I heard more tambourine during Friday night’s Stevie Nicks concert that I have at all the other shows I’ve reviewed for the Las Vegas Sun combined.

Not that Nicks or her band featured the jingling instrument much. Far from it, the headlining vocalist only brought hers out for a couple of numbers, and then used it mainly as a prop, hardly striking it at all.

The tambourine work actually came courtesy of a fan seated just to my left, dead center and about 15 rows back from the stage at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace.

I say seated, because technically the woman was in possession of a seat for the night. From the moment the lights dimmed, however, she stayed on her feet, dancing for the duration of the hour and 45 minute event and shaking her noisemaker almost continuously.

Though Ms. Tambourine was the most conspicuous fanatic in my area, she was hardly the only passionate Nicks devotee among the crowd of around 3,500 present for the third of a four-night Caesars Palace run that began Tuesday and wrapped up Saturday.

Since her early days in Fleetwood Mac in the mid-1970s, Nicks has been quite beloved, a fact attributable as much to her mystical persona as to her distinctive voice.

Until Friday, though, I’d never quite realized the full extent of the idolization.

The audience cheered every time Nicks twirled in place or returned from a costume change. Men shouted “I love you, Stevie!” during quiet moments. Pockets of fans stood for the duration, cheering vigorously and waving at Nicks whenever she looked their way.

A woman in front of me announced that Nicks looked great for 56 years old, then rattled off her exact date of birth — May 26, 1948, in case you were wondering.

Near the end of the show, dozens of ardent supporters poured down the aisles toward the stage, gathering for an apparent Nicks tradition.

As her seven-piece band and three back-up vocalists extended the end of “Edge of Seventeen (Just Like the White Winged Dove),” Nicks slowly worked her way across the front of the stage, interacting with fans as she went.

Some shook her hand. Several tossed flowers. Others simply touched her. One man approached so vigorously, he had to be restrained by a bodyguard.

No doubt, those hardcore types went home feeling as though they had witnessed something miraculous, some probably for the second or third night that week.

For me, however, Friday’s concert felt a bit lacking, failing to live up to the potential of matching a first-rate performer with an exceptional venue.

In pre-show interviews, Nicks promised to deliver a visually spectacular set, taking advantage of the massive Colosseum stage and giant LED screen.

Instead, she and her band grouped near the middle of the stage in a relatively bare arrangement and used a scaled-back video screen — in the shape of a half-circle — with mixed results.

During “Outside the Rain,” giant digitized raindrops provided a suitable visual focal point behind Nicks and her mates.

Black-and-white images of ballet dancers superimposed over a color shot of running water made less sense during “If Anyone Falls,” and that backdrop was made even weirder when six giant Roman columns descended from the ceiling for the same song.

Vocally, Nicks was impressive. Her unmistakable rasp has always had an aged quality to it, so it’s no real surprise she can still deliver it so powerfully.

She no longer reaches for the high notes on “Dreams” or “Rhiannon,” but both Mac classics sounded magical nonetheless, a tribute to Nicks’ captivating, slightly ominous voice.

Other highlights included a fun, synthed-out version of the 1983 solo hit “Stand Back” and the gentle, acoustic “Landslide” — dedicated to Nicks’ mother, who the singer announced was in the crowd.

Several song choices seemed odd. After getting the crowd moving with well-known tunes “Gold Dust Woman” and “If Anyone Falls” back-to-back, Nicks reached for deep album cuts “Fall From Grace” and “How Still My Heart.”

Then, instead of closing with the revved-up “Edge of Seventeen,” Nicks returned with a most peculiar encore pairing: a cover of Tom Petty’s “I Need to Know” and the rather bleak ballad “Beauty and the Beast.”

Casual fans probably would have preferred to hear more of Nicks’ best-known work, be it Fleetwood Mac favorites “Sara” or “Gypsy” or solo singles “I Can’t Wait” or “Rooms on Fire.”

Then again, a set list dominated by hits likely wouldn’t have satisfied the diehards, who make it a point to remind Nicks of their presence every time she takes the stage.

