Enchanted Reviews

[michelej1]

[Uploading Enchanted concert and cd Reviews I don't see online already]

Los Angeles Times, July 29, 1998

Section: Calendar

Stevie Nicks Conjures 'Enchanted' Moments
Pop music review: Despite some self-indulgence, diva delivers the unforced urgency missing from Fleetwood Mac's reunion.

MARC WEINGARTEN
SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

Even if Fleetwood Mac hadn't enlisted Stevie Nicks to help them sell unholy amounts of records in the mid-'70s, you get the feeling she somehow would have become a rock icon.

That multi-platinum band may have produced hits from three different singer-songwriters, but when it came to filling arenas, it was Nicks, the pagan goddess of the L.A. music scene, who fans came to see. That mystical woman persona remains a powerful lure for her fans.

For her performance Monday at the Universal Amphitheatre, the singer had the stage festooned with pink drapes and a giant stained-glass backdrop, and appeared in a seemingly endless series of flowing dresses and diaphanous shawls.

Nicks was every inch the seraphic diva, her signature whirling-dervish dance eliciting huge roars from her adoring supplicants.

Nicks was promoting her recently released CD box set, "Enchanted," which compiles the cream of her solo work. Her output with Fleetwood Mac tended toward genteel folk-rock, but Nicks toughened up her sound for her own albums, juicing her material with blustery guitars and big, radio-ready keyboards.

At Universal, Nicks went with a two-guitar, two-keyboard lineup and attacked such up-tempo rockers as "Stand Back" and "Edge of Seventeen" with the kind of unforced urgency that was missing from last year's too-polite Fleetwood Mac reunion tour.

The upside of being in a band is that it provides the checks and balances necessary to avoid self-indulgence, which Nicks was guilty of more than once Monday.

*

During the first half of the show, Nicks paused for an acoustic mini-set of songs that laid bare her penchant for flowery metaphor and clunky pastoral imagery. And there were countless annoying pauses for costume changes, which gave the show a Vegas taint.

Not that any of this registered with the crowd, which seemed to find some measure of comfort in Nicks' tales of gothic romance. Those included her Fleetwood Mac hits, which Nicks sprinkled throughout her set.

If anything, "Dreams, "Rhiannon" and "Gold Dust Woman," all of which sounded a mite threadbare on the Mac reunion tour, benefited from her band's sturdy, sympathetic accompaniment. And her ballad "Landslide," predictably enough, brought the house down.

*

Nicks' voice has lost none of its range or quirkiness; she thrilled the crowd whenever she used her craggy vibrato to stretch out a melody. Her gypsy-queen dance steps have grown tired with age, however, and have merely become a way to milk the crowd.

No matter--what Nicks lacked in spontaneity, she made up in show-biz spunk and polish, even if her material occasionally wallowed in naive platitudes.

* Stevie Nicks and Michael McDonald play Friday at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, 8800 Irvine Center Drive. 8 p.m. $22.25-$75.25. (714) 740-2000 (Ticketmaster).

[michelej1]

Palm Beach Post (FL), July 6, 1998

Section: LOCAL

NICKS DISPLAYS POWER, SOME OUTAGES


Charles Passy Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Forget Sporty and Scary. Coral Sky Amphitheatre put the original Spice Girl on display Saturday night. Call her Shawl Spice.

Or call her Stevie Nicks. In either case, she's got more talent - and more personality - than any of today's ``girl power'' pretenders.

That's not to say Nicks' two-hour concert was a complete success. The wobbly-voiced, shawl-wearing diva doesn't quite hold her own without her Fleetwood Mac buddies. The tattered mysticism that's her oeuvre grows tiresome.

But give her credit for covering lots of ground. To tie in with her new three-CD anthology, Enchanted, the generous set included several Fleetwood classics (Landslide, Rhiannon, Gold Dust Woman) as well as some of Nicks' best solo efforts (Garbo, Edge of Seventeen, Stand Back).

The 50-year-old Nicks has always been a reasonably gifted storyteller, creating images of women who are defiant and vulnerable at the same time. Wed that to an unerring sense of pop-rock craftsmanship and you have a natural Top 40 talent.

But Nicks' talent sometimes is beside the point. The iconographic image she's built for herself - all candles and dark dresses - brings her an adoring fan base. Coral Sky wasn't quite sold out, but the crowd was appreciative enough, with several females in the audience dressed in Stevie regalia.

