Couldn't Have Been More Perfect

July 14, 1998

Bruce and I had made a trip to Dallas to see Fleetwood Mac during "The Dance" tour last fall. Our seats were on the lawn and even though we fought like mad to get a "good" lawn seat, of course we still couldn’t see anything. As it turned out, it didn’t matter because the show was exactly like the video we had watched 50 times prior to the concert, so there were few surprises. We decided then and there that if we were ever going to see a member of Fleetwood Mac again, we were going to do everything within our power to get good seats and we would wait until the actual concert to absorb the details.

It was our first time to Sandstone. Our seats were Section 2, row U, seats 9,10. It wasn’t until we sat down that the reality of the whole thing sunk in. It had been cloudy all day and we had our rain gear with us, but by the time we sat down, it looked like the clouds might make their escape. We had a great time scoping out the crowd. There were people of all ages. Bruce likes to insist that all people from Missouri are in-bred, so anyone who didn’t look that way was from Kansas, we figured. I thoroughly enjoyed Boz Scaggs’ performance. Kansas City loved it. The crowd seemed really appreciative and I was proud to be a part of it.

I was enjoying the anticipation of the show so much that it seemed like no time at all had passed and Chris Nicks was on stage reading the definition of "Enchanted." I had known this would happen, but I had no clue about what the set would look like. The backdrop was so beautiful. It was all so new to me and such a complete gift. It looked like a gorgeous transparent spider web with roses trimming the outside tiers. It changed with the concert, yet it stayed the same. A truly stunning enhancement. At first I commented to Bruce that it looked a little like an art-nouveau mosaic lamp shade. He was more apt to run with the spider web idea, so that’s what we decided on.

Stevie was amazing. The whole thing felt so intimate. It felt as if we had been invited to a private Storytelling. When "Outside the Rain" melted into "Dreams", the Dreams theme stuck with me throughout the show–especially when she discussed each song in her Trilogy. I kept imagining her as this child, this tiny woman, who grew up in the 60's, knowing she was destined for something. I have to tell you the whole concert was just amazing, but it wasn’t until Bruce pulled me along with him closer to the stage, that I started to feel like I was really there, instead of just watching it from the other side of a window. Some of the people sitting in the first two rows had left their seats to stand near the stage. Bruce nudged me into some empty aisle seats in about the fourth row. I was entranced, I never imagined I’d get this close. Little did I know. . .

Bruce grabbed my hand and we joined the people near the stage. I wanted to capture as much of her as I could before the security guard tapped me on the back and asked me to return to my seat. But that didn’t happen. Dreams. Dreams come true and dreams lost. For all of us. It was amazing to see her so close and realize she is another human being, like me. She had different dreams, different goals, and she knew she was destined for something. Everyone around me was competing for one second of her attention, it seemed. Maybe that was their dream–to capture a second of Miss Stevie Nicks. If so, she fulfilled many dreams that night. During "Edge of Seventeen", she started down at the other end of the stage, smiling down at her fans and touching their hands. By the time she got to where Bruce and I were standing, several more people had joined us. I just couldn’t look at her enough. I had my hand stretched out and I realized there would be no way I could ever impact her the way she has affected me. She looked right at Bruce and me and said, "Oh my." Her big brown eyes were so soft. My hand was just out of her reach and she moved on. I was able to get a look at her gorgeous robe. It was the creamiest silkiest thing. One of the fans reached out and grabbed it and it shimmered like crazy.

After she finished, she went back to her microphone and pointed over to where Bruce and I were standing. She explained that she didn’t touch our hands because she didn’t want to, it was just that her back couldn’t take much more of the reaching out. Bruce told me later that her had been standing behind me jumping up and down frantically pointing to my outstretched arms. He knew how much I would have wanted to shake her hand. But honestly, the eye contact was more than I’d dreamed of. The encore was incredible. "I Need to Know" just rocked. During "Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You" I started to choke up. Bruce said he swore Stevie had tears in her eyes. He said it proves it was not just another performance for her. I probably would have cried a river, but this guy in front of me kept saying in this nasally voice, "Who could forgetcha, Stevie—who could forgetcha!" Mindy Stein looked down at him and smiled. It cracked me up. I knew Bruce was thinking this guy had to be from Missouri.

