Definitely Enchanted!

May 29th 1998

Stevie looked and sounded amazing! She changed her dress four times, and they included black chiffon, red velvet, and beige something soft, plus a lot of shawls. She played for about an hour and a half. The songs listed are pretty much in order, but not exactly. Outside the Rain, Dreams, Enchanted, Gold Dust Woman, GOLD AND BRAID (I love this song and was SO glad she played it!), After the Glitter Fades, Garbo, Rose Garden, Sleeping Angel, Stop Draggin My Heart Around, Rhiannon, Stand Back, Whole Lotta Trouble, Twisted, Landslide and Edge of 17. The encores were Need To Know and Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You. The concert started with the definition of Enchanted by one of her guitarists. The set was beautiful, a fan that changed colors with the lights. After the first tow songs, Stevie explained how important the Hartford fans are and how she loved the last few days she spent there. Her first dress change is before the acoustic songs. After Garbo, she starts to explain a song, but then says "What am I doing? I know you understand I'm very nervous" and started singing Rose Garden. For Landslide she said "I usually dedicate this to my dad, but he's not here, so who? I think I'll dedicate it to Albert, you know who you are". Just one guitar for the song, but where the guitar solo comes, a keyboard was added. Edge of 17 was the show ender, after saying "Thank you for doing this with me, I won't forget you". Lenny started Edge of 17 with a bongo solo, then Stevie, who changed dresses again, starts to sing. The song ROCKED. For the "I see you, I see you" part, Sharon went to Stevie's mike and they held each other while singing. She did the "I hear the call of a nightbird" again, then shook the hands of people she could reach in the audience while the band played. She accepted a few gifts. The songs ends, off they go. People cheer like mad, they come back. And I don't know the name of the encore song, but it rocked.

No tourbooks, but great T-shirts, teddy bears, keychains and buttons. LOTS of people had their Dance tour shirts on. EVERYONE in the front stood up the whole time, and lots of other people did too. It was PACKED and people cheered whenever it was a good part of a song or Stevie twirled. I had a WONDERFUL time, even though I left after Need To Know and missed Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You. It was my 1st Stevie show, I loved it, and I was definitely Enchanted!

Stevieistic

May 27, 1998

I got my tickets the week before the show, thinking it was too late to get good seats. I was prepared to sit in the Nose Bleed section, but to my surprise I was able to get row "A" seats at the regular price of $57.00. I even got one for my friend whom was more than happy to leave her nose bleed seat for my seats. Unfortunately the row "A": was not the front row, but the Fourth. There is a "AA" "BB" and "CC" in front that was basically empty. Than seats went A,B,C... ECT. Throughout the show security was pulling people out who didn't belong in that section. Anyhow they were still great seats and we were only about ten feet away. Stevie was great! I was really happy to be among the first bunch to see her.

There were a lot of those Best Buy certificates for a double disc set. I got some for a couple of friends and some for those I know who’s St. Louis show was cancelled. The weather was great but just breezy enough to give me chapped lips.

I swear Stevie looked at me a couple of times. I was so happy. She really played to the audience. She wore her red platform boots (like the ones on the back of Enchanted) and a black dress kind of like the one from the Dance only no drapes on the sleeves. She also wore a maroon dress like the one from The Tonight Show and a grayish -gold? dress. She also changed shawls, and even wore the Gold Dust Woman one from the "Dance". All her band looked the same as Leno, even her backup singers. Stevie wore her hair the way she did on Leno and the Grammys. She had Red lipstick too! She sounded great, and very refreshed. Her guitar players did a decent job filling in for Lindsey Buckingham and one of them even did his best to imitate Tom Petty’s voice for "Stop Dragging My Heart Around" . All during the show she kept fiddling with some type of ear-speaker-feed. I guess she had trouble hearing herself.The stage was very "Stevieistic" , with long curtains and pink chiffon and lace. There was no tour book; only a wide variety of t-shirts and buttons. read on for more........

May 27 1998 - Gold Dust Woman Rocks On

It has been more than 25 years since Fleetwood Mac introduced the world to Steve Nicks. Appearing on eight of the groups albums, and seven of her own; she has had one of the most successful careers of any woman of Rock and Roll.

Last night at the Meadows marked the beginning of a massive U.S. tour celebrating her new Box set "Enchanted". "I am so happy to be here" said Stevie several times that night, "I can do things tonight that I can't normally do". The show was kicked off by opener Boz Scaggs,who introduced Stevie to a packed audience.

