Race Honour Thrills Nicks

ORIGINAL rock chick Stevie Nicks will announce February tour dates when she jets in for Melbourne Cup week.

The Fleetwood Mac superstar, 56, will do a national tour, including a concert at Rod Laver Arena. Nicks has a race named in her honour at Emirates Stakes Day. Her tour promoter, Andrew McManus, says Nicks was the perfect candidate for the Cup carnival honour. McManus has a marquee at the Melbourne Cup, which entitles him to naming rights for one race on Stakes Day. He offered the race to Nicks, who accepted, and has apparently not stopped talking about it since. ``I was in Atlanta trying to get Stevie to focus on some business we needed to do, and all she wanted to discuss was this race,'' McManus told The Back Room. ``She is really pumped about it.''

Nicks last visited Australia last year with Fleetwood Mac. McManus is planning a spectacular for her solo shows, and a special guest on some sectors. Nicks, the unequivocal leader of femme rockers, cherishes her role at the top. ``I made the choice,'' she told The Back Room last year. ``I wanted to be that famous. I wanted to be hugely famous. I wanted to be the queen of rock 'n' roll. And in signing that pact with the Devil, I gave up everything else.'' But Nicks also advises friends including Sheryl Crow, Michelle Branch and Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks. ``My mom says that was what I was really sent here to do: teach,'' Nicks says. ``These girls do ask me for advice and I'm honest with them. They see me on stage and they learn. ``I go up there and what I do I learned from Janis Joplin, I learned from Jimi Hendrix. What I do on stage, I absolutely took from my icons, and the art of that great performer is starting to be lost.''