“There’s just something that’s so rock and roll about Detroit City,” said Stevie Nicks at the top of her headlining show at Little Caesars Arena Tuesday night.
She is certainly right about that statement, and rock and roll she did deliver. As the first woman to ever be inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (once with Fleetwood Mac and again as a solo artist), she lived up to her title as Queen of Rock and Roll.
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Dressed in all black and her signature shawls, Nicks tore through her back catalogue of hits, which included Fleetwood Mac hits (”Dreams,” “Gypsy,” “Gold Dust Woman”) as well as songs from her solo career.
The best part was that she introduced almost every song with a little story or anecdote, and man were they entertaining. She told stories of her time before joining Fleetwood Mac, how she and Lindsey Buckingham were dirt poor until they joined the band and her friendship with the late Tom Petty.
She even encouraged the audience to get out and vote (it was election day, after all), and how she didn’t actually vote in election until recently, and to not be dumb and stupid like she has been all her life with not voting. For the amount of young people in the crowd last night (all dressed as her, of course), it was a needed message.
I’ve seen Nicks a few other times while she was on tour with Fleetwood Mac, and she never talked this much when she was with the band. That’s probably because Fleetwood Mac has so many songs to get through in their setlist, so it was kinda great that she could be a bit more intimate, even while playing at a packed arena.
But it was all about the performance for Nicks. At 75-years-old, she still sounds amazing. The highlights, of course, was when she performed Fleetwood Mac hits. “Dreams” and “Gypsy” were ethereal, while “Rhiannon” during her encore was as witchy as ever. It was like she cast a spell over the entire audience.
She also added some covers to her setlist. “For What It’s Worth” by Buffalo Springfield was a welcome surprise (also her story before she played the song was delightful as ever), and a cover of “Free Fallin’” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers was a beautiful tribute to her late friend.
Speaking of tributes, she closed out the show with her most famous song, “Landslide,” and dedicated it to Christine McVie, her best friend and Fleetwood Mac bandmate who died almost a year ago. Images of Nicks and McVie played on the screens in the arena while Nicks warmly sang the lyrics “Children get older, I’m getting older, too.” As a lifelong Fleetwood Mac fan, I couldn’t help but get emotional.
Nicks told the audience right before the show ended how this tour has helped her deal with the immense grief of losing McVie, and it was the perfect note to end a wonderful night of music on.
“Join the peace train,” she said at one point during the show, and it was a perfect reminder for what’s going on in today’s world. Long live rock and roll, and long live Stevie Nicks.