To Nicks' credit, she played down the imagery. There were few of her famous whirling-dervish dances. Her between-song patter conveyed honest emotion. And the highlight of her performance - a three-song ``unplugged'' set within a set - was as fine an example of intimate expression as you're going to witness in a 20,000-seat amphitheater.

But Nicks' range as an artist still seems narrow in comparison to, say, Carole King or Joni Mitchell, two other pop divas who emerged from roughly the same period. And the voice is unpredictable at best: While she sounded nicely gruff in that ``unplugged'' sequence, by evening's end her misguided intonation became particularly grating. Someone get this woman a pitch pipe, please!

Opening for Nicks was another singer-songwriter from a couple of decades ago, Boz Scaggs. Though known for such funky, brass-fed pop hits as Lowdown and Lido Shuffle, Scaggs has the heart and soul of a true bluesman. His set combined the best of both worlds and the result was a smart, fun hour of music.

Concert review Ran all editions.

[michelej1]

Miami Herald (FL), July 3, 1998

Section: Weekend


AN EXPLOSIVE WEEKEND FOR MUSIC

HOWARD COHEN Herald Staff Writer

This weekend's other big draw? All of the concerts and music festivals:

STEVIE NICKS and

BOZ SCAGGS

* 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Coral Sky.

Don't listen to her / Listen through her.

Blue Lamp, Stevie Nicks (1981).

When Stevie Nicks offered that lyrical directive, she likely was referring to herself. Her best songs -- many gathered on Enchanted, a recent three-CD boxed set -- pair Nicks' gauzy reflections with accessible hooks.

Twenty-three years after joining Fleetwood Mac, Nicks' admirers fill a Who's Who of modern rock: Courtney Love, Billy Corgan, The Corrs, the Goo Goo Dolls, Shawn Colvin and Sister Hazel have all recorded covers of her songs.

Nicks recently completed a sold-out string of reunion concerts with Fleetwood Mac. As usual, she drew the strongest fan support. You wonder why Nicks would choose to immediately launch another concert tour, her first solo effort since an aborted 1994 trek, so soon after the Mac juggernaut.

Partly to showcase less-familiar songs (like Long Distance Winner and Sleeping Angel) and also because, she says, ``It's easier for me to just keep going than for me to stop and do nothing for a couple of months.''

Nicks' choice to open Saturday's concert: Boz Scaggs, touring to support his own two-CD career retrospective. Nicks and Scaggs on the same night -- sounds like a page from the Enchanted songbook.

* Stevie Nicks and Boz Scaggs: 7:30 p.m. Saturday; Coral Sky Amphitheatre, 601-7 Sansbury's Way, West Palm Beach; $9.87 to $50.25; 561-795-8883.

[michelej1]

Sarasota Herald Tribune (FL), July 3, 1998


Section: TICKET

STEVIE STOPS DRAGGING HER PAST AROUND

Philip Booth SPECIAL TO THE HERALD-TRIBUNE

Tori Amos talks to the faeries. Madonna borrows Hindu symbols for her latest phase. Cassandra Wilson knows better than anyone else how to invoke voodoo blues spirits in a song.

Stevie Nicks, though, is the archetype, the original mystic-rock chick, the impassioned singer with Gypsy dresses, boots, dripping candles, and white-winged doves swirling around as she sprinkled gold dust on her devoted fans.

She was, like, Witchy Spice.

"I am religious," she recently told Billboard magazine. "I wasn't raised in any religion, because we were always moving when I was a kid and didn't get involved in any church. But I believe there've been angels with me constantly through these last 20 years, or I wouldn't be alive. I pray a lot."

The singer, 50, believe it or not, is back in vogue again. Nicks practically stole the show on the Fleetwood Mac comeback tour, Courtney Love and Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan have been hanging out with the '70s idol, and record stores are packed with Nicks product all over again.

"Enchanted," a three-CD box set released in April, is a lavish package complete with hit singles "Stand Back" and "Edge of Seventeen (Just Like the White Winged Dove)" and other tracks culled from six solo albums stretching back to 1981; eight previously unreleased tracks; and a 64-page booklet featuring photos and personal reminiscences.

"Legacy: A Tribute to Fleetwood Mac's `Rumors' " has Elton John, Matchbox 20, Jewel, The Cranberries, Shawn Colvin and Sister Hazel, among others, celebrating that world-beating 1977 disc, a Grammy winner that sold 25 million copies.

