Roll Call - New Orleans 3-15-17 Smoothie Center
 

Anyone besides *moi* going to see Stevie in New Orleans? Saw her last October in Houston and she totally rocked it out...who else is going to see the Gold Dust Woman in The Big Easy?:wavey:

I'm most definitely looking forward to it. Been awhile since I've seen her, and taking a couple people with me who've never seen her or Fleetwood Mac live before. Gonna be fun for sure!

Saw her in 2012 at the Smoothie King Center in NOLA, she headlined a show with Melissa Etheridge and Gladys Knight. It was the first time she performed *New Orleans* live! What a great show. Saw this show last October in Houston and excited to see how the show unfolds in New Orleans. I know she loves this city!

I was at that show in 2012 too. It was so great. So glad they added these dates and that she's coming to New Orleans. I so wanted to see her perform all these other songs from the vault as well. Have a great time tomorrow! :)

You too! I can't wait:blob1:

Just visited the ticket site for smoothie king center and it looks like alot of tickets have moved in the past week or so....could possibly sell out...

Gonna be a nice crowd then. Almost time!

Have fun and be safe! Gonna savor the moment 'cause it goes by way too fast.

Stevie Nicks and the Pretenders teamed up for the best kind of nostalgia at New Orleans concert


The focus of Stevie Nicks’ current solo tour, she explained Wednesday at a nearly full Smoothie King Center, is “songs that I love to sing, not that I have to sing.” With that intention, she did herself, and her fans, a favor.

Her most fervent fans cheer whenever she so much as twirls around; they do not need to be force-fed a program of hits. Thus, her nearly two-and-a-half hour trip down memory lane, which included lengthy but charming and revealing stories, drew heavily from a cache of compositions that lingered for years in her “box of lost songs.”

Most of them deserved to be let out, especially by a full-bodied band led by Waddy Wachtel, the go-to session guitarist for the likes of James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Keith Richards, Warren Zevon and, in the early 1970s, a then-unknown duo called Buckingham Nicks.

Nicks may well have been the beautiful, doe-eyed hippie-witch that every '70s male rock star wanted to date, but she was also determined to build a solo career independent of Fleetwood Mac. She wrote songs while on tour with the band; when her Mac-mates went on vacation, she went into a recording studio.

Unable to actually join Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, she settled for working with Heartbreakers producer Jimmy Iovine. The result was her multi-million-selling 1981 solo debut, “Bella Donna.”

That album’s lead single was the Petty duet “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” which he wrote with his guitarist, Mike Campbell. On Wednesday, Chrissie Hynde returned to the stage following her thrilling opening set with the Pretenders to share “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” with Nicks. Their connection and mutual respect felt genuine.

While making the follow-up to “Bella Donna,” Nicks was “more famous, a little more spoiled, not as focused.” Still, she was determined not to be a one-hit-wonder. “The Wild Heart” confirmed she wouldn’t be.

She recounted how that album’s “Stand Back” is based on the melody of Prince’s “Little Red Corvette”; he came to the studio to approve her innovation and play on it. She exulted that “Crying in the Night,” from “Buckingham Nicks,” her failed, self-titled, pre-Fleetwood Mac duo album with Lindsey Buckingham, is “back in the world.” (She also made one guy in the front row ecstatic by autographing his vinyl copy of “Buckingham Nicks.”)

She paid special attention to “New Orleans,” which she wrote in Hurricane Katrina’s wake. She didn’t want to write a dirge, so focused instead on the city’s resiliency. Lyrics rely a bit too heavily on the usual clichés – Bourbon Street, Mardi Gras, French Quarter, etc. – but her heart was obviously in the right place.

Only a few Fleetwood Mac songs made the set list, but all are essential to her body of work. “Gold Dust Woman” needed no introduction; afterward, she described how it invariably takes on a life of its own and “does its own thing.”

In the encore, she and the band lofted the Mac classic “Rhiannon.” She followed with a story about sitting down one evening in Aspen, Colorado, at a point when her music career was in jeopardy and writing a song while staring at the mountains. That song was “Landslide,” the breakthrough hit from Fleetwood Mac’s self-titled 1975 album.

