wrinkle-free skin, you could easily confuse her for Jenna Bush’s 40-year-old older sister. Her voice was strong and as distinctive as ever, and she wisely surrounded herself with an outstanding 7-member band and three talented back-up singers, many of whom have toured with her for years.

The evening kicked off with a good version of Stand Back, with the classic keyboard riffs Prince provided when the song was first recorded. This was followed by Outside the Rain, a well-received Dreams and an impressive version of If Anyone Falls in Love, a 1983 hit this reviewer had long ago forgotten.

Nicks chatted frequently with the audience between songs, providing little bit of info about their inspiration. Sorcerer, from 1973, was described as being written at a time when she was living with Lindsay Buckingham, waitressing to make ends meet and barely scraping by.

Landslide was dedicated to her father, Jess Nicks, who passed away a few years ago, and was accompanied by a slide show chronicling the life of the singer and her family.

Rhiannon and Gold Dust Woman, the two other Fleetwood Mac songs she performed, showcased her trademark sheeplike warble but her voice was powerful and clear throughout the hour and 50 minute, 14-song performance.

The Mac songs were all wisely performed in extended versions, with playful instrumental preludes that built some excitement before the actual song was revealed.

Edge of Seventeen, with its chorus of "Just like a one-winged dove," was the only other major solo hit she performed. Other well-known songs were missing in action, including Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around, Leather and Lace, The Insider and Sara.

Taking their place were unexpected covers of Dave Matthews’ Crash Into Me, Bob Seger’s new Face the Promise, and even a terrific version of Led Zeppelin’s Rock and Roll, during which the vibrato in Nicks’ voice all but disappeared.

Guitarist and musical director Waddy Wachtel led the proceedings, which included a few too many musical solos in the second half of the show. One wished for a few less indulgent solos and one or two more hits.

By surrounding herself with a great band, Nicks proved it’s possible for an artist with a 35-year career to still keep things fresh and exciting, which the near sell-out crowd embraced enthusiastically.

Opening was singer Mandy Moore, who was pleasant and friendly. Knowing most in the audience would be unfamiliar with her music (and having disavowed herself of her first few albums), Moore wisely included Cat Stevens’ Moon Shadow" and Joni Mitchell’s "Help Me I Think I’m Falling" in her set list, providing the audience with a couple popular anchors to latch on to.

Sunday, June 22
Bank of America Pavilion, Boston

Rhiannon rings like a bell thru the night.....

All your life you've never seen a woman - taken by the wind.

Swirling, twirling Nicks captivates

Stevie Nicks delivered a two-hour show filled with her past hits.

By Jonathan Perry
Boston Globe Correspondent / June 24, 2008

As if anyone needed a reminder of the influence Stevie Nicks has had on pop music, "Bootlylicious," the Destiny's Child hit built on a sample of Nicks's "Edge of Seventeen," was piped over the house public address system before we got the real thing Sunday night.

The appetite-whetting tease was one not-so subtle reminder - opener Mandy Moore being the other - of the vast difference between a pop star and a genuine artist. As one of rock's most successful songwriters and original voices, both with and without Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks is both.

When the first signature twirl of her gold-flecked shawl came, mere moments into a percolating and percussive "Stand Back," Nicks's fanatically devoted audience roared its approval. It was an auspicious start to a two-hour, career-surveying set at the Bank of America Pavilion that was crammed with many highs and few lows: beloved evergreen hits, power-ballad misses, and poignant moments.

Impeccably supported by a seven-piece band led, as always, by longtime musical director and guitarist Waddy Wachtel, as well as a trio of backup singers, Nicks took a twirl and a tour through a catalog more than three decades deep, and nearly as wide. Considerably less wide, however, was the 60-year-old Nicks's vocal range.

While her voice, clear and strong in the sound mix, was as inimitable and often as affecting as ever, it stayed, for the most part, within a narrow melodic framework. There were fewer highs hit on a still-graceful but somewhat flat "Dreams," for instance, the song's gilded edges blunted and gauzy embroidery all but cleared away. And why perform a flaccid cover of the Dave Matthews Band's turgid "Crash Into Me" when we didn't get "Gypsy" or "Sara", or any number of other Nicks classics?