Nicks, not so long ago, was a chubby, aging pop goddess ready to run off with her millions. After touring in 1995 to promote her best-forgotten "Street Angel" album, she promised to quit the music business. Instead, she kicked nicotine, lost 30 pounds and signed on for the Mac reunion. The comeback began last August with a 90-minute MTV special, live album and home video.

"Don't Stop," from "Rumors," might be her own personal anthem. Or maybe she's taking a cue from her song "Sweet Girl," written for Fleetwood Mac last year:

"I chose to dance across the stages of the world

Sometimes I think I was always on call."

Just months after the end of the latest Mac attack, she began a 40-date U.S. solo concert trek. After that, she will return to the studio to begin work on her next album.

"It's easier for me to just keep going than for me to stop and do nothing for a couple of months, you know what I mean?" Nicks told the Boston Globe. "It's better for me to just keep working."

"Enchanted," which includes live and soundtrack cuts and a total of 20 songs that have never appeared on Nicks albums, traces the ups and downs of an entertainer who has survived rock-star lovers (Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, Don Henley), cocaine abuse, eye surgery and the Epstein-Barr virus.

Worst of all, Nicks boasted a persona - twirling dance moves and chiffon layers - that was picked on by critics, and even comedians. Survival may be the sweetest revenge.

"People used to laugh at my musical style or my black handkerchiefy stage clothes, which made me look like an orphan out of `A Tale of Two Cities,' and say, "Oh, that's very Stevie Nicks,' " she told Billboard. "But now people in the fashion industry are giving me these accolades. If you believe in something and stick it out, it'll come around, and you'll win in the end."

DETAILS
STEVIE NICKS

Performs with Boz Scaggs at 8 p.m. today in the Ice Palace, 401 Channelside Drive, Tampa. Tickets range from $35-$50, plus service charge via Ticketmaster. Call 1-813-287-8844.

[michelej1]

St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO), May 1, 1998

Section: EVERYDAY MAGAZINE

REVIEW CDS


Kevin C. Johnson
Terry Perkins
Harry Jackson Jr.

"ENCHANTED"

Stevie Nicks/Atlantic Records

If there's one thing that can finally torpedo sales of Fleetwood Mac's long-running hit album "The Dance ," as well as cut into sales of that various artists tribute album to FMac's "Rumours," it's "Enchanted," the long-awaited, three- CD box set from Stevie Nicks.

Traditionally, box sets don't sell well because they're too expensive. And people interested enough to shell out that much money probably already have the original albums or own a greatest hits set or two.

But "Enchanted" could be the exception. Why? Because the timing is perfect, coming on the heels of "The Dance" and Fleetwood Mac's successful tour last year.

"Enchanted" focuses on Nicks' solo career, which might disappoint those looking to hear "Dreams," "Sara," "Gold Dust Woman" and other Fleetwood Mac tunes associated with her. But there's enough on this ambitious 46-song collection (including a piano demo version of "Rhiannon" that defines the word delicate) to appease those fans.

The songs from "Enchanted" come from all over the place, though predominantly from her solo albums such as "Bella Donna" and "Rock A Little." In addition to the expected hits and popular album cuts, a number of other Nicks songs are unearthed, including b-sides, soundtrack cuts, demos, covers, duets, a pre-Fleetwood Mac song, live versions, outtakes, and even a new song, "Reconsider Me," written by Warren Zevon.

Whew! It covers a lot of ground, and like most box sets, it is draining after a while. It's easier to take in smaller doses, maybe one CD at a time. But "Enchanted" does live up to its title, thanks of course to Nicks' mesmerizing vocals heard throughout.

Her controlled quiver of a voice is perfectly showcased on a number of pop-rock gems such as "Blue Denim," "Nightbird," "Gold" (a duet with John Stewart), and the title track. She's all ablaze on a lengthy live version of "Edge of Seventeen" and "Gold and Braid."

Her occasional country leanings show on "After the Glitter Fades" and "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around," though quaint folk takes over on "Leather and Lace" and "Garbo." There are also swelling ballads such as "Beauty and the Beast" and "Kind of Woman."

"Twisted" is a rough-and-ready demo from two years ago, while the excellent "Long Distance Winner" from 1973's "Buckingham/Nicks" album sounds like a demo (it isn't), but at least it sounds like a great demo.

Nicks' voice, such a musical treasure, even manages to bring life to "Battle of the Dragon" from the "American Anthem" soundtrack - a bad song from a bad movie.

[kathy1]

thanks for posting these. sorry i don't have any to post.