Spencer Patterson / Las Vegas Sun (NV) / May 16, 2005

Stevie Nicks is more psyched about performing four nights in Las Vegas this week than you can imagine. Not just because it’s Vegas, but because she can go back to her hotel room after each show, instead of jumping on a bus or a plane.

“For the last two years, I’ve been thinking: Wouldn’t it be great if I could play Vegas once in a while? Because when you travel, a lot of your energy really goes into your travel,” she says. “Packing, unpacking.”

Getting booked here took a while.

“It’s not so very easy to get a slot in Vegas, so it’s taken a long time. This is really a special thing. I’m very, very excited about it.”

Since March, Nicks and her crew have been working on a show big enough to fill the Colosseum at Caesars Palace with its 110 foot-wide stage and gigantic video screen. They’ve been sifting through every video Nicks has ever been documented in, plus unrelated movie clips, she says.

“I’m just hoping to do well, so I can continue to do this,” she says.

Vegas is a natural for Nicks. On her Web site some months ago, she wrote that she loves Vegas most of all, but that she couldn’t live here. It’s just too hot, she says. In fact, she lives in Arizona and L.A., but she doesn’t spend much time in Arizona in the hot months.

She almost got seriously injured in Vegas, once. Several years ago, she played a private concert at the Hard Rock for the clothing company Kenneth Cole. But at the end of the show, she fell treacherously backward over a bass amplifier. A band mate caught her. It was a startling moment.

“Those are the things you don’t forget,” she says. “I almost did break my neck.”

She also almost died from being badly medicated, as anyone knows who has watched the VH1 rockumentaries on Fleetwood Mac and Nicks.

“I think I’ve told everybody the story. There was a lot of cocaine in the beginning, and then I got off of that, and then a psychiatrist put me on a drug called Colonapin, which is basically like more-complex Valium.”

She was on Colonapin for eight years.

“And that was even worse, because I really did almost die. I woke up one day going, like, `This pill is killing me. What are these people trying to do?’ ”

Her doctor tried to keep her on Colonapin in an effort to keep her off cocaine, but Nicks says she didn’t need anything to keep her off cocaine.

“I went straight to a hospital for 47 days and came off of (Colonapin), and since then everything’s been fine. I always like to throw that in, in case anybody’s on their way to the doctor right now and somebody’s gonna say, `Let’s do a trial run of Colonapin.’ ”

This was quite a few years ago.

“It’s been a long time, but you never forget. In my heart, it was yesterday. So you never get over it. I try as hard as I can to let people know so they don’t make that same mistake.”

If Nicks had died, she would have sort of orphaned a lot of women who have been named for her song, “Rhiannon.” Several Rhiannons have written words of devotion on Nicks’ Web site.

“There’s a lot of little Rhiannons out there, and I met them when they were babies. And now they’re all grown up. It’s pretty trippy to go back into Madison, Wisc., and meet a little girl that you picked up and swung around onstage when she was 1, and now she’s 25.

“But I feel pretty blessed. I feel like there were angels just taking me through all this and letting me have such an amazing success. I appreciate it every day. I don’t take it for granted.”

Nicks says she remembers the writing of every song she’s created. She writes a song structure in about 10 minutes, then spends days playing it and editing it. She always starts with lyrics, then usually moves to piano with a module, or sometimes to guitar, to work out instrument parts.

“Every once in a while I’ll go to a piano without a poem, but usually I have a full-on, formal stanza poem, and I go and sit down at the piano, and I put on a recorder and record it.

“And usually, the very first thing out of my mouth is the best thing. I don’t ever go back and change anything. And if somebody suggests I change something, I don’t have a very good reaction to that.”

Songs penned on piano are generally more intricate than songs written on guitar, “unless you’re Eric Clapton,” she says.

Nicks used to suffer vocal problems from singing, because she wasn’t trained properly. But she’s been taking better care of her vocal chords for eight years.

“I do 40 minutes” of exercises “three hours before I walk onstage every single show, and I’ve been doing that since 1997,” she says.

“It’s like going to the gym every day. You go to a vocal coach, and you study, and you go through every vowel sound, and you work with your vocal chords so they’re all stretched out, like a ballerina would do, or a Vegas showgirl would do.”

