A Moment with Stevie Nicks
April 27, 2017
There’s always that moment of anticipation before an artist/band steps on stage – that long moment after the background music goes silent and the lights dim and everyone in the room quickly realizes what is about to happen. Soon, what they have only listened to will be seen, and what they will see they will feel.
I have experienced many of these moments in my life, but none of them felt as long as the moment before I saw Stevie Nicks. As the lights dimmed in the PNC Arena in Raleigh, NC on March 19, 2017, I knew that the singer from Fleetwood Mac was about to step on the stage. For the first time in my life, I would see an artist that felt like home to me.
Stevie’s music has guided me in so many ways throughout my life. Of course, my parents are the reason I have a love for Stevie and Fleetwood Mac and even Buckingham-Nicks, the duo in which Stevie began her career. As a teen, I remember hearing the lines ““Thunder only happens when it’s rainin’ / Players only love you when they’re playin’” from the song “Dreams” and realizing that I was really, truly in love with music and the feeling it exudes. As my sister turned 15 and danced on a stage with my dad at her quinceañera, I listened to Stevie ask herself if she could “sail through the changin’ ocean tides?” and “Can I handle the seasons of my life?” from “Landslide” and I asked myself the same questions.
Stevie Nicks, singer/songwriter extraordinaire, is turning 69 this year on May 26, but she dances across a stage as though she’s 25. Her feet are as light and airy as her beloved and iconic fringe shawl that hugs her shoulders. She is a fairy, a youthful soul, a “gold dust woman”. Her steps are much lighter than her writing is – she’s spent the past 50 years writing about love, lust, pain, tragedy and everything in between.
When an artist’s words have a profound impact on you from a young age, that artist becomes familiar to you, like an old friend. And sometimes, you have a moment with that artist that, unbeknownst to them, changes you. Watching Stevie dance around the stage was that moment for me – it’s the moment we all wait for when we see an artist we love. It’s the reason why we anticipate an artist coming on stage; we expect the artist to give us an experience we haven’t encountered before. Thanks to Stevie, I had that experience on March 19, 2017.