The Stevie Nicks tour that topped her Fleetwood Mac Days: “Sing my songs”
Given that I was born in 1996, it’s worth identifying just when I became a fan of Stevie Nicks. While I can’t remember the date, I can certainly remember the song. It was ‘Landslide’ sometime during my childhood, likely played in the quiet of a Sunday afternoon, embedding itself in my memory forever.
To this day, it remains one of my favourite songs of all time, largely because of the memories it evokes but also because of its genuine merit. It’s a timeless piece of music whose melody beautifully aches, giving way to Nicks’ poignant lyrics about life’s transience.
It’s a classic Nicks song in which she pours every ounce of her humanity into the track, opening up a door to universality by exercising deep vulnerability. This is what made her great on that 1975 piece, iconically fierce on Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 opus Rumours, and ensures that to this day, over 50 years on, she is still gaining new fans.
Of course, once you’re stunned by her music for the first time and subsequently walk through the gateway of her discography, you soon find an embarrassment of storytelling riches, both in and out of the music. Upon learning the drama of her career, be it the painful heartache or crippling drug abuse, her music becomes all the more compelling.
As a contemporary fan, a newcomer to the world of Stevie Nicks’ lyrics, it was something I experienced. After promoting ‘Landslide’ from a subconscious soundtrack to my upbringing to a song I would deeply understand, I immersed myself in the world of Fleetwood Mac’s dream-rock. For what they and, more specifically, Rumours did was create the blueprint for how personal music could be, but moreover, how reliability existed within those specifics. It was a novel and a self-help guide all in one.
That timelessness has led us here, where Stevie Nicks stands as an icon, broken by our constant desire for her painful songwriting. While her last studio album was released in 2011, she has continued to tour all over the world, providing fans old and new with musical moments they’ve waited their whole lives for.
But many would be swift to gatekeep an artist like Nicks, reminding younger fans that seeing her now doesn’t have a scratch on seeing her in the late 1970s, because apparently, nothing was as good as it was back then. But gatekeepers, look away now, for your arguments are clearly rooted in nothing but fantasy, as Nicks herself regards a tour she went on in 2014 as her most treasured.
Explaining, “The 24 Karat Gold Tour was my all-time favourite tour. I not only got to sing my songs, but I was able to tell their stories for the first time. I love having the opportunity to share this concert with my fans. From me to you – 24 Karat Gold.”
It was a tour that gave Nicks independence over her own artistry. She played a string of hits, both solo and from Fleetwood Mac, on her own terms and without interruption, allowing her much-loved humanity to fully pour out onto the songs.