At the arena, she lofted a lovely, spine-tingling "Landslide" over the hushed accompaniment of Wachtel’s nimble acoustic guitar and Darrell Smith’s piano. Nicks must sing that song, but clearly still loves to.

Thirty years ago, my student committee at Texas A&M University produced a Pretenders concert on campus. Those of us who spent time around Chrissie Hynde that day quickly learned to fear her withering sarcasm and glares.

Fast forward three decades, and Hynde’s sarcasm and glares are still withering, her I-don’t-give-a-damn attitude undiminished. Audience members using their phones drew her ire. “I guess we’re not that exciting,” she snarled. “Maybe if I take my shirt off it might help.”

Fortunately, her voice, songs and band are also just as sharp as in the 1980s. Drummer Martin Chambers, the only remaining original Pretender other than Hynde, is still a potent force. Ace guitarist James Walbourne replicated the Pretenders’ signature jangle. The players tore into the likes of “Middle of the Road” and “Talk of the Town” with gusto.

As Hynde made abundantly clear, she was in charge. Stopping the band at one point, she said, “See, they do exactly what I want them to do. Why can’t guys be like that in real life?”

She was herself a masculine presence onstage, as evidenced by her appreciation of certain fans. “Call me sexist,” she said at one point, “but it’s always great to see a pretty girl dancing.”

Her pleading in “I’ll Stand By You” served as a vocal showcase. She nailed all the nuance of “Brass in Pocket.” In just under an hour, the Pretenders packed in most of their essential tracks, and demonstrated that they – and Hynde especially – are still capable of rattling cages.




More pictures here: http://www.theadvocate.com/new_orlea...ign=user-share

See photos: Stevie Nicks, The Pretenders stop in New Orleans


Fleetwood Mac singer Stevie Nicks struck out on a solo tour with Chrissie Hynde's Pretenders in 2016, finally bringing the show to New Orleans with a Smoothie King Center stop Wednesday (March 15).

Nicks, who was last in New Orleans for Fleetwood Mac's 2013 Jazz Fest headlining gig, has built her newest tour around songs she hadn't performed onstage before.

See photos of the performance in the gallery above.



More pictures here: http://www.nola.com/music/index.ssf/...enders_ne.html

Stevie Nicks digs deep to deliver a personal show at the Smoothie King Center

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) -
Expectations were high and should be when two iconic singers hit the same stage on the same night. Stevie Nicks and Chrissie Hynde, leading Pretenders, know where that bar is and each hit it Wednesday night at the nearly sold out Smoothie King Center.

The Gold Dust Woman took her adoring fans on a trip through her entire catalog. Stevie dug deep to her beginnings in Buckingham Nicks to Fleetwood Mac and on through her more than three-decade solo career.

Nicks pulled out classics and reached into what she calls her “gothic box of lost songs” to deliver a deeply personal show. Nicks is quite the storyteller and dropped golden nuggets of her musical history.

“It’s a journey, it’s a trip, come with me,” Nicks encouraged the crowd.

While she opened with Gold and Braid, a track she recorded but didn’t use on her enormous solo debut Bella Donna, Nicks quickly dished out some fan favorites.

If Anyone Falls from her 1983 “Wild Heart” album followed before she described what it was like to cut a solo album as Fleetwood Mac became the biggest band in the world in the late 70‘s.

Nicks promised not to break up Mac as she pursued a solo career with Atlantic Records while trying to figure out how to “make a girl Tom Petty record.”

Her producer and then boyfriend Jimmy Iovine brought her a song from Petty and it catapulted Nicks solo career.

“Stop Dragging My Heart Around” fired up the crowd and when Chrissie Hynde stepped in to fill Petty’s vocals on the duet, it was a special moment to watch the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers perform together.

The fifth song of the night was finally a Nicks-penned Mac hit, “Gypsy” from their “Mirage” album. Fans jumped up and danced like it was 1982 while Nicks did her signature spin.

Her sense of humor firmly intact, Nicks then joked after her solo success she “went back to make a record with, who were they? Oh Fleetwood Mac.”