Who: Stevie Nicks

When: 8 p.m. today-Saturday

Where: Colosseum at Caesars Palace, 3570 Las Vegas Blvd. South

Tickets: $68.18-$159.09 (731-7110)

Doug Elfman / Las Vegas Review-Journal (NV) / May 13, 2005

Stevie Nicks begins a four-night stay at Caesars Colosseum. She’s set to perform both solo material and songs from her work in Fleetwood Mac.

Nicks and her crew have been working since March to create a sight and sound show good enough to fill the 110 foot-wide stage and its humongous video screen, she says.

“We’re going through all the video I ever made, and we’ve got some movie rights to put up some movie scenes on those massive screens,” she says. (A full interview will run in Friday’s Neon section.) “I think everybody’s gonna just cry. … I think people will really enjoy this. It’ll definitely take them on a trip down memory lane.”

Showtime is 8 p.m. today, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Tickets cost $75 to $175 at the box office, 3570 Las Vegas Blvd. South. To charge by phone, call 731-7110.

Doug Elfman / Las Vegas Review-Journal (NV) / May 10, 2005

Apparently, for Stevie Nicks, Las Vegas is what dreams are made of.

The sometime Fleetwood Mac vocalist brings a new concert production titled “Dreams” to The Colosseum at Caesars Palace on four of Celine Dion’s nights off: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

Backstage at March’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in New York City, Nicks sounded excited about the chance to do four shows in one venue.

“For me, as an almost 57-year-old woman, this (Caesars run) looks very good, because it means you can put all of your energy into the show, as opposed to traveling all over the United States,” Nicks said. “It would be a nice thing for me to do until I’m a very old, little old lady.”

Nicks, who celebrates her 57th birthday this month, recently told Los Angeles classic rock station KLOS 95.5-FM she has created a special set to fill The Colosseum massive stage, and plans to utilize costumes from her early days as a singer.

Nicks’ highest-charting solo hits include “Edge of Seventeen,” “If Anyone Falls,” “Stand Back,” “Talk to Me” and “Rooms on Fire.”

The Phoenix native is most famous for her work with Fleetwood Mac, the British group she and then-musical partner Lindsey Buckingham joined in 1975.

Nicks wrote and sang lead vocals on many of the band’s best-known songs, including “Rhiannon,” “Dreams,” “Landslide,” “Gypsy” and “Sara.”

This week’s Caesars run will serve as a warm-up of sorts for Nicks’ summer tour with Eagles’ drummer/vocalist Don Henley. The duo have currently announced 10 co-headlining dates — along the East Coast and in the Midwest — with more shows expected to be added.

Doors for the Caesars show open at 7 p.m. Shows begin at 8 p.m. At press time, tickets remained available for all four nights.

Who: Stevie Nicks.
Where: The Colosseum at Caesars Palace.
When: 8 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
Tickets: $68.18, $113.64, $136.36, $159.09.
Call: 731-7333.
Opening act: None.
Additional musicians: Waddy Wachtel (guitar), Jana Anderson (vocals), Sharon Celani (vocals), Lori Nicks (vocals), Al Ortiz (bass), Jimmy Paxson (drums), Scott Plunkett (keyboard/piano), Carlos Rios (guitar), Taku Hirano (percussion), Brett Tuggle (keyboard/organ).
Latest release: “Trouble in Shangri-La” (Reprise, 2001).
Essential release: “Rumours” (1977, with Fleetwood Mac).
What to expect: At the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, Nicks said the Caesars shows would consist of “favorite songs, which you don’t always get to do. This is a chance for me to go back through all those many, many years and pick out a few songs I haven’t done.” During her last solo tour, in 2001, Nicks performed mainly solo tunes, along with Fleetwood Mac classics “Rhiannon,” “Dreams” and “Gold Dust Woman.”

Says Nicks: “I don’t have any children, but when I look at all the girl singers, I think they’re all my children.” (CNN, May 1998).

Spencer Patterson / Las Vegas Sun (NV) / May 9, 2005