Bruce told me the only word he could come up with to describe his post-concert feelings was, "full." I would have to agree with him. It couldn’t have been more perfect. As Bruce and I drove to our campsite, we noticed that the clouds were completely gone and we were left with a beautiful moon– almost full. Perhaps a sign that we are destined for more.

Wow what an amazing night!

July 11, 1998

The Kansas City Show

We finally got to the parking lot at Sandstone about 10 minutes before the show started. They were selling all kinds of merchandise tour books, keychains, t-shirts etc, and I had bought 1 of each. When we got to our seats two old women behind us asked for a joint, which freaked me out. Then Boz Scaggs' band started playing, and were actually very good. Nicks fans even gave him a standing ovation.

Then a man came out and read the definition of "Enchanted." We were all going haywire in anticipation of her appearance. She came out looking a lot thinner and blonder than on the Dance tour. The Music started:

"Outside the Rain"-Wow, her voice has seemed to really improved since the last tour.

"Dreams"-She did this one pretty much the same as on the Dance tour except with her backup singers which made it sound very elegant.

"Enchanted"-This song really rocked, and everyone was up and dancing through the entire show. She sings hire notes now than I remember, and you can tell that she really loves to dance ( which is really hard to do in those boots.)

"Gold Dust Woman"- She did this one a little different than the Dance with a few added lyrics and yelling!

"Golden Braid"-This is one of my favorite songs of hers now and can really only be captured live.

She didn't do "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" maybe because her guitarist couldn't even begin to match previous duets.

"After the Glitter Fades"- You can tell she really loves this one because of the emotion she puts into it.

"Garbo"- This is a very lovely song that she had written when she was on the shoot for the infamous "Buckingham Nicks" cover, and she talks about feeling like Marilyn Monroe when she was coming to Hollywood.

"Twisted"- This was done like the demo version instead of the soundtrack version. It definitely has a better sound with the input of Lindsey.

"Whole Lotta Trouble"- This totally rocked! I really had no interest in this song until I saw it live.

"Edge of Seventeen"- This was the song we were all waiting for. She always puts so much feeling into it, and interacts with the audience at the end.

Of course we weren't going to let her go yet, so she came back for two more songs.

"I Need to Know"- This really has a good beat to it but didn't last long.

"Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You"- This is one of the most poetic songs she has ever written and ends with something like, "And they ask about the men in her life, and she says they were poets, priests of nothing, legends. No one can compare to the emotional voice of Miss Stevie Nicks.

On our way back home we were just within seconds of getting hit by a train.

Kansas City

July 11, 1998

Thank god (or someone) that the highlight of my evening was NOT the fight in the parking lot of Sandstone Amphitheater I was lucky to be able to view between two drunk blond girls, their boyfriends, and the people in the car next to them while waiting through a third of what would end up to be ninety minutes in the parking lot in standstill traffic, waiting to get out (though that incident was able to make me feel a bit better about missing my requisite midnight Springer viewing :op)...luckily, it was the amazing show that I feel lucky to have seen.

I arrived at Sandstone with my mum and two of my friends, both huge Stevie fans, after dinner at about 6:30. We settled into our seats, aisle seats just off of the center sections, Row W, after visiting the merchandise stands and contributing lots of our hard earned cash to Stevie's retirement fund (and she deserves it, Yes She Does)..I bought two t-shirts (the light blue one with the blue lamp pic on it and the chalk drawing one, though they only had the chalk one in XXL, which is actually a bit big for me, so it is serving as a nightshirt. Useless info. :), the tour book, and two of the purple Enchanted buttons. Torri came by our seats, and I met her and her wonderful husband (who is very nice, though that thing for Sharon he has I find unceasingly WEIRD!!! ;). We got out of our seats a few times, one to go get water and look for the Best Buy coupons. I then forgot to look for Best Buy coupons on that trip, so we went up yet again after half an hour or so. Then a couple of the people that worked for Sandstone that were selling tour books, said they didn't know about the coupons, because supposedly the girl on the tour who was in charge of doing them had been admitted to the hospital here in KC that day. Anyone know about that? So we didn't get coupons. :(

