7/21/2008, 10:42 AM

A review. Soundstage I watched last night, Open this blog to see who was playing.

Stevie Nicks on Soundstage. I'm going to try to watch a musical show every week or so and review it here, I am a bit of a Stevie Nicks fan. I will never forget the first time I saw her. It was on Don Kirshner or one of those concert shows maybe a month before that first Fleetwood Mac album with her and Buckingham on it started to take off. She was running around the stage like a maniac, singing Rhiannon. I thought it was incredible. I was in love. Something about her eyes, under her blond hair, and her passion. I still think she was by far their best songwriter but was limited. Her man at the time Lindsay I believe finished most of her songs, gave them a structure. Christine McVie was more or less Robin to her Batman. So it's many years later, after all the cocaine and even the degrading love affair with Mick Fleetwood who had to write all about it in his book I think to prove to the world he had one hot chippie in his life. Right after Rumours came out I was first in line so I could get close to Stevie on the stage, I was 17. I took a white rose for her. Unfortunately I got really drunk on several bottles of bubbly before entering the hall and though my friend told me I did succeed in giving her the rose, I remembered abaolutely nothing whatsoever about the concert other than waking up in the car as my friend was driving me home. Wait I take that back. I remember seeing Mick Fleetwood go crazy drumming on World Turning. Back to Soundsage, she started the concert with her MTV hit Stand Back (I never liked that song) and spoke a lot to the crowd. Most of it wasn't too compelling. Waddy Wachtel was her guitarist and band leader. He used to be on all these recordings from California bands in the 70s and 80s. The band sound was a combination of that which did come off as a bit dated, that old LA sound, and attempts at modernization, they ran the backup vocalists thru vocoders on several songs. It was unusual, at best. She sang a new song which was tolerable except for the fact she introduced it by saying Let's Rock and it really wasn't much of a rock song. She did several cuts from her solo records. The biggest thing I'd like to report is that since she did become overweight, the same manic movements she used singing Rhiannon back then just look terrible and clumsy and I just can't believe none of her people tell her she looks awful doing these things. The witchy dance, her bad rock and roll moves, it was gross. Just stand there and sing, Stevie, you might have a chance. There was one 10 second waving of the arms that didn't offend me out of all the 'moves' but whenever she sashayed around the stage I wanted to throw a tomato at my big screen. I had a long daydream about some of these people being surrounded by sycophants. She definitely is. Any friend with a heart would tell her to limit her movements. A lot. So she's playing the casinos, like Dylan and others. The best and only enjoyable moment in this concert was when she sang one of her songs she brought to Fleetwood Mac, Sara. She introduced it saying she usually doesn't perform the song because it's considered to be a Fleetwood Mac song but the show producer pleaded with her to. For a time she just stood there and sang. It's such a simple song and her voice is still exactly the same as it always was. She got into the flow and it was transcendent, other than the fact that that song has always gone on way too long to begin with. Why on earth didn't she do more songs she wrote for Mac? Landslide, Beautiful Child, Dreams, Rhiannon. They would've saved this sorry fiasco. The concert ended with, believe it or not, her version of Led Zep's Rock and Roll. Sure she sang it okay but just like 5 trillion other females would. Not nearly as good as Ann Wilson of Heart's version. I thought it was embarrassing that this was her finale. Stevie, you can do much, much better. You were closer to Dinah Shore fronting a band than your actual potential. Next time call in somebody with a vision like me, it wouldn't be hard to give you your proper aura back.