Whether as a songwriter/vocalist for super-group Fleetwood Mac, or a successful solo artist, Stevie Nicks has been a favorite of mine for many moons.  So, when I heard that Nicks would be appearing at The Joint inside the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, I decided that tickets to her concert would be a fun way to celebrate Jacob’s and my recent first anniversary.

The Joint is a great place to see a concert, and was a fantastic setting for Stevie, who twirled and spun across the stage through three costume changes featuring all of the fringe and shawls and platform boots for which she’s known.

I’ll admit, I was a bit apprehensive, when Nicks started her show by announcing that it would not be a ‘Stevie Nicks’ Greatest Hits’ concert, but would be a mix of six new tracks and a half-dozen of her/Fleetwood Mac’s classic songs.

The new songs, included “Soldier’s Angel” (inspired by her time spent at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, with soldiers injured in Iraq), “Annabel Lee” (an adaptation of the poem by Edgar Allen Poe), and “Moonlight (A Vampire’s Tale)” as well as the first single from In Your Dreams, “Secret Love” (a song “so old” that Nicks claims she doesn’t remember about whom she wrote it).

As good as the new songs are (and make no mistake – they’re some of her strongest work, yet), it’s her classics that are going to land Nicks in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, again (she’s already there, as a member of Fleetwood Mac).  She bookended the concert with “Stand Back” and “Edge of Seventeen” (and really, that’s a great mini-concert right there…).  In between, mixed with the new songs (many of which pre-date Bella Donna, and in some cases, Rumors) Ms. Nicks graced us with Fleetwood Mac classics such as “Rhiannon” and “Landslide” – as well as “Dreams” (Fleetwood Mac’s only number one US single) and “Gold Dust Woman” (a favorite).

Sure, there were a few songs she didn’t sing, that I’d hoped for (“Sisters of the Moon” and “Gypsy” from her Fleetwood Mac days, and one of my favorite solo-Stevie songs, “Rooms on Fire”); but it was a seamless show, with a fantastic flow – and that’s what a great concert is all about, the show and the flow.

And while given my druthers I would’ve chosen “Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You” as her closing ballad (a tradition borrowed from Fleetwood Mac, where concerts would end with a ballad – traditionally Christine McVie’s “Songbird” or Nicks’ “Beautiful Child”), Nicks’ choice of “Love Is” was quite touching – especially as the evening (as far as I was concerned) was celebrating an anniversary!

But the most heartfelt moment was not delivered through the medium of song, but rather, when bidding her farewells, Nicks said “Thank you for continuing to support me as an artist, and not relegating me to cultural obscurity.”  Talent and humility…  Nice.

In Your Dreams by Stevie Nicks
Click HERE to purchase now at iTunes

Get into it!