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1-5

5 BEING THE BEST

Rated "5" by Michele Jackson aka "mjackson866"

Once in a million years a lady like her rises . . .

I just returned from Caesar’s Palace and all the way back to my room, I couldn’t stop asking: “Has she ALWAYS been this good, this hot, this sexy??” Wow. I don’t usually pay much attention to Stevie during FM concerts, but I’m beginning to think that may have been a mistake. If only I could take back the last 28 years!

I love Chris Isaak and am excited to see him, but now part of me wishes that Stevie were touring alone this summer. I don’t want anything to spoil the momentum that propelled the concert this evening. Hey Chris: don’t mess up this good thing!

The show was so amazing from Stand Back to Edge of Seventeen that, more than dancing, I was just standing and shaking my head much of the time. It was almost a spiritual experience. The “ceremony” started when I checked into my hotel room. How fitting that the first magazine I glimpsed on the desk, Showbiz Weekly, featured huge, glossy pictures of Stevie on both the front and back covers. I don’t know that the text inside, though glowing, would have won her who whole-hearted approval, however. It included,

“Although she stands just 5-foot-1 without her trademark 6-inch platform shoes, Nicks rocks as hard and sings with as much passion as anyone in the business – man or woman – and the louder the band screams the better she sounds. Like Grace Slick and Janis Joplin, the two Bay Area belters who inspired her, Nicks is an unabashed eccentric. The stories of her love affairs and breakups, her fascination with witchcraft and battles with demons are legion – and often they’re chronicled in her music. A fearless performer, she loves to twirl like a whirling dervish onstage and her wild imagination is evident in her lyric writing with its many far-out fantasies . . .”

Got over to the Coliseum at about 7:45. At 8:15 I was startled when Bootylicious began to blare, because the house lights were still on. They played the whole song, which surprised me. My memory may be faulty, but I thought they played shorter snippets of it in the past. Taku bops onto the stage looking as if he thinks I have forgiven him for abandoning Lindsey. I think not! Lori takes her place beside Sharon and Jana. I saw crew members with flashlights ushering Stevie onto the stage. There was a boxed off area in back, covered in black drape that served as her dressing room.

My seat is in Orchestra 3. Orchestra 4 was dead center and the rows are so angled in this theater, the stage so high, that being even a little off to the side can obstruct your view. When Stand Back started, I wanted to see Stevie walking down that center aisle, long before she got to her mic, but I couldn’t. The walk, the anticipation, is as much a part of the fun as the music. Anyway, she finally became visible to me and it was a beautiful thing to behold.

This is the difference between seeing someone as Tom Petty’s back up singer; seeing someone perform at a pre-Superbowl event, in front of a rowdy and uninterested crowd; and seeing them in their element, before adoring fans just thrilled to be in her presence, comfortable in the palm of her hand. Her every gesture causes a stir or a shout, as does her every non-gesture.

Stevie has developed this thing where she moves her hands and arms and hips, but oddly her upper torso doesn’t sway all that much. In a way it seems stiff, in a way elegant. There is something regal in her stillness.

She is wearing high-heeled boots and the shorter skirt. She greets the audience after Stand Back. She is smiling, sassy, chatty.

When she introduces “If Anyone Falls” she says that someone said to her in the eighties “that if anyone falls in love, I hope it will be us.” That’s how the song came about. Who told her that? Waddy? Gross! You know, Waddy was wearing a tank top tonight and I noticed that his chest hair is about as long as the hair on his head – and graying.

The best part of IAF is when they break it down for the chant, “Somewhere. Twilight. Dreamtime.” The way this woman just snatches different words and phrases out of the air and melds them together, into a string of song. You don’t understand them. You just FEEL them. It reminds me of Lindsey discussing “The Chain” and saying that yes those were most definitely Stevie’s lyrics. Of course they were. No one else can do that.

For “Stop Dragging My Heart Around” she said she didn’t want to do the song for her Bella Donna album, because the last thing she needed was someone’s else’s tune taking the place of one of her own originals. But her producer insisted that she do the TP song. He told her that it would be the first single and if she didn’t do it, she might not ever have a solo career at all. So, she did it and now she has to thank Tom Petty for saving her life.

Rhiannon has the full piano and spoken introduction. She comes out wearing black leather gloves. Why not lace? Leather. Does she think she’s doing an outdoor show - - - in the winter? Man her hands must get sweaty in those and she keeps them on for most of the night. I begin to suspect a debilitating psoriasis problem might be at the heart of this inexplicable wardrobe choice.

I’m excited when Enchanted starts. Maybe it doesn’t start the show anymore, but I’m just happy it’s still in the set. What a fun, teasing romp.

