“She has never been happy”: When Lindsey Buckingham called Stevie Nicks “a lounge act”
Stevie Nicks exuded charisma from the moment she stepped out onstage. She may not have had that much to do when compromising with her Fleetwood Mac bandmates, but when striking out on her own with Bella Donna, some of her greatest material finally got to see the light of day like ‘Leather and Lace’ and ‘Beauty and the Beast’. That kind of success wasn’t going to be an easy pill to swallow for her bandmates, though, and when Lindsey Buckingham saw her performing, he didn’t see anything distinctly rock and roll.
Then again, would Buckingham have wanted to see Nicks perform after she just left Fleetwood Mac? It’s one thing for artists to balance their solo careers with their main outfit, but having the rest of their bandmates sit on their hands as they wait for them to get back from their own tours is almost too big of an ask.
Add to that that Buckingham wasn’t necessarily seeing the same type of success that Nicks had in her prime. The resentment that he had for his old flame on Rumours may have worked perfectly in the moment, but his musical genius had already started to turn people off by the time they realised that Tusk was going to be an artsy rock project.
Though Buckingham got back in the good graces of the public with excellent tracks like ‘Holiday Road’, he didn’t think that Nicks’ shows were all that special, remarking in Gold Dust Woman, “I’ve seen Stevie’s show. To me, it borders on being a lounge act. [She] has never been very happy, and I don’t think the success of her albums has made her any happier. She’s flexing some emotional muscles that she feels she can flex–now that she’s in a more powerful position.”
Granted, it’s not like Buckingham doesn’t have a little bit of a point when talking about his bandmate’s stage presence. Say what you want to about the way that Nicks commands the room, but it’s not like she’s giving Janis Joplin a run for her money by running around the stage and belting to the rafters.
But that’s because she doesn’t need to. There had been a mystical side to Nicks’ music ever since the Buckingham Nicks days, and seeing her stand perfectly still while singing songs like ‘Leather and Lace’ feels like she’s channelling something from another dimension whenever her voice breaks.
There are also more than a few songs in which Nicks can fly off the handle. Whether it’s during her solo career or returning to ‘The Mac,’ watching her sing a song like ‘Rhiannon’ is like watching a woman slowly being possessed by a spirit, even managing to make a lot of people wonder if her stage presence came from being possessed.
Although Buckingham’s comments came right as Nicks was about to hit rock bottom with her drug dependency, that didn’t stop her from making amazing music whenever she put on a show. As much as she could spend her days writing songs, that supposed “lounge” act has been a core part of American rock and roll for decades.