Determined to make sure no one would say her solo career was a fluke Nicks said she wrote a lot of songs while touring with Fleetwood Mac for “Mirage.” When the tour ended, she went back into the studio to cut “The Wild Heart,” which became her second multi-million selling solo smash.

“I was not going to be a one-hit wonder,” she said.

Nicks voice was strong as she worked her way through “Wild Heart,” “Bella Donna” and “Enchanted.”

Then Nicks dove into the story of her next song as she sat in her living room in 2005 drawing while the news on the TV kept going back and forth to the massive hurricane bearing down on New Orleans. She said as a writer “you’re like a news reporter,” and began writing a poem about what she saw happening here.

“I’m going to write a story about someone who lives in the city and loves the city. People will survive, they will rise to the occasion because they are a great city.” The result is the heartfelt New Orleans from her 2011 album In Your Dreams. It was a moving tribute to the city.

The best was saved for last as Nicks and her talented and accomplished 8-piece band knocked out Stand Back, the lead single from The Wild Heart. When the song ended a graphic showing Prince and Nicks together was revealed. Nicks said. “Prince and I were friends.”

She said one day she heard a Prince song and basically wrote and recorded “Stand Back” over it. Nicks said that they couldn’t go any further with it though until she got in touch with Prince to get his approval. He just happened to be in L.A. and dropped by the studio. Nicks said he loved it, played on the record and wished her good luck. The song she was listening to when she wrote the song was “Little Red Corvette.”

All night Nicks proved her sing and songwriting chops take second place to no one and while up to this point she only performed one Mac hit, she would finish the night with a Fleetwood flourish.

Nicks rolled out a powerful version of “Gold Dust Woman” from the all world hit “Rumours” as the band found one of its many highlights of the night.

After a much too long band introduction, she closed out the set with “Edge of Seventeen” while more of a tribute to Prince played out on the screen.

The enthusiastic crowd wouldn’t leave until they got a little more and Nicks delivered with “Rhiannon” as longtime friend, guitarist and musical director Waddy Wachtel led the way.

A Nicks concert though could never end without one more song, one she wrote in Aspen, Colorado in 1973.

A little song that she says took her “band to the top”, “Landslide.”

With Wachtel on acoustic by her side, Nicks was nearly pitch perfect on her signature song. It’s a simple song that tends to fill her fans with great emotion, bringing some to tears like the sweet woman sitting two seats away.

She wiped her eyes as Stevie said good night and a good night it was.



http://www.fox8live.com/story/349312...ie-king-center

Scoot: I felt like I was seeing Stevie Nicks for the first time

As a young disc jockey on the morning show of a rock music station in New Orleans in the 1970s, I felt like Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac were part of my job everyday. Fleetwood Mac reigned supreme among the artists I played.

As great as Fleetwood Mac was, and still is, Stevie Nicks was the vocal and visual focal point of the band. I always appreciated her subtle power. She has an indefinable charisma that contradicts her passive center stage position behind her mic stand. So powerful is Stevie Nicks’ presence that even the slightest movement or iconic Stevie Nicks twirl drew applause from the audience.

Having seen Nicks several times in big arenas on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and in Baton Rouge and at Jazz Fest just 2 years ago, I wasn’t sure if I would make the effort to go to her concert Wednesday night at the Smoothie King Center here in New Orleans. I got tickets at the last minute from the station, but I wasn’t sure if I could breakaway from the compelling news that I have become so accustomed to watching every evening from the cable news channels. Since President Trump won the election, the news has been as riveting as a great drama.

The reason I was somewhat reluctant to go to the concert last night was because I felt like I had seen Stevie Nicks and the concert would be a repeat of the past. I was wrong!

I may have seen Stevie Nicks perform before, but I’ve never seen the Stevie Nicks I saw Wednesday night! She turned a concert in a large arena into an intimate evening with Stevie Nicks with storytelling and a degree of honesty that gave a glimpse into her personal life.

One of the first stories Stevie told was about how she first met Tom Petty, who became a friend and whose name would resurface in another story later in the show. Her story about Tom Petty led into the song she did with him, “Stop Draggin’ My Heart.” Tom wasn’t there to sing the duet with her, but Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders, who opened the show for Stevie, walked out to thunderous applause to sing the Tom Petty parts of the song. That was an epic rock moment.