"Outside the Rain " began the show to massive applause, while favorites like "Enchanted" and "Dreams" won standing ovations. Stevie sounded in top form; in the past years she has quit smoking. Every note was in perfect pitch, nothing sounded out of key. Wearing her signature platform boots (red) and a long Black Rhiannon dress Steve twirled around while thousands cheered. The first set included career defining songs like "Stop Dragging My Heart Around" (minus Tom Petty), "Stand Back", "Bella Donna", "Gold Dust Woman" and an "acoustic segment" with "After the Glitter Fades", "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden" and "Landslide".

Returning to the stage after a wild drum solo by Lenny Castro, Nicks sang "Twisted" and her Mac classic "Rhiannon". Since the reunion of Fleetwood Mac, Stevie has performed Rhiannon with a piano intro, but still rocks the house with the original version. She ended the show with "Edge of Seventeen" during which hundreds of fans rushed the stage forming a "mosh pit" of stevies, gypsies and witches. The crowd went wild when Stevie walked over to stage right where several fans had prepared a birthday banner for the now 50 year old rock-enchantress. She than collected as many bouquets and gifts as possible before returning to her microphone for the end of her song.

After the bow her band led the whole arena with "Happy Birthday". Stevie was noticeably happy, and even graced the audience with two encores. She finished with "Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You"; than a couple thousand fans started yelling "You Did Stevie!"

Stevie is Back!

May 27, 1998

Stevie is definitely back!! She was amazing. Here is my review and description of my (first) Stevie concert experience. I entered Meadows Music Theatre from the parking lot, observing the crowd, which had lots of older fans like me and some younger ones. There were many more women than men from what I could see, even though there were lots of couples. There were also large number ( for a concert like this) of kids - 8,10,12. A new generation of fans!

Meadows Music Theatre is an amazing ( there I go again with that word) facility with a permanent sound system. Opening act Boz Scaggs himself was playing guitar through just a tiny little amp about the size of the one I use for my synthesizer, but the sound was great. You can also hear bass and drums through the system really well. Boz and his band ( by the way, they were pretty tight, too) played for about 40 minutes in front of a set of black curtains behind which I guessed ( correctly) was Stevie's set-up. Anyway, the crowd took a while to filter in, and Boz started promptly at 8. So, get to your seats early on this tour!

Boz looks older (even children get older...!) but still can sing and play . His voice hasn't really changed much over the years. Given the short time frame, he mostly played the hits, Back In My Arms, Look What you've Done To me, Lowdown, Lido Shuffle, but i think the centerpiece was a long, soulful rendition of his very first 'name' song, Loan Me A Dime , on which his band proved they can play. They also did an encore of Against the Tide ( I don't know all the titles, so I may be getting some of them wrong). Dynamite backup vocalists in his band. Anyway, Boz did well, but the crowd was there for Steve!

I had planned on meeting up with the Ledgies, but due to Boston traffic I missed that group. (I am not from Boston, I am from Minneapolis, but she isn't coming there and I was in New England on business at this time of year, so it just worked out for me to come to this show) Unfortunately, my spouse was at home, so I was all alone.. for a while. This was my first Stevie concert ever, and my first rock concert in 25 years since a stadium show with Crosby, Stills & Nash and Santana!. I got to my aisle seat (not too close - not too far - 18th row.) and discovered that the two people next to me were well known posters on the AOL board that I had chatted with many times before! While Boz was playing, they gave me the hot dish - one had snuck into the soundcheck Monday and had also met our birthday girl!

Boz finished up and got a nice response while people were still coming in (get there early, people!) and then there was a short break while the road crew got everything ready. Lots of folks went out to buy a beer or whatever, souvenirs ( no tourbooks at the first show, people, just t-shirts and souvenirs - not even posters, but they do have the stuff for the Best Buy CD's). Then, not too much later in the break, the crew took down the black curtains and we got to see her set, which looks like a four poster canopied bed from the side, with a huge fan in a Tiffany-style design in the back that is used as a lighting backdrop. Stevie is very visual, of course, and always pays attention to graphic and visual details. The 'four-poster' part is a pastel- pink/mauve. Black chiffon streamers on her microphone, as usual.