Anyway. At about 8:30 Boz went onstage. Just before this my friends and my mum and I left our "official" seats and filched some seats in the center section, about fifteen rows back, just in front of a passel of late thirty- something drunk guys. But we were pretty close :) Boz was great! I know now what Stevie meant when she said his music was sexy. The only real lowlight of his performance was when he played 'Sierra' (an otherwise pretty song) that started to remind me of 'Hotel California' which made me wanna spew...reminded me of how yucked out I was when they started playing Don Henley's 'Boys of Summer' over the speakers before the show started. Yuck! But Boz was really cool, I loved 'Lido Shuffle' or whatever the name is of the last song he played (one of the only ones I knew, of course)...and I never knew that Boz sang that song from Urban Cowboy! You learn something every day. :) But Boz was great, though of course I kept cursing him out for coming back after the encore, I was screaming "Where's STEVIE! I came for Stevie!!" :o)

So Boz went off...all the crew came out and pushed all the instruments and equipment out on platforms with rollers on them (I only remember this because my mother giggled for like minutes about it!), and then they started to pull Stevie's stuff in, and the black curtain was pulled down to reveal that beautiful backdrop. I knew how the backdrop looked because of all the concert pictures I've been compulsively staring at on the Penguin and the Nicks Fix :) but it was so beautiful in person.

After about twenty minutes or so, maybe, (I wasn't wearing a watch) Chris came out and read the dictionary definition of "enchant" to the audience, and when he came to the last one, "to nearly bring to tears," my friend Andrea instantly teared up and started bawling!! How true, Chris, how true. ;) But the band came out, and then Stevie was escorted to onto the stage by a security guard with a flashlight (as she was everytime she left the stage, we thought it was hilarious!) until she got to the edge, where she walked over to Chris and gave him a hug...The crowd was roaring, and the place was PACKED. It looked sold-out to me, which was surprising because of how much I'd heard about how badly the tickets were selling. Outside the Rain started, guitar heavy at the beginning, and I was just amazed at how strong her voice sounded. It wasn't very gravelly or low like her voice had been on the copies of Street Angel shows that I had, it was high and sounded almost child-like, in the greatest way. This song was just very very intense, loved it. She then went into Dreams, and at the sound of this song the entire audience just cheered loudly...Dreams was great, but unimpressive to me, as most of the FM songs she would do that night were unimpressive. They were great, just kind of not songs that still stand out in my mind. It's the FM-always fan in me. :o)

After Dreams was over, she welcomed the crowd and explained to us that because this was her box set tour, she would be able to talk to the crowd like she never had before, and she would be doing songs that she normally couldn't do, songs that "if you blinked, you definitely missed them." 'Enchanted' started...this song is one of my favorites, we'd been listening to it in the car on the way there after I found out from Andrea that she had never really listened to the song much and wasn't a HUGE fan of it like everyone should be, so I turned it up SO loud in the car that the windows were rattling and we rocked with it, so I was in an 'Enchanted' mood anyhow. This song started, and the piano part in the beginning sounded different to me, but when Stevie started singing, I was in awe. She was having so much fun, just singing her heart out, and I was singing with her, yes I was! She was just jamming, dancing a little by the mike, it was adorable.

As soon as Enchanted was over, the entire place kind of quieted down, until we heard the opening notes of 'Gold Dust Woman'. Everyone just erupted into HUGE cheers for this one. This song was so intense, so amazing...the drummer was playing wonderfully, and I could hear the cowbell sound (I was listening for blackcat and Barbara! :) I even did Spider Fingers with her, as did my friends, thinking of Barbara and Mo. I think she did them just for me :). Her loud scream/wail/scary part just before the "Oooh...pale...shadows..." was amazing, and I noticed she was hitting the high notes really well.

When this song finally died down after Stevie's twirls :), I was unsure what was next because I hadn't memorized the set list like everyone else! But then the opening groove notes of Gold and Braid came on and I squealed and got teary the moment Stevie starting singing...my friend Courtney noticed and grabbed me, so the entire song was spent with Andrea and Courtney and I hanging onto each other for dear life as I tried to compose myself enough so that I was able to listen. :) This song has always been my favorite, and I was just ecstatic hearing this song live. I kept thinking of all my Ledgie friends while singing this song with Stevie, I was living through this song for Keith, and for Ava, and for Barbara, and for blackcat, and for Torri up in the fourth row. The only time I was distracted when I noticed that the crowd was beginning to sit down for the first time since Stevie had come onstage. I did not like that very much. ;) (Needless to say, I was still on MY feet at the end of this song!) For some reason I am recollecting that some have said that Stevie did not sing the ending lines the same as the other versions of the song, the "Because I never did not love you/I never did run from you/In a dream I said to you that I'd always love you," but she sang those lines verbatim. Either my memory is wrong or she knew I was in the audience and wanted to hear the TRUE Gold and Braid. :)

