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Stevie Nicks
with Vanessa Carlton
June 24, 2005
By ROBERT DiGIACOMO
For At The Shore, (609) 272-7017
Stevie Nicks' latest concert is even `more witchy' than some of her
previous tours.
Nicks shows off `dark side'
Nicks' "Gold Dust Tour," making a stop at Borgata on June 30 and
July 1, will have a touch of Vegas flash, thanks to the unlikely
influence of Celine Dion and Elton John.
The Fleetwood Mac frontwoman originally designed her latest solo
concert for a four-night stand in May at The Colosseum at Caesars
Palace Las Vegas, the 4,100-seat theater where Dion and John each
perform on a massive 110-foot-wide stage.
"We watched Celine Dion, we don't have 50 dancers. We watched Elton
John, we don't have 50 years of film ... Elton filmed everything he
did," Nicks recalls of her first visits to the theater. "We said,
`What in the world are we going to do?'"
The singer/songwriter and her team developed elaborate visuals,
including images from one of her favorite films, Jean Cocteau's 1946
version of "Beauty and the Beast," and her favorite artists,
Sulamith
W�lfing (for whom she named one of her beloved Yorkshire terriers),
to create a "dark" show that's even "more witchy" than previous
efforts.
"The show we've come out with now is pretty amazing because of all
that extra thought that went into putting it all together," Nicks
says. "If we hadn't had the Vegas show, it would have been good, but
it wouldn't have been like this."
Having warmed up with the Vegas gig, Nicks moved into a tour with
Don Henley, with whom she recorded "Leather and Lace" on her 1981
solo debut, "Bella Donna." The two played sets of their own material
and performed several duets.
"I sang `Hotel California' (and I thought) I lived through that,"
says Nicks, who kicked off the joint tour on June 3 in Philadelphia.
"Don and I went out when he was recording `Hotel California' at the
end of the `Rumours' recording. We lived those words in `Hotel
California.'
"I'm up there singing, going, `Oh my God, here's my life.' I
couldn't help but be somewhat groupied out. I was a little stunned
every night at the amazing gift to be able to sing that song every
night with an Eagle."
When the tour was shortened to 10 dates due to Henley's commitments
with the Eagles, Nicks decided to schedule her own summer outing;
originally she planned to take most of this year off after wrapping
a two-and-a-half-year, 135-date tour with Fleetwood Mac last fall.
"It's always interesting to leave the Fleetwood Mac world and come
back into my own world," she says. "`Gold Dust Woman' is different
in my world, and so is `Dreams' and so is `Rhiannon.' I always feel
with these songs that it's been a blessing for me to be able to go
back and forth.
"We always go back and start from the original version with
Fleetwood Mac and my band. But they always come out slightly
different."
In addition to those staples and hits like "Edge of Seventeen," "The
Chain" and "Stand Back," Nicks has added to her set list some little
performed gems, including "Beauty and the Beast" and "Has Anyone
Ever Written Anything for You."
"I've taken the French movie `Beauty and the Beast' from the '40s,
which is the reason I wrote the song, we put (footage) behind me,"
Nicks says. "It's just stunning. I can hardly keep from bursting
into tears ... it's so poignant when I'm singing it."
Joining Nicks for "Circle Dance," a Bonnie Raitt cover, will be her
opening act, up-and-coming singer/songwriter Vanessa Carlton, who's
touring behind her sophomore release, "Harmonium."
"I've been friends with Vanessa for quite a while," Nicks says.
"Really, I think she's one of the great ones. I want to take her on
tour so I can put her in front of a lot of people, so people can see
how great she is and remember that amazing first album.
"She's a new artist ... in this age of total chaos in the music
business, if you don't sell 10 million copies of your album, you're
just out of luck. It's so hard. I want to do what I can to help her.
I think she's great. I think she's one of those people who will
still be around in 30 years when I'm dead. I want some of these
women to not give up. We need them."
Having survived numerous personal and career ups and downs,
including drug addiction and sometimes turbulent relations with
Fleetwood Mac, Nicks has been embraced by many female artists who
followed her.
Her last solo album, 2001's "Trouble in Shangri-La" featured
contributions from Sheryl Crow, who produced some tracks, Macy Gray
and Dixie Chick Natalie Maines, who subsequently covered
"Landslide," Nicks' 1975 Fleetwood Mac hit.
"I'm thrilled that I can be some sort of an influence to these
women," Nicks says. "I hope I've been a good influence to them, so
they'll totally keep going.
"I think the music business is in terrible trouble. They don't
nurture artists. If you have a big hit record and a big hit single
and you don't follow it up, you are s--t out of luck."
Nicks knows of what she speaks. Originally a duo with Lindsay
Buckingham, her then-boyfriend, the two were dropped by their label
after their 1973 debut didn't sell well.
"Lindsay and I were dropped like a rock," she recalls. "If it
weren't that we had a great producer who supported us full on for
three years, we never would have made it."
They joined Fleetwood Mac in 1975 and helped turn the band into one
of the most successful groups of the 1970s and '80s. The group's
Grammy-winning 1977 release, "Rumours," sold 17 million copies,
making it one of the best sellers of all time. Fleetwood Mac was
inducted into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.
Today, the group's best-known line up, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie,
Buckingham and Nicks (minus Christine McVie), is on hiatus, but
still together. Nicks says the Mac probably will tour in 2007.
"We get all the rumors that Fleetwood Mac is going to break up,"
Nicks says. "Fleetwood Mac is never going to break up. We have our
problems. We go away from each other. We spend time with family and
and friends and the problems go away, and you get back together and
everyone's excited."
However, Christine McVie, has left the group, much to Nicks'
disappointment.
"In my wildest dreams, I would hope Christine would change her mind
and come back," she says. "If there's anything I could do to change
her mind, I would be in London to get her back.
"Unless she has a total mind meld and decides she's ready to rock
again, I don't think she's every going to come back."
Once Nicks wraps her solo tour in September, she will come full
circle to a favorite project: to make a film based on the books of
Rhiannon, the mythical character who inspired one of her best known
songs.
"This would be somewhere between `Braveheart' and `The Lord of the
Rings' and `Star Wars,'" Nicks says. "It's generations of gods and
goddesses ... it's the stories the Welsh left behind, how to be in
love, how to have kids, how not to fight your benefactors, how to
run the world basically, told through the eyes of a fairy tale.
"I feel like it's my spiritual path to do this. I wanted to do this
in 1980. It was in my original contract with Atlantic Records. I was
excited then as I am now. Then my whole solo career was busting. It
had to be put on the back burner. I feel like it's come to the
surface in a big way.
"People might go, `Oh, I'm so sure.' But when I get in my head I'm
going to do something, I'm never not successful. I feel like when
you're as passionate about something like this as I am, you can make
it happen."
Stevie Nicks with Vanessa Carlton
WHEN: 8 p.m. Thursday, June 30, and 8 p.m. Friday, July 1
WHERE: Event Center at Borgata, Atlantic City
HOW MUCH: Tickets are $75, $95 and $125 and available at Borgata box
office or Ticketmaster at (800) 736-1420 or www.ticketmaster.com
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/entertainment/casinos/cas_inter.shtml
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