My Wild Heart story 32 years later

[Macfan4life]

June 28, 1983 was my first concert and it was Stevie Nicks and Joe Walsh. It was 32 years ago today. I was 13 and my Fleetwood Mac/Stevie Nicks spell had just been cast over me 6 months earlier when I saw the Mac's 1982 Mirage concert on HBO. My sister was the first one to tell me that Stevie Nicks was coming to Pittsburgh. I was excited and asked my parents. My dad surprised me one day coming home from work with 3 tickets (me, mom and dad). My dad had no idea who Stevie Nicks was but his friends at work knew for sure telling him how hot and sexy she was. I was so excited for my first concert. The day of the concert Joe Walsh was on the radio (WDVE Pittsburgh) talking about the show. He sounded so out of it and I was 13 and could pick up on that. It was pouring rain for our drive downtown but when we got to the arena my parents bought me the "Don't blame it on me.....blame it on my wild heart red baseball T-shirt. We took our seats in section "C." The seats were great being on the side of the stage but not too far away. My dad's binoculars made everything up close and HBO concert quality Joe Walsh came out and was really rowdy. He was promoting the album "You bought it...you name it." Space Age Wiz kids was the first single. Its about the 80's kids on video games, etc. Its a pretty cool video. His second single (not performed) was I Love Big Tits. Joe did his Eagles stuff even performing Life in the Fast Lane (where he is not the lead singer on the song). Joe had 3 back up singers and one of them was Marilyn Martin (who had a solo career later and a back up singer for Stevie). Years later Stevie said that the early Wild Heart shows when she was falling in Love with Joe she would come out to his sound checks and came to love Marilyn Martin. There was a black male back up singer that got the crowd yelling and singing "Everyone must get stoned." At 13 I did not know the Bob Dylan reference but at 13 with my parents at my first concert was a bit scary . At the end of the set someone threw fireworks on stage. Joe got really pissed and started yelling whoever did that to go home and light them off in their bedroom closet. Joe has a wicked sense of humor. He would say things like " this next song I call song number 3." He also spoke about running for president and changing the national anthem to Life's been good to me so far."
After the intermission.....the lights go out and I am nervous and excited. Stevie's dad came out and introduced her. Stevie's band opens with Gold Dust Woman. It was like her HBO White Winged Dove concert. She even did the convulsions at the end. She flubbed the first verse to Dreams but shortly into the concert it appeared that something was wrong. In between singing she would run over to Sharon and be telling her something in her ear. Sharon would then go to Benmont Tench and say something in his ear. Then Benmont would put on headphones. Stevie finally told the audience that she thought there was microphone problems. She asked the crowd how she sounded which the crowd just roared. I never noticed anything sounding off with her microphone but Stevie definitely did. She told the audience that a woman is allowed to be fickled and would push the speaker monitors on stage herself. She would angle them at different positions toward her microphone. During Beauty and the Beast she sung the song at Waddy's microphone and said "I like your microphone so much better." She thanked the crowd for being so quiet during Beauty and the Beast and told everyone bout the movie. Stevie looked a bit dazed or glazed at times. After Dreams she said something like "there is nothing like this that can make me feel better than the way I was before or backstage." I don't know if that meant she was physically sick or maybe just upset about something. Maybe she had a phone fight with her husband Kim or something. This concert was very very early in the Wild Heart tour. Stevie was still chatty Cathy during these shows. She would also dance and tease the audience. Stevie did Angel instead of Sara. That was disappointed since my mom loved the song Sara. Stevie just did the US Festival and did Angel and Gold and Braid in the first 2 weeks of the Wild Heart tour. We all know now the Wild Heart tour was a huge drug party with Joe. I think the Wild Heart tour is the first time her stage singing and performances were affected by substance abuse. Some songs she would nail perfectly. Other songs she would mix lyrics or drop lines and not sound so good. At the end of the show someone threw a hooded sweatshirt on stage and Stevie put it on. Benmont Tench stood behind her and even put the hood over her head. Stevie thanked the person and said "its just my size."
I was so excited and blown away at my first concert. But even at 13 Stevie did scare me on stage a few times. I just could pick up on some things being out of control with her. Of course this totally escalated during Rock A Little. But RAL she gained weight and her hair fried and was not looking like the vixon she once was. In 1983 she was thin and gorgeous so she could get away with a lot more without anyone commenting or noticing so much. The review in my local paper the next day had the headline "Fickled surely the way to describe Nicks concert." The review went on to say how Stevie told the crowd a woman is allowed to be totally fickled and then began to show the crowd she could be more fickled than the best of them. It went on to say the her concert was like a "what happened to Stevie game show " where Stevie would leave the stage after every song and it looked like her band did not even know what song to do next. It also said it looked like her band needed to back her more than the usual and that Stevie relied on her sex appeal in that all she had to do was show up.
I wish so much someone had a bootleg of this concert. This was recorded just a week after the Pittsburgh show so I will post just to remember. I love the dark and rough version of Gold Dust Woman.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRrcM_Ok3SE

[ricohv]

Thanks for sharing that! I was 13 too when The Wild Heart came out. And, my first real exposure was the HBO Mirage concert -but I went crazy for her during The Wild Heart-that album still seems magical. I couldn't even begin to guess how many times I played that album or stared at the cover (it's still my favorite album cover of all time!).

[sleepless child]

I was at this concert. It was my first time seeing Stevie. I was 22 years old and I must say, you remember better than I do. I was sitting on the side right of the stage, pretty far back and wished I had binoculars. I remember Stevie saying something about us making her feel better than she felt a few moments before. And the monitors. She messed with them for the first part of the show. When I saw her again in 1986, I noticed how she had put on some weight and something seemed off with her. I was still too naïve to think it might be drugs. I have seen her every single time she has come to Pittsburgh since that show and even flew to Vegas in 2005 for her Caesars palace show. The best for me was her tour with Don Henley. It was so awesome. Love the Stevie memories.

thanks for that story. i was 13 at that time as well and living in chicago and, like you and others, had seen the mirage and stevie's hbo concerts and was instantly hooked. but i was too young, i believe, to go to the wild heart concert. my stepfather was a fan as well and wanted to see her but my mom wasn't a stevie fan and, because of that, they didn't go. otherwise, i might have been able to swindle my way in with them lol.

she was really at her peak at that time. lots of airplay, tv coverage.

anyway, i got my break 3 years later for the ral shows in the chicago area. even though it had been several years since she was last out and the music had changed and she wasn't quite as big as she had been the few years prior, i was still excited to see her. knew nothing at all about the drug use back then. but, my excitement matched yours when you saw her in '83. i can remember a lot of details about the alpine valley show in late may. i had never been to a concert before so it was pretty amazing to me. the adrenaline as her show came closer and closer (no disrespect to peter frampton) was like a drug itself.

in hindsight, yes, she was pretty messed up and had clearly put a few pounds on (i was smart and brought my binoculars and i think i stared through them the whole concert) but i just thought she was having a great time. again, i was slightly naive and we really didn't hear about the drug use in the media as we do now. maybe some of the older folks had a clue and i wasn't any stranger to knowing about alcohol and other recreational drugs. i mean, i did grow up with my mom listening to rock in the 70's and she had a kind of bohemian lifestyle. but i just thought stevie's image at that time didn't match that of a typical partying rock star.

ahh...memories.