Stevie Nicks shows her demons with “Live At Red Rocks”

In the mid-80’s rocker Stevie Nicks was at the top of her game with her multiplatinum-selling albums (1981’s Bella Donna &  1983’s The Wild Heart). However, by 1986, her “game” was being threatened by a deadly cocaine habit which greatly affected her then-latest album, Rock A Little, and its subsequent tour. Her 1986 concert, Stevie Nicks: Live At Red Rocks chronicles her concert at the beautiful Red Rocks Ampitheater tucked away inside the Colorado Rocky Mountains in Denver.

While this dvd is far from Nicks’ worst performance, it’s not up to par with her post-drugs performances such as her 2009 dvd: Live in Chicago. Nevertheless, there are some redeemable parts of this concert. For example, she opens the show with the Bella Donna-era classic, Outside the Rain with a nice fade-into her Fleetwood Mac classic Dreams. 

However, one of the best parts of the concert is when she performs Talk To Me from 1985’s Rock A Little. Her vocals sound amazing just as they do on the album.

One of the cutest moments of the film is after Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You. Someone in the audience releases a white-winged dove. The dove is then handed to Nicks (who tries to get the bird to speak into the mic) and she tries to release it, but the bird doesn’t leave.

Unfortunately Nicks’s performance of No Spoken Word is an absolute disaster in both sound and film. The closeups of her face are obviously retouched due to her drug issues. She looks tired. Additionally, her vocals sound tired. It gets even worse with Beauty and the Beast. On the ever-popular Edge of Seventeen, she performs a completely unnecessary vocal solo. At times, she even looks like she’s, as the great George Costanza once said on Seinfeld, in “a full-fledged body heave set to music.”

Overall, it’s an okay dvd due to the fact that it contains rarer songs that Nicks nowadays doesn’t perform live. However, it shows her in the worst part of her drug-fueled days. Fortunately after this tour she checked into rehab and has been off cocaine ever since.

B-.

Stevie Nicks sheds her rocker persona with “Rock A Little”

Stevie Nicks has proven herself to be the most powerful woman in rock & roll. However, even rocks Gold Dust Woman has her “what was she thinking” moments. Rock A Little perhaps is one of these.

Rock A Little is a little like her previous release, the 1983 classic The Wild Heart albeit with a more 80’s pop feel. It fits Nicks much like a fashion accessory – too many of them break the overall outfit. The title track, “Rock A Little (Go Ahead Lily),” is one of those tracks. The lyrics scream rock song or at least a power ballad, but instead it is a slower song. Either way, neither song nor lyric fit each other.

“The Nightmare” is a completely senseless song. Though it has a great beat, it’s like she was on quite a bit of drugs when she recorded it. The same goes for other songs such as “I Sing For Things” – which would be an enjoyable track had Nicks not been on drugs, thus slurring her words. She does this on many of the tracks. Shortly after the Rock A Little tour, she famously entered the Betty Ford Clinic for treatment for a cocaine addiction.

However, “I Can’t Wait” is almost like an updated version of the classic smash “Stand Back.” A surprise track that the Wild Heart loves is “If I Were You” – a ballad that is a plea to a significant other to stay in the relationship. It is a beautiful, yet uptempo, ballad. “Sister Honey” is a rare almost-dance track from Stevie Nicks. It is a great album cut. One of the best album tracks is “Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You” – a song written for then-boyfriend and member of the Eagles Joe Walsh, who had suffered the loss of his young daughter due to injuries in an automobile accident en route to nursery school in 1974. Walsh took Nicks to the water fountain that she frequented when she was alive to show Nicks that her problems and pain were nothing compared to the hell he has put up with.

Overall the Wild Heart can only recommend this album if either a) you want to show your children what music on drugs sounds like or b) you are a die-heart Stevie Nicks fan. Otherwise, only download a few tracks and nothing more.