Gold Dust Woman is off the hook. This is against everything I stand for, but I’ve got to say it’s better here than I think it is with the Mac. At the ends she croons, “you can’t save me now. You can’t see me now. You can’t free me now. You can’t do it.” As she sings, Waddy repeats her words with the strings of his guitar, echoing her every inflection of tone. It’s almost like jazz or blues. She puts her gloved hands to her face, cradling her head in them as she talks. Then she glides over to Waddy and stands behind him, shawl outspread as he continues to jam. She almost cloaks him. And she undulates back and forth there. It’s sensual. Then, they slowly rotate and reverse positions, so that she is closest to the audience and he is in back of her, but she still hovers over him, like a shadow or halo. Witch or angel. Dark or light.

She introduces “I Need to Know” as the second Tom Petty song and one of her favorites.

Next comes Landslide, but she has to start the intro over again, because she says Tom’s song always leaves her out of breath. She says that over the years, she has often dedicated Landslide to various family members and tonight she is going to dedicate it to her niece Jessica who is in the audience tonight. Lori leaves the stage. Sharon and Jana sing beautiful back up. The video behind shows familiar images of Stevie through the years. Quite lovely.

Stevie says she’s given this intro before and she doesn’t want it to start to sound scripted [well, don’t worry about THAT, we’ve heard worse scripting]. In 1971 Stevie says that she and Lindsey came out to Hollywood and it was everything that she had dreamed of. Even when things didn’t turned out as they has planned, everything around them seemed so perfect (here, she kind of giggles and buries her face in her still gloved hands, in an endearing girlish and giddy gesture) that she thought there must be some master plan behind it all. Some sorcerer moving the chess pieces. That’s how the song came about. Lady from the mountain, indeed.

She then introduces the band. She says they call Jimmy “Pebbles” for short. She says that Scott on keyboards was with them long ago, but they lost him to Chris Isaak. Now, he’s back to help them out in a pinch until they find someone else. She turns to the singers and says they have been with her all along. “Well, not you Jana. You weren’t there. But if you could have been, you would have been, honey.”

She says Lori took a 16 year vacation. She notes that most people go away for a couple of years, but Lori went away for 16 years! But she says that the most important thing is that Lori is back now. “My sister-in-law, Loretta Lori Nicks.”

She says Sharon has been with her from the beginning and never took a vacation at all. She has been there the whole time. She met Sharon in a bar in Maui and said to her, “If I ever do a solo album will you sing on it with me?” Sharon said, “Yes, if you ever do a solo album, I WILL sing on it with you.” Well, Stevie did a solo album a month later and, yes, Sharon sang on it with her.

She says that Jana came along when her other singer who had been with her from the beginning got pregnant. She says Mindy was, like, 12 months pregnant and didn’t want to leave. But Stevie told her, “You have to leave. You’re going to have a baby.” So, Jana came and took her place without missing a beat in front of 20,000 people. The transition was so seamless Stevie says, “Lindsey never even looked over to think, ‘oh my god’ it’s a new singer there.” Boy, she must think Lindsey is uncommonly dumb.

She says that Carlos is also a great chiropractor and that she makes his guitar sing with “chiropratic love.” Huh? I don’t want to know . . .

She says she met Waddy in 1971. She explains that her and Lindsey’s producer introduced them to Waddy and Waddy was part of Buckingham Nicks for as long as BN existed. She says he is the man of her dreams, in addition to being a brilliant music director.

Well, in another thread Max said that although “How Still My Love” was a swell song, Stevie had so many more she could be doing. Maybe so, but I can’t think of any that would sound better than this does. There are some that might sound as good, but none that sound better. She says they don’t do the song every night so she claims she doesn’t really know the words to it and makes it up as she goes along.

I feel myself sinking into the tune, like it’s goose down. Doing all you can for me; they say you’re not the man for me [reminds me of “doing what I can. I’m just a man.”] Then, in the end she repeats, “It’s me that’s talking to you. In the still of the night. It’s always been me baby. Oh yeah. It’s only me that’s talking to you. It’s always been me.” So sultry. Nonpareil. After the music ends, she comes back up to the mic and says, “oh yeah” again. Flirty.

Then it’s Edge of Seventeen. Jimmy and Taku together in the beginning are almost as good as Stevie is later. She covers the entire stage for the Edge Walk. Then returns and greets all 3 singers. Lori takes the roses Stevie has gathered from fans. She clasps Carlos’ hand. Blows kisses. Returns to the mic for the finale.

I can STILL hear the sound of a nightbird.

Beautiful, beautiful night.

I don’t like Rock and Roll. Beauty and the Beast sounds wonderful. I’ve changed. At least I’m trying to change, but her cape, the black frou frou thing on her head. The dated werewolf video in the background . . . her staging of this song has made me ambivalent about my eye exams for the last 2 years. One part of me wants the check-up to go smoothly. The other part realizes that if I went blind, I’d never have to look at this performance of Beauty and the Beast again. Six of one, half dozen of the other.

The band takes its bow. Stevie made her exit and the sky was starless. and I probably won’t see her perform again until the Greek Theater show in May. Wild-eyed in my misery,

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