Dallas Morning News Review

[pattymarkle]

I'm not sure what I think about this review and maybe the reviewer saw a different show as he mentioned, "Love Is". What the hell song was he thinking of? Maybe HAEWAFY???

I'm pasting because they want you to register.

Review: Stevie Nicks doesn't let them down
12:38 AM CDT on Monday, July 18, 2005


By MATT WEITZ / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News


GRAND PRAIRIE – F. Scott Fitzgerald may have maintained that there were no second acts in American lives, but that was a regional declaration, made about a bazillion years ago.

In the now-borderless world of pop culture, it seems that in order to achieve true iconic status, three acts must be played out: early brilliance, static self-parody, and redemptive competence.

Just ask Elvis (Presley or Costello, it doesn't really matter) or Elton John. Sunday night at Nokia Theatre, Stevie Nicks made her claim on the same kind of reclamation, and 4,400 fans found it a demand that was hard to deny.

Face it. She minted a brand new kind of rock icon: the original witchy woman/Celtic rock-mama/leprechaun's bride that would go on to launch a thousand imitators.

And even though at times in her career she's seemed content to let the memory of that inventiveness carry her, on Sunday she used memory not as a crutch but as a crowbar .

A crackerjack band – two drummers, two keyboards, two backing vocalists plus the standard guitar/guitar/bass array – was led by Waddy Wachtel, one of the brightest sidemen from the '70s singer/songwriter era.

The most impressive aspect of the evening was how Ms. Nicks liberated songs she'd written from the Fleetwood Mac classic rock ghetto: an acoustic introduction to "Rhiannon," an unabashedly electric kickoff to "Gold Dust Woman" – all were definitely part of the past but bore a uniquely new stamp.

The same went for well-remembered solo efforts like 1983's "Stand Back," whose crunchy beginning both fed into and rebuked the tune's original, almost disco-smooth production.

Other songs, like "Love Changes" from her 2001 solo album Trouble in Shangri-La, fared almost as well, given their lack of classic-rock cachet.

Ms. Nicks took advantage of some rather obviously placed keyboard and drum solos to change costumes. No one minded; in fact, when she twirled around a time or two, the applause was deafening.

Opening act Vanessa Carlton was appealingly open and honest at her piano. She chattily walked the crowd through numbers like "White Houses" (an uncensored version) and her earlier hit, "Ordinary Day."

Mr. Fitzgerald's pessimism and Ms. Nicks' determination notwithstanding, Ms. Carlton made a pretty good case for the fact that sometimes, one act can be enough.

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[darklinensuit]

Actually the reviewer refers to Love Changes (vomit).
Not a bad review, but obviously not a longtime follower.

- Jake