Rock A Little Tour Stories...

[nailatixela]

If you went to see Stevie during the Rock A Little tour, post here! Tell us anything you remember from that night...share your stories with us all. RAL is my personal favorite era of live Stevie.

"I wasn't going to talk on this tour. But I have to tell you something very special. They asked me when they were making my tour, where do I want to start. And I said - Houston!"

Here's the opening night setlist, though some stuff was dropped later on. (like Gypsy, Sara, Gold Dust Woman)

Gold Dust Woman
Outside the Rain
Dreams
Talk to Me
I Need to Know
No Spoken Word
Sara
Beauty and The Beast
I Can't Wait
Gypsy
Leather and Lace
Stand Back
Stop Draggin' My Heart Around
How Still My Love
Edge of Seventeen
Rhiannon
HAEWAFY


So please share your stories if you got to see any of the dates on this tour.

[AliceLover]

I wasn't there, but my mother went to the Boston show and she said Stevie was an absolute mess. She doesn't remember much, but she says that Stevie kept tossing her head back during ICW and almost fell off the stage a bunch of times.

[HejiraNYC]

Originally Posted by AliceLover

I wasn't there, but my mother went to the Boston show and she said Stevie was an absolute mess. She doesn't remember much, but she says that Stevie kept tossing her head back during ICW and almost fell off the stage a bunch of times.

I can vouch for that- Mama was a hot mess during her show at the Capitol Center in Largo, MD. From where I sat, she was a blur of chiffon and frizzy hair with all the head banging, even during the slower numbers. And she basically vamped throughout the entire show- every other line had a "well" or "baby" inserted into it. So it was such a surprise to see the stoic, mummified-but-living-corpse of Stevie just one year on the TITN tour.

[CADreaming]

Originally Posted by HejiraNYC

...every other line had a "well" or "baby" inserted into it.

Thought that was normal...

[watchdevil17]

I saw Stevie for the RAL tour in Baton Rouge. I brought a pastel portrait I made of her and gave it to Christopher to give to her and he did. He then said she wanted to meet me. I was only 17 at the time so you can imagine how freaked out I was. I was taken to her dressing room where she sat holding my sketch! Apparently she had an issue with how I had depicted her eye makeup. She then taught me how she did her's by applying eyeliner to me! I swear it was so surreal. She then wrote me a lovely poem on my RAL tourbook. I hugger her and kissed her cheek goodbye. Her managers escorted me out to a hallway where I got to met Waddy and Sharon. Then I was able to hang out and watch the show with Rebecca Alvarez backstage. It was awesome!

[nailatixela]

Originally Posted by watchdevil17

I saw Stevie for the RAL tour in Baton Rouge. I brought a pastel portrait I made of her and gave it to Christopher to give to her and he did. He then said she wanted to meet me. I was only 17 at the time so you can imagine how freaked out I was. I was taken to her dressing room where she sat holding my sketch! Apparently she had an issue with how I had depicted her eye makeup. She then taught me how she did her's by applying eyeliner to me! I swear it was so surreal. She then wrote me a lovely poem on my RAL tourbook. I hugger her and kissed her cheek goodbye. Her managers escorted me out to a hallway where I got to met Waddy and Sharon. Then I was able to hang out and watch the show with Rebecca Alvarez backstage. It was awesome!

Wow, how amazing! And Stevie's eye makeup was interesting on this tour. LOL I think she fired the makeup artist and did it herself. That's really wild that you got to share that moment with her. What did you think of her when you first met her?

Do you mind sharing the poem she wrote for you?

[Bubba Fleetwood]

Originally Posted by watchdevil17

I saw Stevie for the RAL tour in Baton Rouge. I brought a pastel portrait I made of her and gave it to Christopher to give to her and he did. He then said she wanted to meet me. I was only 17 at the time so you can imagine how freaked out I was. I was taken to her dressing room where she sat holding my sketch! Apparently she had an issue with how I had depicted her eye makeup. She then taught me how she did her's by applying eyeliner to me! I swear it was so surreal. She then wrote me a lovely poem on my RAL tourbook. I hugger her and kissed her cheek goodbye. Her managers escorted me out to a hallway where I got to met Waddy and Sharon. Then I was able to hang out and watch the show with Rebecca Alvarez backstage. It was awesome!

