This month Steviemania swept the UK, with the singer’s first solo shows here in 35 years and – as further evidence of her enduring influence – a tribute from Taylor Swift during her Eras tour. So it was understandably gutting when Stevie Nicks cancelled her Glasgow and Manchester dates last week due to a leg injury at a few hour’s notice. Those shows have been rescheduled, but it was a reminder that while Nicks may be forever enshrined as a mythical rock survivor and queen of bohemia, she is not completely unbreakable.
There’s no mention of it when the 76-year-old takes to the stage in London’s Hyde Park, dressed for British summertime in a high-necked velvet jacket and gloves. You might imagine her thoughts are elsewhere: this is where she last performed in the UK, with her mentor Tom Petty, mere months before he passed away in 2017. And that sets the tone for an emotional evening that is both testament to Nicks’ legacy and an in memoriam for those she has lost. Petty’s Free Fallin’ gets a giant airing, and Prince flashes up on screen during Stand Back, the track they co-wrote.
Nicks reveals that touring has been her therapy since her Fleetwood Mac bandmate Christine McVie died suddenly in 2022. Her mother would tell her: “‘Stevie, when you’re hurt you always run to the stage’. That’s what I’ve done,” she says.
Flanked by her seasoned band, she sticks to the hits – both her own and a scattering of Mac’s. Her voice, now a probing low rumble, could still make ships crash. She plays up to her 70s image, shaking a tambourine and changing into a variety of vintage shawls as grainy old footage of her looms eerily behind. Gold Dust Woman is a shimmering epic, but just as much of a highlight is Nicks’ eccentric between-song banter. She has so many rambling stories – a little dig at her Fleetwood foe Lindsey Buckingham here, a gag about sleeping pills there – that you wish she’d publish a memoir.
But there is the promise of new music: Nicks has previously said she started writing again at the end of the pandemic and plans to record after her summer shows. She performs her most recent release, her 2022 Greg Kurstin-produced cover of Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth, after a lengthy aside regretting that she never used to vote because she was too busy getting her hair done (“Doesn’t matter who for … just vote,” she adds, in the set’s only head-scratching moment).
At one point it seems as though Nicks’ only special guest will be her vocal coach, Steve Real, who joins for Leather and Lace. But the big reveal comes towards the close, when Harry Styles subtly appears for the Petty duet Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around. He stays for Landslide (not their first performance of it together, but their best), dedicated to McVie on what would have been her 81st birthday. It’s a tearjerking climax but Nicks seems galvanised by the multi-generational army decked in fringing and fedoras, fanning out before her.
“You have made me better,” says Nicks to her 60,000 admirers, still the last one standing.
