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By GARY GRAFF
The metro area was first slated to see the two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Famer — with Fleetwood Mac and as a solo artist — with Billy Joel on March 29 at Ford Field. After that show was canceled due to Joel’s health issues, Nicks scheduled her own stop for Sept. 7 at LCA, which she then had to postpone after falling and fracturing her shoulder.
“All I can say is, here I am,” Nicks told the mostly full arena Tuesday, after starting her hour-and-45-minute show with a pointedly defiant rendition of Buddy Holly & the Crickets’ “Not Fade Away.” Giving the joint a therapeutic roll, she added that, “I’m feeling my shoulder as I do it” but that “every single day I get up, something feels better.” Advising fans “always avoid breaking your shoulder,” Nicks noted that “I’m glad I have somewhere to go other than my living room.”
She could rest assured the feeling was mutual.
While some of Nicks’ acknowledged excesses over the years did not make her someone we expected to still be going strong at 77, she’s defied odds to be doing just that — and as the lone Fleetwood Mac alumnus still out there playing the band’s songs. There were five of those in Tuesday’s 15-song set — 13 of them repeats from her November 2023 stop at LCA — making for a crowd-pleasing A-list experience surveying 40 years of her recording career. (Though surprisingly with nothing from 1973’s “Buckingham Nicks” album, which was re-released last month with some degree of fanfare.)
Even better was that Nicks and her eight-piece band, led by guitarist Waddy Wachtel, played everything with a grit that rocked harder than their polished counterparts on record. The troupe certainly incorporated all the nuances that are part of those songs but with more stomp and crunch, elevating and often extending favorites such as “Outside the Rain,” “Stand Back,” “Edge of Seventeen” and Fleetwood Mac’s “Gypsy and “Rhiannon.” Only “Gold Dust Woman,” from Mac’s blockbuster “Rumours,” suffered for the approach, the song’s delicate, building dynamics steamrollered by the more muscular arrangement and over-driven drums.
That was an outlier among the highlights, however, which also included a smooth pairing of the title tracks from Nicks’ first two solo albums — “Bella Donna” and “Wild Heart” — and a performance of “The Lighthouse,” her 2024 response to the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022. Nicks introduced most songs with stories about their conceptions, and she used the curved video screen above the rear of the stage for some sentimental moments. Images of past paramours and friends (Tom Petty, Don Henley, Bob Dylan, Prince, Janis Joplin) accompanied a version of her Petty collaboration “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” while she offered a more extensive Petty tribute as she sang his “Free Fallin’.” Prince, meanwhile, was the focus during “Edge of Seventeen.”
Longtime musical and onetime personal partner Lindsey Buckingham only merited a brief mention during the show, but Nicks ended the night by honoring her late Fleetwood Mac bandmate Christine McVie with a series of photos as she and Wachtel played a gentle version of “Landslide.” Nicks also dedicated the song to her recently born grand-niece, promising that she would give her a crown-wreath of flowers a fan had tossed to her during the show.
She left with another promise — to return, perhaps as soon as next year, and it’s likely anyone at LCA on Tuesday will be happy to wait for that, too.
NOT FADE AWAY
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