With the departure of Lindsey Buckingham and the passing of Christine McVie, we may have seen the end of Fleetwood Mac.
While that situation plays out, or doesn’t, we are blessed to have the mystical gypsy of the band, Stevie Nicks, serenading us with those classic songs as well as the best of her solo career.
That on-and-off journey was launched 42 years ago with the instant success of “Bella Donna,” and now, at 75, Nicks is on a solo tour that brought her to PPG Paints Arena Wednesday for the first time since 2018.
Her devoted followers turned out strong in brimmed hats, shawls and lacy dresses, even some of the guys.
After the entry song of “Runnin’ Down a Dream,” from another fallen comrade, Tom Petty, Nicks emerged, all in black, bowed, and eased into “Outside the Rain,” a deeper track from her 1981 debut, “Bella Donna.”
Although it’s not a showy song, vocally, it was all we need to know that her uniquely rough and raspy voice still has the old magic. It was reinforced when the song segued into “Dreams,” one of the beloved entries from the FM catalog.
It’s not often that Pittsburgh is complimented for its lack of rain, but she greeted the crowd saying she did her previous show, with Billy Joel, in a steady Boston rain, with a hat pinned to her head, “and I can’t tell you how excited I was to get to this show.”
She prefaced her signature duet with the story of Jimmy Iovine telling her that her forthcoming solo debut album didn’t have a single.
His solution was to introduce her to Petty for what would become “Stop Draggin' My Heart Around.”
“I love you, I love the Heartbreakers, I love this song,” she recalled telling Petty.
Rather than summoning the late Heartbreaker on video, she found a worthy duet partner in longtime guitarist and music director Waddy Wachtel, who sizzled throughout.
Nicks, once a shy frontwoman, continued in storyteller mode, providing the background, about the LA Sunset Riots in 1966, for Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth.” The song endures for her, she said, because it’s about learning how to listen. She infused it with some added slide guitar, her blunt, husky delivery and a longer, echoey outro.
About 10 years after Stephen Stills wrote that song, she was joining a broke Fleetwood Mac, driving around with Buckingham in a car that didn’t go in reverse.
“I was the only one that had a job,” she said, “because [what] was Lindsey going to do?”
She was cleaning houses. He was perfecting his guitar chops, presumably.
It introduced “Gypsy,” which she referred to as one of FM’s “foundational songs.” It, of course, was another beauty with another stunning vocal over a spinning, carousel effect.
It was full-on hard-rock muscle for a show-stopping “Stand Back,” for which she donned a sparkly coat for the first of her witchy dances, sending the crowd into hysterics.
The strident “Soldier's Angel,” she explained, was added to the set to support Ukraine and express her disgust with Vladimir Putin, who she is convinced plans to take over all of Eastern Europe. “He is not going to stop.” Rod Stewart had a similar message here a few weeks ago, so this is clearly a hot topic with the boomer rockers.
An exquisite “Gold Dust Woman” was thick with drama and noisy atmosphere, climaxing with harrowing held notes and the shawl dance that’s the Stevie Nicks equivalent of Gene Simmons spitting fire.
Wachtel got to blaze away in an extended opening for the song that many were waiting for, “Edge of Seventeen.” It was an epic set-closer with the chugging riff, Nicks’ braying vocal and a round of solos going from organ to piano to guitar.
“You’ve been an awesome crowd…I love being in this city,” she said, before exiting the stage.
There were more hits stacked in the encore: a celebratory cover of “Free Fallin’,” a surprisingly hard-driving “Rhiannon” and finally, the lovely and bittersweet “Landslide” with just Nicks, Wachtel and keyboard.
This song is course, has her repeating “And I’m getting older too.”
Some of the 70-something rockers still packing arenas have lost a step or two, while others barely seem any different than they were 30 years ago. Maybe even better. Nicks clearly falls in the latter category. Rock goddess, indeed.
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)
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)
First Published: September 28, 2023, 2:22 a.m.
Updated: September 28, 2023, 1:36 p.m.