She then introduced the acoustic set, and talked a little bit to us about what she would be doing. She said about the first song, After the Glitter Fades, something to the effect of "When I got into this business and Hollywood, singing, I knew it wouldn't stay the same forever, but the singing was worth it...and that is what this next song is about." The song was beautiful, I'm so glad she chose to sing it. Next up came Garbo, where she did her normal discussion about the Buckingham Nicks cover. I remember her saying "I wrote this song about how I felt after the photo shoot for the cover of Buckingham Nicks, which I did NOT love..." or something to that effect, when she was interrupted by a loud drunken guy in my section yelling "Oh, yes you did!" Stevie smiled and said in a cutesy voice, "Oh, no I didn't!" and kept going on. So Garbo started playing, one of my favorite songs, and I was just in heaven. ;) I have always loved this song, and I loved the accordion accents on it, that Carlos was playing. Her semi- yell on the second half of the word "Marlena" was beautiful. Next she introduced 'You Never Promised Me a Rose Garden' by saying that it was a song her "17-year old overdramatic heart" wrote and that she had known even then that she was destined for something.

The band went straight into Sleeping Angel after Rose Garden. I noticed she sang "Take me, sleeping angel/catch me when you can" as the first two lines instead of "Take me, if you need me/but never hold me down".

Stand Back was amazing. The beginning of it instantly got everyone up on their feet, after sitting down through the acoustic set and Sleeping Angel. I was noticing that Frank wasn't playing the same scrapy noise/rhythm guitar part that was played on Jay Leno, and I was GLAD. That annoyed me. But by this song, everyone was dancing around, singing the "Stand back!"s with Sharon and Mindy, and just having fun. Stevie was so intense on this.

Rhiannon started playing next, with a slower and longer piano beginning then on the Dance, it sounded more like the version played during the Street Angel tour, and I was indifferent to it. It was beautiful, and her voice sounded amazing, but it is not the same without the Mac, I think. Sorry. :(

Whole Lotta Trouble was next, a song I've only recently begun to warm up to, but I must say that I LOVED THIS! It was amazing, one of the best songs she sang that night, it was so intense. Though the guitar did cover for the horn section fairly well, I was totally annoyed by Frank Simes for NOT the first time that evening. He kept bending over and making funny faces while playing overzealous guitar solos that kept stepping all over the music. I hate to admit it, but I'm biased by both my love for Lindsey AND Waddy! Both my friend Andrea and I noticed that Stevie picked up the mic stand and moved it forward about a foot while in the middle of singing intensely during this song.

Landslide was dedicated to "you all and Donna"...I think I was just relieved at the end when Stevie didn't hug or touch Frank :)...not many people were singing with her in the amphitheater, I thought that was odd. After Landslide, the thunder and lightning effects started, signaling the beginning of Twisted. I don't remember much of the song, but Andrea told me to say that it sounded very "creepy" (so SHE says ;).

Edge of 17 started up next, with the long drum solos with Lenny and Other Drummer Whose Name I Cannot Remember Though I Probably Should Go Check My $20 Tour Book To Find Out at the beginning. Carlos did an adequate job covering Waddy's excellent guitar at the beginning, and Sharon was great at the mic singing with Stevie. At the end she began to go shake hands with the crowd at the front with the security guard holding onto her, not taking any flowers. She got about three-fourths of the way through before standing up and heading up, where the band finished the song. She then came to the mic after the song was over and apologized to the crowd she had skipped over, saying that her back hurt so bad and that she had to stand up before she buckled. I thought it was great that she apologized for that, so humble and wonderful.

She then left the stage with the band, but then came back out to do I Need to Know, which was another of my favorites. This was one of the most intense songs sung that night, and it was one of the best. I've been singing the phrase "might go so-LO" ever since :) Then the opening notes of Has Anyone... started. The song was so beautiful, and her voice sounded so sincere and almost sad...it felt like she was talking to ME through that song, you know? Then she left the stage and it was over. :o(

Basically, I walked out of Sandstone with an emptier wallet then I came in with, the munchies (attributed to those dumb guys behind me smoking pot!), and a feeling that Stevie really did care about this concert, and wanted to make it wonderful for us all. And she made it amazing for me, yes she did. :o) And thank you for reading this absolute BOOK that I just wrote. :)