Soon the intro music started playing - this time, she has chosen another memorable man in her life, Don Henley - they played "The End of The Innocence" (LOL) and another song or two that I didn't know. Then the band came out, lights lowered, and Christopher Nicks came out and read the dictionary definition of the word enchanted. Boy, did that hit the money. Then he introduced Stevie, went off stage right and hugged her as she went on stage, to an on- their -feet , screaming crowd! She looked wonderful and beautiful in a black dress, straight hair ( very much what we've seen this past year!) and she and the band went right into "Outside The Rain". She was in great voice, powerful and on pitch. Also, the back-up singers were looking and sounding good, and everyone seemed to be really happy. Sharon in particular looked and sounded really good, too. Stevie made hand motions like she was really nervous (hand on heart, hands shaking) but she sure did not sound nervous, even though we know that she does get nervous before a show!) And, of course, the traditional segue right into Dreams came off beautifully. Carlos Rios on lead got off some pretty good Lindsey-licks and the whole arrangement was very FM - even the organ fills! After these opening two numbers, she talked to us for a while - she actually talked a lot, from what I have heard about her not talking at some concerts... Among other things, she said " Well I can say, welcome back to you, after last september and starting our Dance tour here!" She had some nice things to say about rehearsing there and then they did Enchanted.

Stevie danced by the drummer a-la-Mick during the instrumental portion. Then she talked about how this concert was different - it was the boxed set tour, "so if you don't recognize a song, that's why.. but you'll all recognize the next song..." and of course, it was Gold Dust...in the special golden shawl.

Stevie was very active twirling tonight - she twirled at three separate places in GDW, but did not do the hands in the air deal from last year. She stayed in the golden shawl for Gold And Braid ( natch!) during which she waves a finger at the players --no no don't you hide behind that hair...) Then Stop Dragging My Heart around, with her second guitar player ( not Carlos - Frank Simes?) on vocals, sings to him with her back to the audience.

By the way, the band members in the back are on these really cool risers. It is very theatrical, overall.

Then there was a sort break while the road crew reset for an acoustic portion, with pretty much the entire band ( except cool Lenny Castro on percussion and the drummer - who is really tall like Mick!) down front seated on stools. She explained what they were going to do and that she would tell a little bit about each song after they performed it. They did After the Glitter Fades, Garbo (with accordion accents) Rose Garden ( before which she got lost in the song list and corrected herself) with a beautiful transition from Rose Garden to Sleeping Angel. Then suddenly into Stand Back ( or should I say STAND BACK!). This was way better than the Leno show - of course, the strobe lighting doesn't hurt, but this band which was already very tight, really rocked, and Stevie was dancing all over the stage! Twirling and dancing as of old! Great ending and then right into Rhiannon, after just a Thank you. Drummer plays behind the beat like Mick. Killer light show and energy like you would not believe. Everyone standing and dancing in their seat! ( or better). Then she introduced the band ( see Ginny's page for correct spelling and names!)

Whole Lotta Trouble next. It was great and she was in great voice on it. After that was Landslide - no, no Lindsey - Frank Simes (sp?) did the guitar duties - actually did ok, and Kevin Stoller on keyboards played an electric piano solo as on the white album version. The audience sang along and it was beautiful... but its not the same, either... Her Declaration of Independence?

Then wind blows on the set , with wind sounds for a really great version of Twisted. Way different from the demo and even more muscular and uptempo than the soundtrack version. It rocked and was fabulous. Great arrangement, and great bass rumble like a real tornado ( ask someone who's been near one). Now we are getting to the end of the show, and so you know what is coming...Lenny on congas starts out, the drummer joins in for a solo, and then da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da, and hundreds rush the stage forming a mosh pit about 6 rows deep in the aisles. Stevie is in a grey dress with a white shawl, of course. Stevie is smiling and happy, collects birthday presents from her adoring fans ( flowers mostly - she was not taking much else) . She even played around by handing Mindy one of the bouquets as she passed by!

Ends with " I know what it sounds like when doves cry..." Band leaves - Wild cheering, out come the lighters and the whole place lights up!. Encores!!!

She sings playfully ( noting all the birthday banners that she had been ignoring up to that point) ' you make me feel so young". The first encore is that old familiar " I Need to Know" Great attack in the vocal by Stevie, still in very good voice. Finally, she sings a pretty long version of Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You, very beautiful and moving, and then that's it, but not quite ... As she lines up the band for the goodnight bow, she says to all of us " If I can do this at 50, you guys can, like rock for a long time'. Everyone cheered at these words to live by! Then that's it and the other song plays. It is Orleans and then Song With No Name , both by David Crosby from his 1970 album (another great vocalist and survivor of hard knocks) and I bet she picked that one deliberately too. Then we partied in the parking lot for an hour waiting to get out!

For her first clean, sober and HAPPY tour in 23 years, it was a great start. To all you fans out there- you are in for a treat!