Stevie talked about how much her life and her success have been a surprise to her. When she first started playing music in a band, she lamented about being a waitress and a cleaning lady and she, and how her love, Lindsay Buckingham, drove around in an old Toyota that didn’t have reverse. The vision of those early times helped us understand how she reacted to the first time she flew first class and was picked up in a long, black limo. Her life has been a surprise to her.

When I saw Stevie Nicks in the 80s, at the height of her solo career, she disappeared from the stage numerous times for costume changes. The people I know in the business told me about her love of cocaine, and it was generally believed that the costume changes were simply an excuse to constantly do a bump during the show. I can’t verify that, but the stories about Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac’s relationship with cocaine were notorious. Last night, Stevie Nicks very briefly left the stage to change or add to what she was wearing, including the original Bella Donna cape, but that seemed to be part of her desire to refresh the visual rather than take a hit of coke.

Stevie Nicks looked and sounded great, and her personable attitude with the audience gave credence to the notion that she had broken her bad habits and was new again. Stevie Nicks today reflects so many in her generation that have come to realize that dependency on drugs is not the way to a long, successful life. And she seems to be having much more fun, too.

The theme of her current tour is performing many of the songs she loved that ended up in a box on the floor and were never heard by the public. But Stevie also did many of her favorites and our favorites like, “Gypsy,” “Edge of 17,” “Rhiannon” and “Standback,” a song she did with Prince. Stevie talked about her respect of Prince; and when she gets nervous walking out to do a show, she’ll ask Prince to walk with her. She says she knows he’s there with her.

Like so many rock stars, Stevie Nicks loves New Orleans. She told her story of sitting on the sofa, watching the breaking news about this incredible storm named Katrina and how it touched her deeply, inspiring her to write a song titled, “New Orleans.”

Performed publically for the first time on this tour, the song is about the city and the people of New Orleans, who are resilient and strong. She said she wanted to write a song about the people that love their city and how they will come back, no matter what challenges they face. The crowd loved it!

Stevie Nicks was a bit philosophical and motivational. She counted the years from when she wrote one song to performing it Wednesday night in the Smoothie King Center. She wrote it 44 years ago. Nicks was amazed that a song she wrote when she was a waitress and a cleaning lady was being performed in front of a huge rock crowd 44 years later. She told the audience that this was an example of having a dream and believing you can do it.

As I write this critique of the Stevie Nicks concert, I am not succumbing to the belief that critics must be critical to be critics. I loved the evening with Stevie Nicks, and I’m so glad I decided to go to the concert. I do feel like I saw Stevie Nicks for the first time Wednesday night.

As the show went on, there were a few times when maybe some of the stories were a bit long, but I wouldn’t trade more concise stories for the overall biographical feel of the Stevie Nicks show I saw.

Toward the end, Stevie said, “I’m like your great aunt; you can’t get rid of me.”

The last song of her encore was one of the greatest songs ever written about life. Sitting alone in a house in Aspen, CO, Stevie Nicks wrote “Landslide” in 1973 at the age of 27. At the time these incredible lyrics came from her, she was a waitress and cleaning lady; and life was hard. But from that moment in her life, Stevie Nicks wrote the poetry of a song that still stands as a poetic and prophetic song about life. It focuses on her relationship with her father; and as she sat alone surrounded by snow-covered mountains, she wrote:

I took my love, I took it down
Climbed a mountain and I turned around
And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills
'Til the landslide brought it down
Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changin' ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?


The fact that Stevie Nicks wrote the words to that song long before she would become a recognized talent should tell you that you never know how significant something you do may be in the future.

Stevie Nicks is an example of staying true to your heart and your instincts – even if no one else is noticing at the time.



http://www.wwl.com/Scoot-I-felt-like...478?pid=532327

Stevie Nicks shared her Katrina story at a sold-out New Orleans show

I wouldn’t be surprised if I was the only person under 55 on the Gulf Coast who doesn’t get overly excited about live music or going to a concert.

