The Ledge - Nicks' vision makes magic

Nicks' vision makes magic
Londson Free Press

The JLC crowd stood up for Stand Back and never gave up its devotion to Stevie Nicks.

By JAMES REANEY, FREE PRESS ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT COLUMNIST

Stevie Nicks was definitely a rock sorceress with some white magic working for her last night at the John Labatt Centre.

The U.S. rocker hit the stage before 3,200 devoted fans who stood up and cheered after her opening number Stand Back. They were back up and cheering for a two-song encore which had its own magic formula. First, hit them with a Nicks-retooled cover of Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll. Then finish the night with one of her most whimsical notions, Beauty and the Beast. Its soaring ballad treatment with the piano out front arrived complete with scenes from French artist Jean Cocteau's 1946 film La Belle et la bete projected a little fuzzily behind Nicks. Good old black and white movie beauty by a French genius -- Nicks must have known it still has the magic.

Nicks being Nicks, there were magic moments, like the aching and spectacular version of Landslide, the 30-year-old Fleetwood Mac hit covered by Dixie Chicks and sent right out there again by Nicks and her three backup singers full of the spirit of 2007.

There were new treatments of her other Fleetwood Mac hits including Rhiannon and Dreams, propelled by lead guitarist Waddy Wachtel's own brand of six-string magic.

If she might have missed some high notes on Gold Dust Woman before the hour mark, Nicks was nailing them later in the show before winding up the main set with Edge of Seventeen.

Scores of fans in the boomer, couple-heavy crowd pressed up to the stage all night to be closer to Nicks. The star shook hands with as many of them as she could late in the show, when her long, dark gloves reached out from the edge of the stage to the fans again and again.

She worked her way through many outfits, my favourite being the Rock and Roll costume. It was topped by a stylish dark hat with a Nicks-worthy star on the front and a massive white plume.

There were also images of outfits past from her dazzling days with Fleetwood Mac and her solo Bella Donna stardom. Last night, she showed there's still enough gossamer wingspan in her shawls to sweep around a guitarist if that's what she and Wachtel feel like doing.

Nicks, who turned 59 last month, was born in Phoenix, Ariz. She has won multiple Grammy awards, numerous gold and platinum album sales awards and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Nicks' debut album with Fleetwood Mac in the 1970s sold four million copies and the followup, Rumours, racked up more than 25 million in sales around the world.

Nicks being Nicks, there were also some puzzles last night.

There has never been a good drum solo -- if there was, who was responsible? -- at the John Labatt Centre and last night's endless encounter between a wild-haired drummer and a percussionist who used to work with Fleetwood Mac was true to dismal form. Along with some unmagical noise from Wachtel, it added up to about 10 to 15 minutes of padding, giving Nicks and the rest of the band time to regroup before Edge of Seventeen.

Then, there was the stage talk from Nicks -- totally sincere and occasionally a little spacey or whimsical.

"You may know or you may not know we are here backing up a retrospective record called Crystal Visions," Nicks said to cheers from fans impressed by the sorcery of straight talk at the start.

"Thank you for sticking with and staying with me all these years," she said before turning to Wachtel and saying, "Let's rock."

OK, business and bonding. Good. "The music business is in a sorry, sorry state," she shouted at the end, imploring the fans to help or we'd be listening "to the same classic rock 20 years from now."

If there's a connection, it eludes me. Maybe the clue is in a line Nicks tossed off during the band introductions. "We're vampires. We've been doing this for 100,000 years," she joked.

Not vampires. They're white magicians who still know how to rock after all these decades.

Opening was New York singer-songwriter and pianist Vanessa Carlton. The 26-year-old is as big a Stevie Nicks fan as anyone who was at the concert. As one Carlton song says, "Stevie knows and I thank her so." Last night, she had 3,200 fans agreeing.