Nicks shows TECO crowd she can still carry concert

By DREW STERWALD, dsterwald@news-press.com

Stevie Nicks took concertgoers to Shangri-La Tuesday night at TECO Arena in Estero.

Swathed in her trademark flowing black chiffon, the Fleetwood Mac singer and solo star twirled through 25 years of music, from 1975’s “Rhiannon” to this year’s “Every Day.” If anyone in the audience doubted her relevance after all these years, she proved otherwise, stepping on stage after the sound system finished cranking “Bootylicious,” the recent Destiny’s Child hit that borrowed the guitar riff from Nicks’ “Edge of Seventeen,” which closed the show.

She immediately launched into “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” the first single from her solo debut, “Belladonna.” Old friend Waddy Wachtel, who played on Nicks’ first recording with Lindsay Buckingham in the early ’70s, was at her side throughout the show, offering a touchstone to the past. For this tour, though, it was up to Nicks to carry the crowd. She couldn’t hide behind her golden hair or her famous bandmates.

Instead, she asked fans to put aside what’s going on in the world while they shared “this little time together.”

Nicks’ enthusiasm was clear from her frequent smiles, her gushing between-song banter and her still-energetic spins around the Maxfield Parrish-like stage with its faux finishes, giant urns and decorative arch.

Although her voice obviously has lost some of its range and suppleness, its power still gripped the audience. She turned in a rocking “Stand Back” and a riveting “Gold Dust Woman” halfway through the show. In moments where it was just her and a piano, her voice rang clear “like a bell in the night”— even if her phrasing occasionally lapsed into bleating chant.

Backup singers assumed some of the higher notes in songs like “Rhiannon,” which began with an extended piano solo. Some in the audience, which was dotted with women in leather and lace, joined Nicks in singing the introduction to the song about a witch.

Newer songs such as “Planets of the Universe” and the country-tinged “Too Far From Texas” couldn’t quite match that magnetism, drawing less applause and sending many to the concession stands.

Still, she showed that even after 50 — after the glitter fades, as she once wrote — she can still rock an arena.