Sure, I don’t mind going to a concert or two if I love the artist, but you won’t catch my diva self trekking through mud at a festival or standing in the sun all day to get stomped on by drunk people and smell patchouli and nachos while waiting for the headliner who is 45 minutes late.

It’s just not my thing.

My boyfriend, Alec, loves Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac. Like, he really loves them. Me? I love singing “Landslide” in my car and recently learned the words to “Rhiannon” because Alec plays it about once or seven times a day.

When his parents got him tickets to see Stevie in New Orleans, I knew it was going to be a concert he’d remember forever. So I wanted to make it special for him.

And by special I mean I wanted to be on my best behavior to make sure he had a good experience.

“I know this isn’t your thing, so if you could just dance when I ask you to dance and record when I tell you to record, that would be great,” he told me as we were parking. Miraculously, we made it to New Orleans and parked with minutes to spare before Stevie’s opener, The Pretenders, took the stage, and we didn’t murder each other. Praise be.

I got Alec a beer and myself a Diet Pepsi and waited for Stevie to take the stage. The faint smell of pot (and a little bit of body odor, courtesy of the drunk dude sitting behind us) wafted through the air.

My phone was in my hand, ready for Alec’s command to hit record.

Stevie, whose voice is undeniably haunting, gravelly and beautiful, came out in one of her famous capes, and the lighters came out and people started to scream.

I watched Alec’s eyes get big. It seemed a magnet had pulled his entire body more toward the stage.

I was waiting for a tear or two to fall, but it was me who began to get emotional as Stevie told us a story about what she was doing as Hurricane Katrina barreled toward the Gulf Coast in 2005.

She was not working at the time, she said, and she loved to draw and make art when she wasn’t recording an album. Stevie liked to play the television while she drew, for background noise, but she rarely watched it. But when she saw Katrina, she said she became mesmerized and watched the hurricane’s track as it got closer and closer to the Mississippi Coast and New Orleans.

The storm moved her. She felt an immediate connection with her fans in the South. Then and there, she finished a drawing she’d started in the ’80s. It was her image of Hurricane Katrina. She had never shared it with anyone until the concert Wednesday.

I was going to take a picture to share, but I decided the memory was more important than the photograph.

Then, she played a song about New Orleans she had recorded in 2010 and stored away in what she called her “Gothic box of lost songs.”

The crowd got teary-eyed and watched as Stevie sang about Mardi Gras, balconies, beads and daiquiris.

As she sang, I was reminded of my life-changing Katrina experience, when my junior and senior English teacher told a class of scared, confused juniors that things were going to be OK after the hurricane ravaged Hancock County.

Remember, Kay Lovelace Palombo told us, home is going to be fine because the birds have returned to the trees and they are chirping. It was at that moment I knew things were going to be OK.

And when Stevie was singing Wednesday, that feeling came back again.



Read more here: http://www.sunherald.com/news/local/...#storylink=cpy

Iconic Stevie Nicks performs in New Orleans, pays homage to the city

Rock and roll legend Stevie Nicks touched the hearts of many audience members Wednesday night at her New Orleans performance.

This performance was particularly special when Nicks told the backstory of her song “New Orleans.” She wrote the song during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

She said the hurricane had a “huge effect” on her and she found herself trapped in front of the TV screen, staying up to date on every aspect of the Katrina story.

It devastated her that an entire city and everyone who lived there had to go through the hardships of a natural disaster, especially an atrocity like Katrina.

She said she knew she had to write about it, but didn’t want it to just tell a tragic story; she wanted to inspire. She wanted to express that the city would make it through tough times.

“The people hope that their lives will get better,” Nicks sang. “I wanna get back to New Orleans, I wanna sing out in the streets of the French Quarter.”

It was clear that the crowd was thankful and emotional toward Nicks’ heartwarming performance of “New Orleans.” People were standing and cheering more than they had for any other song.

Aside from the moving “New Orleans” performance, she put on an all-around beautiful show. Her sets were different from others on past tours. She featured images of her artwork on the backdrop and shined bright, vibrant colors into the crowd and onto the stage.

Her unique voice was untouched by the effects of aging and as always, she had her iconic blue shawl and classic twirl.

