Fly Life
Band of Gypsies
Feast your eyes on the Night of a Thousand Stevies, a riveting cavalcade of gold dust women
by Tricia Romano
May 15th, 2007 4:07 PM
There aren't too many female performers I'd like to see replicated 1,000 times. Madonna or Debbie Harry might be fun, but consider the prospect of that many Courtney Loves. It takes a special lady to withstand thousands of impersonations over the course of 17 years, which is exactly what Stevie Nicks has done, indirectly, as the subject of the annual Night of a Thousand Stevies, thrown by the Jackie Factory and helmed by Chi Chi Valenti, Hattie Hathaway, and Johnny Dynell.
Friday night at Hiro Ballroom, everywhere I looked was a Stevie, from door girl Abby Ehman to the cashier to the twirlers onstage (including Amber Ray). The DJ, Poison Eve, spun an all-Stevie set while looking the part. The performers included one Justin Bond, not in total Stevie Realness drag, but lovely just the same. I spied Mike Albo under a Lindsey Buckingham wig. Later, Sherry Vine turned up in a blonde wig that must have made her eight feet tall in heels. Inexplicably, however, one patron appeared to have gotten lost on the way to the Night of a Thousand Janis Joplins.
It was a dazzling sight, made even more dazzling by all the white-winged doves who twirled and shook their tambourines (inscribed with the NOTS logo) to such hits as "Stand Back," "I Can't Wait," and "If Anyone Falls"— the originals and every remix ever recorded. Sitting with promoter Daniel Nardicio, we swooned over one performer in particular: Legend of Stevie Realness Nicole Nicks, a NOTS veteran turning in her farewell performance to the night's official theme song, "Edge of Seventeen." She had every single detail down, from the way Stevie dances to even the slightest of head movements, which along with the absolutely perfect patchwork of frizzy, waist-length, butterscotch-and-bronze tresses made us believe that She was really there.
Chi Chi first got the inspiration for NOTS 17 years ago, when she went to see Stevie at Jones Beach and ran into Joey Arias and Dean Johnson—together, they decided to host a one-off event at Mother, the legendary now-defunct nightclub. The event was such a success they repeated it the following year, but Chi Chi says, "It never dawned on us along the way that we'd actually reach the edge of 17." Since then, it's gone through three venues (Hiro Ballroom is the event's latest and biggest home), and has even inspired a movie called Gypsy 83, a road flick about two Stevie obsessives that culminates with their arrival at the event. Through the years, celebs like Cyndi Lauper, Madonna, Boy George, and yes, even Courtney Love have attended or performed.
While she's been invited every year, Stevie herself has never come. But Chi Chi says fans think otherwise: "Many people believe she was there at the last one at Mother, and that she came as just another Stevie. People who are in really deep said, 'We recognize the patterns in her retinas.'" Chi Chi suggests Stevie has instead sent people to film it. "I totally understand why she's never come. I think it would be too much to see 800 or 1,000 people dressed as you, crying and singing every word and fetishizing the leg warmers you wore in a video." Funny, the part about the retinas would be enough to freak me out.
http://www.villagevoice.com/music/07...,76667,22.html