As if to make up for this brief (but unfortunately not brief enough) lapse in judgment, Nicks and Co. offered a dramatically stirring "Rhiannon," then hit soon after with the baleful, brewing storm of "Gold Dust Woman." A pulse-quickening version of "Edge of Seventeen" was an epic curio, stretching into a well-meaning but distracting meet-and-greet receiving line with the adoring faithful.

If an encore cover of Led Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll" was the night's throwaway thrill, then "Landside," a tender meditation on the passage of time, was its most elegiac moment. Nicks dedicated the song to her late father, and gave it a gorgeously glistening reading as family photos of dad and daughter gently bled into one another on the stage screen.

Onetime pop goody-two-shoes and perpetual smiler Mandy Moore opened with a cloying 45-minute set of karaoke-bar cover songs meant to demonstrate how, at age 22, she's all grown up and has discovered Cat Stevens and Joni Mitchell. With a voice and personality as bland as generic toothpaste, the fact that Moore's been handed an enormous public platform to say absolutely nothing original felt like an insult to the artists she so earnestly covered.

Lindsey Buckingham in Reading PA - October 10th

Another date has appeared on ticketmaster adding a third date to Lindsey's tour itinerary...

From what I've heard, he's going to be touring for approximately 5-6 weeks this fall... If you can see him, grab a ticket! Seriously, you won't be disappointed - he puts on a really great show.

READING, PA
FRIDAY OCTOBER 10, 2008
SOVEREIGN PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

BRE PRESENTS
AN EVENING WITH LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM

Stevie Nicks keeps on rockin' (Boston Review)

By Jay N. Miller
For The Patriot Ledger
Posted Jun 23, 2008 @ 01:16 PM

QUINCY — Stevie Nicks’ star quality continues to shine unabated, even if some of the vocal subtleties have changed.

Nicks, who turned 60 a month ago, and her 10-piece backing band delighted a near sellout crowd of about 4,600 Sunday at Bank of America Pavilion with a two-hour show that touched on all phases of her career, and added a couple of surprises.

With a band led by longtime leader Waddy Wachtel on guitar (who also served as Warren Zevon’s bandleader), and including such rock stalwarts as Scott Plunkett on piano, Ricky Peterson on organ, Lenny Castro on percussion, and Carlos Rios on second guitar, Nicks boasts one of the best groups anywhere. The arrangements stuck close to the hit versions of her songs, but extended many into gloriously pulsating workouts that had the throng singing and sweating along.

One minor detail was that Nicks’ voice seemed to be harder than usual, without the velvety quality that marks some of her biggest hits. This could just be from the strain of the current tour, and it didn’t detract from the material as much as just give it a new twist. It wasn’t so much Nicks’ emotional vulnerability that the vocals conveyed, as perhaps in the original renditions, but a kind of world-weary resilience born of a lifetime of experience.

“Stand Back” was the rumbling opener, with Nicks appearing in a red shawl flecked with gold, over a black pant suit. Frankly it took most of this hard-rocking song to get the sound balanced, as the drums were burying everything else early on. By the throbbing rocker “Outside the Rain,” Wachtel’s slide guitar and the rest of the superb band were coming through loud and clear. Nicks played with the lines in “Dreams,” dragging the tempo a bit as the crowd sang the chorus to that Fleetwood Mac mega-hit gleefully.

“If Anyone Falls” from 1983 was an apt example of the different vocal sound, as that tune’s delicate trilling lines of enchantment became more stark, open imperatives. Nicks explained she had done a live show for PBS, which will be released this summer, and wanted to cover a favorite songsmith. Her take on Dave Matthews’ “Crash Into Me” was done with just two acoustic guitars and her backup vocalists, for an effect that was both more reflective and more sensual.