Well......I was going to post mine but.......who can top that !!!!!!

[daniellaaarisen]

Originally Posted by watchdevil17

I saw Stevie for the RAL tour in Baton Rouge. I brought a pastel portrait I made of her and gave it to Christopher to give to her and he did. He then said she wanted to meet me. I was only 17 at the time so you can imagine how freaked out I was. I was taken to her dressing room where she sat holding my sketch! Apparently she had an issue with how I had depicted her eye makeup. She then taught me how she did her's by applying eyeliner to me! I swear it was so surreal. She then wrote me a lovely poem on my RAL tourbook. I hugger her and kissed her cheek goodbye. Her managers escorted me out to a hallway where I got to met Waddy and Sharon. Then I was able to hang out and watch the show with Rebecca Alvarez backstage. It was awesome!

That might be the coolest thing ever.

Sigh. I agree with all the other questions posted-- tell us more!

[nailatixela]

Originally Posted by Bubba Fleetwood

Well......I was going to post mine but.......who can top that !!!!!!

Come on Bubba post yours too - we take 'em all! I'm serious though they are all exciting to read. Your WH story was great, what did you think about the change in stevie from those 2 tours?

[aleuzzi]

For this tour, I saw her at Fingerlakes, outside of Rochester, NY. Her set list was almost identical to the one listed above, though she did not play "Gold Dust Woman."

What I remember was her voice was pretty frayed through most of the set, though she performed Beauty and the Beast perfectly. She changed costumes for almost every song. The crowd went bonkers when she began singing "I Can't Wait."

In the middle of the show, she got anxious and, either from excitement or agitation, threw her tambourine way up over the back of her head and it landed somewhere backstage, far behind the drummer's kit. I remember wondering if some poor stage hand might have gotten hit by it.

Another recollection: there was some sound problems during Outside the Rain which made her turn away from the microphone in disgust. The sound was remedied by the third or fourth song.

[GODDESS6]

I'm not sure if she did Rhiannon during Rock a Little......[/QUOTE]

of course she did~ i saw that tour in april of 1986, in lincoln, nebraska~ was an awesome show~ i gave her a pale pink shawl & she wore it for "no spoken word" & i about died!!!~
here's a pic my ma took of stevie wearing my shawl, i was front show, my mom was 9th~


here's my story from the other ral thread~ but i'd like to add, my dad died when i was 16 & he knew how much i loved stevie~ & we knew how much he disliked our mom (she turned into a horrible woman), on his death bed i remember him crying & telling my mom, that if stevie ever came close she better take me~ & the ral show was 2 days off from being exactly a year ago my dad passed~

i remember hearing the first concert announcement while i was sleeping, i woke up & told everyone stevie was coming & the all laffed~ i thought the whole thing was a dream~

[Nikolaj]

