On edge of 72, Nicks just wants to sing live
It’s Saturday at 9:30 p.m. and Stevie Nicks is singing on the phone.
The rock icon is at her Los Angeles home, where she’s been cooped up since December afterwrapping the “An Evening with FleetwoodMac” tour. She arrived there at first to relax after spending a year on the road and to celebrate the holidays. But then the coronavirus pandemic hit.
Stuck at the house is both good and bad for Nicks. The good news? Her house is a creative oasis where all her favorite musical instruments live. It’s where she spent a year recording her 2011 album “In Your Dreams” with Dave Stewart and Glen Ballard.
Her 10-month stint— and counting— at home even fueled her to record the new single “Show Them theWay,” released earlier this month.
“This song really is a prayer. This song is a prayer for people to unite. A prayer for people to get together,” Nicks said.
The bad news? Nicks is 72 and doesn’twant to be homebound when she prefers to be singing live on the road.
“This pandemic is more than just a pandemic for me. This is stealing what I consider to bemy last youthful years,” Nicks said. “I don’t have just 10 years to hang around andwait for this thing to go away. I have places to go, people to sing for, another album to make. With every day that goes by, it’s like taking this time away fromme. That I think is the hardest thing for me.”
“I have a lot of friends that are 60 and they’re going, ‘Oh I’m so old, I’m 60.’ I’m like, ‘You know what, the violins of the world are playing for you. You’re going to really appreciate 60 when you turn 72,’ ” she continued.
Nicks is hoping to satisfy fans shewould typically see in-person on tour with the new concert film “Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold The Concert.” Itwas recorded over two nights during her 2016-17 “24 Karat Gold” tour and will be available at select theaters and drive-ins on Oct. 21 and 25. A CD and digital album of the concert will be released Oct. 30.
“Aswe started to understand that this COVID thing was not a joke, I started going tomyself, ‘Well, you knowwhat? This may be the closest to going to a big, big concert that’s actually not from 1977 that is new,’ ” Nicks said. “It’s brand new, and it’s fantastic.”
The only time she left her West Coast homewas to edit the film in Chicago. She took a private jet to the home on a golf course that had been vacant for some time, spending a month there and editing down hours of footage to create the 140-minute film.
“They can’t do it without me. I won’t allowit,” Nicks said.“We got it all done. Itwas really fun. We were really safe.”
But at the end of the trip, Nicks tripped in the snow and fractured her knee: “I was like screaming as I went through the air and sawthe gravel driveway coming toward my face and just made a quick turn. So, I didn’t fall face down and caught myself. Because ofmy strong tambourine arms, Iwas able to stop myself from crashing even worse. Itwas a really bad fall, but it’s OK.
“It’s had a hard time getting better,” she continued. “I hurt this knee really bad, my left knee, before, years ago. I had been dealing with it and fixed it. I had just really gotten it to be to the place where it was totally better, then I fractured it. So nowit’s almost better,” she said.