Stevie Nicks reveals “emergency” health problem that derailed UK tour
On the final night of her UK tour in Glasgow on July 24th, Fleetwood Mac singer Stevie Nicks explained why she previously postponed the date at the OVO Hydro.
Nicks was initially due to play the Scottish arena on July 6th, but hours before doors were scheduled to open, the concert was unexpectedly postponed. Naturally, thousands of fans were disappointed despite being offered the chance to secure refunds due to the fact that many had travelled to Glasgow from afar, and even paid for accommodation as well as travel.
In addition to moving her performance in Glasgow back until July 24th, Nicks also postponed her concert at the newly-opened Co-Op Live in Manchester. The show was originally scheduled to take place on July 9th, but eventually took place on July 16th.
At the time, the reasoning for the postponement was somewhat vague. “Due to a recent leg injury requiring a minor surgical procedure that will need a few days of recovery time, Stevie Nicks’ scheduled performances in Glasgow Saturday 6 July and Manchester Tuesday 9 July have been postponed,” the statement read.
Furthermore, in June, Nicks cancelled a show at the Hersheypark Stadium in Pennsylvania shortly before it was set to start, which was “due to illness in the band”.
After a short break from the road, Nicks resumed the European leg of her ongoing tour with a huge headline show at BST Hyde Park on July 12th, where she was joined on-stage by Harry Styles to perform ‘Landslide’ and ‘Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around’.
While she didn’t discuss her health problems in London, Nicks did open up to the Glasgow crowd at the OVO Hydro after informing them she was “really so excited to be in Glasgow” and apologising for the postponement.
“I don’t know what happened. I just got this weird infection, and it just went crazy,” Nicks explained to the Glaswegian audience. The Fleetwood Mac vocalist revealed she had been in Scotland at a “fabulous castle” for several days before the show, and it was all going smoothly until she needed to make an emergency visit to hospital.
Nicks revealed: “I finally just looked at my assistant, it was like two in the morning, and said, ‘I think we need to go to emergency’. She looked at me and I just said, ‘I’m not kidding! I think we need to go to the hospital’. And so our butler, this wonderful man, throws us in his BMW Sedan, and off we sped through the night to a hospital.”
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee stated she spent two days recovering in hospital before adding, “They let me go back to the castle, and we cancelled this show. This whole tour I’ve been fighting what started here, and I would be damned if I wasn’t coming back here.”
While the postponement of shows was unfortunate for those who’d made plans to see Nicks in concert, her wellbeing is more important than anything else, and thankfully, she’s made it up to the people of Glasgow.
Despite her health issues, Nicks’ performance at Hyde Park was a triumph. In a review of the concert, Far Out wrote: “Beyond remembering her own career through the display of her various costumes and the performance of her decade-spanning hits, the show is heavy with a sense of grief, responsibility and bittersweet celebration.”
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