I saw the Rock A Little tour in LA, at the Forum, and I think it was the first time I had been to the Forum since Mac's amazing '82 Mirage concert I went to. I remember a few things about the show- one that stands out was that at the conclusion of I think every song, there was a person who would appear near the edge of the stage, light a cigarette, and Stevie would walk off stage as she took the lit cigarette from the person- I think it was a woman, but honestly, I don't remember for sure.
I was depressed because I had to take a bus to and from the concert and was thinking about how much my life had changed since '82 and then '83 when I drove out to the US festival with friends. A few years later, my car was totalled, my education was stalled and incomplete, and for the RAL show, I had to, or chose to, go alone, because I couldn't afford a second ticket! Circa 1986, LA became very tough for me. After the show, at the bus-stop, groan, I met an Asian guy just about my age, who spoke very little English, but was able to convey how much he liked Stevie Nicks. He also knew how to try to pick up on me. I'm not racist a bit, but I figured I needed someone who could speak the language (more than 'stevie nick and d*ck') and had more than a bus pass, like myself. "I can do bad all alone" I think was my attitude in those days.
I told the cigarette story to my best friend Rea, who had to work and couldn't go to the concert; she seemed shocked --"Stevie's smoking?"-- when RAL came out, we had both commented how her voice had seemed much more vibrant on 'The Wild Heart' than on 'Rock A Little,' and after I told her the cigarette after every song at The Forum story, Rea was sure the cigs were the reason for her voice changing, not the drugs, which we figured she's always done, from the start.
I do recall 'I Can't Wait' was performed, and some of the music seemed pre-programmed, and the song was too slow, live. Stevie could have performed the song well live, except she was improvising a lot of the lyrics and that didn't work too well, because she seemed to lose her place, a lot. I'd always loved Stevie's variations on her recordings at her concerts, the records were always kewl but to me, when she sang the songs live, they were even more impressive. In the case of 'I Can't Wait,' I think she could have knocked it out of the ball park had she stuck with the recorded lyrics... I recall part of an early verse when she sang something like "Sometimes she wakes up and then she really wakes up" and it was just a hot mess, oh well!
But mainly, I remember that person walking to the edge of the stage who would light the cigarette just precisely at the moment when Stevie would be about to reach out her hand for it.
I also (s0mewhat) recall that Stevie seemed to wear some kind of odd pants during the show- like leggings, maybe? But they only seemed to come to just past her knees, they were odd looking to me. I seem to remember more than one pair of them being worn during the show, too- I don't think I'm wrong about this, but I won't swear to it. I just remember the pants or whatever they were- were odd.
In any case, I think she should try to do 'I Can't Wait' again, any time now. Just stick to the RAL lyrics.

[Sanne2]

What an awesome thread!
I wish I could've been at one of the concerts in '86, but somehow I think that would not have been a healthy environment for a 2 yr old

[jannieC]

I have very little memory of this show, other than that I went. We wrote "Stevie or Bust!" in red lipstick on the back window of my camaro and blasted the tunes all the way to Jones Beach. I don't remember her sounding crappy because I had never seen her live before and I just remember being totally mesmerized. I have realized that I confuse this show (in my mind) with the OSOTM show.

[StandbackStevie]

The Rock A Little Tour was my first time seeing Stevie in concert the first show was at the hartford civic center in hartford,CT on May 2, 1986 this was at the begining of the tour I believe I went with my mom i was 16 at the time now i am 39, I told my mom we got to get there early for some reason so we were there early we were waiting in fron the doors to where they would let you in we did hear the sound check and shortly after they did a few songs a while after i see some people come in out and on the end door didn't recognize them at all and then two ladies one i did recognize it was sharon celani and the other woman with her was jennifer condos they both came from wendys with a few bags of food and they trying to open the door so i went over to the door that people we coming in and out of and opened it for them and they both smiled and said thank you and after they left i said to my mom that was stevie nicks back up singer sharon celani i found out it was jennifer condos the bass player inside the concert afterwards if i only could have said to her if it possible to meet stevie i wondered if it would of happened then but it took to see stevie this year in march 2009 at a cd signing in nyc to finally meet her which never though was possible. i loved this tour. i remember stevie opening with Gold Dust Woman and incredible show she came out in this beautiful black velvet cloak for rhiannon and at the end of the song she took down the microphone and stand with her when she twirled and fell to the ground with the song she was high at both shows i went

second show was New Haven Colisuem in New Haven,ct on July 29, 1986
she had peter frampton open at this show this was torwards the end of the tour weeks before she went into the betty ford clinic she was flying high at this show awesome show yes lot of head banging with standback and I can't wait voice very raspy on this tour too if i remember some one gave her a beautiful gold chain or charm she mentioned at the show and said thank you to who ever gave it to her she was going to cherish it i remember her almost falling off the stage at this show too.


Lots of girls dressing like stevie at the shows i think it was more so than today really