She twirls to the beat of the melody as if the music takes her over. Audience members joined in with her, twirling their arms and dancing to the beat.

She crooned famous songs such as “Stand Back” and “Landslide.”

“Stand Back” was written after she heard a Prince song on the radio. She spent hours writing lyrics to the sound of his music. She joked on stage about how strange and nerve-wracking it was when she called Prince out of the blue.

She told him about the song and he came over within the hour. He was laid-back the entire time, and when she asked him if he wanted to record the piano and guitar part of the song, he managed it in under an hour.

“I walked him out to his car, and I believe he was driving a purple Camaro,” Nicks said at the concert, raising her arms above her head. “How perfect?”

She wrote “Landslide” in Aspen, Colorado, in 1973. It was there that she was visiting with Lindsey Buckingham, with whom she collaborated on her first ever album, “Buckingham Nicks.” She went out on the balcony, looked out at the snowy hilltops and wrote music. The words and meaning of the song came to her easily.

However, it wasn’t released until two years later, on the Fleetwood Mac album.

Nicks’ 24 Karat Gold tour was completely different from anything she had ever done by being personal and wonderfully unique.

Toward the end of the show, Nicks said, “It will never be me singing ‘New Orleans’ to New Orleans again,” and the crowd was overcome with emotional cheers. She closed the show with a breathtaking performance of “Rhiannon” followed by “Landslide.” At the very end, she inspired the crowd once more by saying, “Do what you want; follow your dreams.”



http://www.lsunow.com/daily/iconic-s...7d4393a2c.html

Stevie Nicks and Chrissie Hynde Bring Home the Gold


Queen of Rock & Roll and bohemian icon, Stevie Nicks, came to thrill the Smoothie King Center on her 24-Karat Gold tour. Along for the tour is Chrissie Hynde with her band The Pretenders. In the Smoothie King Center, the air was thick with sequined shawls, tunics, big heels and big hair.

Nicks is the widely-adored frontwoman of Fleetwood Mac and musical partner of Lindsey Buckingham, but she is equally well-known for her solo work. In 2014, she released her eighth studio album entitled 24-Karat Gold: Songs from the Vault, which is where the namesake of this year’s tour comes from. Also in 2014, Chrissie Hynde started a solo career without the Pretenders, but as of 2016, they are back together with a new album and touring with Nicks, Martin Chambers being the only other original member.

The Pretenders started the night at 7:15pm with a solid set. They played all the hits. Songs like "Back on the Chain Gang," "Don't Get Me Wrong," and ending with "Brass In Pocket." The crowd was pleased as punch. Chrissie, all smiles, appeared just as pleased to be back on the road with her band.

At 8:40pm, Stevie Nicks and her band stepped out to a shrieking mass of jumping fanatics. They began the set with “Gold and Braid” from Nicks’ 1981 solo record Bella Donna and followed with “If Anyone Falls” from The Wild Heart (1983). Stevie’s band was made up of some new faces as well as very old ones like her long-time friend and musical director, Waddy Watchel on lead guitar. When the third song began, Chrissie Hynde returned to the stage and joined Stevie for her famous track featuring Tom Petty, “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.” From the way they danced and sang together, it was clear these two are close pals, beaming and holding one another as they belted out the tune.

Nicks regarded the show as a long-awaited personal goal, explaining that she was finally able to sing all the songs she wanted to sing rather than what she had to sing. She continued to play all her favorites, which also happened to be the crowds’ favorites, from her solo career all the way back to the Fleetwood Mac days. Doing so, she stopped between songs to tell stories about the songs and people she worked with over the years such as Tom Petty and Prince. For the first time ever on tour, she played “New Orleans,” a song she wrote after Hurricane Katrina, which was paired with a painting of hers and some beautiful french quarter imagery on the monitors behind her. The final song was the monster hit “Edge of Seventeen,” and the encore was “Rhiannon” followed by “Landslide.” Before taking a bow with her band, Stevie shared her warm regards for New Orleans and encouraged everyone to be safe and take hold of their dreams.




More pictures here: http://www.whereyat.com/stevie-nicks...bring-home-the