Plunkett’s lovely piano interlude introduced “Rhiannon,” as just a piano/vocal duet, that soon took off into a pounding rock charge that electrified the arena.

Nicks reminisced about her days waitressing and songwriting at night, in introducing ‘73’s “Sorceror,” and backup singer Sharon Celani provided the second half of what was a dual vocal on the ballad. Bob Seger’s “Face the Promise,” a tune about life on the road Nicks claimed she hadn’t sung for 25 years, was probably the night’s hardest rocker, with a fiery Wachtel solo.

Since her father’s 2005 death, Nicks has been doing “Landslide” as an acoustic tribute to him, with photos from their life together. Sunday’s was done with just Wachtel’s finger-picking accompaniment, and turned into a communal hymn with the crowd singing along quietly.

“In the Still of the Night” and “Edge of 17” were the pulse-pounding rockers that finished the regular set. Nicks returned for a blistering run through Led Zeppelin’s “Rock ’n’ Roll,” wearing her Mad Hatter’s chapeau.

Finally Nicks ended with a softly moving “Has Anyone Ever Written About You?” as pictures of soldiers flashed on the screens. Nicks has been working with the USO since 2004, and has sponsored an effort to provide iPods full of music to returning, and especially wounded, service personnel.

Stevie Nicks and Soundstage

WOW! This is starting to get exciting.... Check out the new pics from Stevie's upcoming Soundstage on PBS!

Stevie-Nicks.info posted these along with a link to the Iowa PBS station previewing the pics....

Very nice!

Starting around the middle of July, this 2 part Soundstage performance should start airing all over PBS networks in the US. In September, it's scheduled to be released as a DVD/CD package.

Stevie Still Enchanting (Boston Review)

Rock goddess Stevie still as enchanting as ever at 60
By Lauren Carter
Monday, June 23, 2008

Rock’s resident goddess doesn’t appear ready to give up her title anytime soon.

Fleetwood Mac member and solo star Stevie Nicks rocked the Bank of America Pavilion last night with a verve that belied her 60 years: A roar of “Let’s go” before the ethereal “Outside the Rain” set the tone for the night, and a variety of fist pumps, wails, coos and a flick of the microphone any moody hard rocker would be proud of made it clear that Nicks’ signature intensity is still going strong.

After 25 years onstage touring solo, certain elements of Nicks’ show remain comfortably predictable: the hard-rocking opener, “Stand Back,” the ruffled black dresses and multiple shawls, the microphone draped in jewels and scarves, the flowing blond hair, and the enchanting twirls that crowds go wild for.

But amidst the signature atmosphere and a lineup of classic solo and Mac hits, there were a couple of new additions during Nicks’ 90-minutes-plus onstage, including the pleasant surprise of Dave Matthews Band’s “Crash.”

Vocally, Nicks warmed up throughout the night, her voice a soothing medium on “Dreams” and a sandpaper flame on “Rhiannon,” “Gold Dust Woman” and the bluesy “How Still My Love.”

With help from a tight band anchored by guitarist and longtime musical director Waddy Wachtel, she took on the multiple personalities her songs demand, from the poignant “Landslide” to the hard-driving “Edge of Seventeen.”

How similar Nicks really is to the otherwordly enchantress she plays onstage, we may never know. But a show is still a chance to step inside her temporary world - a world of white-winged doves, billowing clouds, snow dreams and mysterious painted women, a world of intense love and loss, where shawls are used to create metaphors and unicorns frolic in an onscreen enchanted forest.

Even as the years pass, the trip remains worth it.

Nicks is known for bringing along young female singer-songwriters as opening acts, and this time around, Mandy Moore got the call. The once-teen-pop starlet showed off a decidedly folkier side last night with a stripped-down set that put her voice front and center.

Looking eerily like a young Nicks, Moore was especially powerful on the wistful “Wild Hope,” but hasn’t completely closed the door on her past - she ended with a rootsy rendition of her breakout hit “Candy,” albeit with a few self-deprecating chuckles along the way.