It goes without saying that against all odds, Tampa Bay got off fairly easy from Hurricane Ian. But even the 74-year-old Fleetwood Mac frontwoman knows that Ian is only a fraction of what made 2022 such a shitty year in the news.
Nicks was angered enough to release a cover of Buffalo Springfieldโs โFor What Itโs Worthโ earlier this yearโpenned by Florida boy Stephen Stillsโwhich she apparently wanted to record from a young age. โItโs always really fun to be a woman, and sing a manโs song, so I did that, and I tried to be very loyal to his version, but to sing it from my heart also,โ she explained.
She also reminded us that voting season has arrived, and that we had better not sit the midterms out. โI never voted until I was in my mid-โ60s. What a shame, oh the shame,โ she added, citing tour and studio schedules as her excuse.
Other than said moments of solemnity, every other ounce of Nicksโ performance was triumphant. Clad in her standard black dress and wiccan-esque regalia, her nine-piece bandโnot featuring ex-Heartbreaker Benmont Tench III due to schedulingโkicked things off by launching into โOutside The Rain,โ which oh-so-smoothly segued into โDreams,โ the latter of which featured no cranberry juice, or, in Nicksโ case, roller skates. Just the majestic twirls and fringed-up microphone she’s embedded into our minds.
That didnโt mean that there would be no wardrobe adjustments, though. She had three different cloaks and capes in her vicinities. She sported one drenched in gold sequins that went down like a scarf on โGold Dust Woman,โ and another black one with gold hearts on โStand Back.โ Most notably however, Nicks was draped in the exact cape she wore on the back cover of her 1981 Bella Donna album.
โIt is in perfect condition,โ she bragged after twirling around to prove it. โI really donโt get it, but it just keeps on truckinโ.โ
Twice did she remember her old friendโand oursโTom Petty, who died five years ago this month. While introducing โStop Dragginโ My Heart Around,โ Nicks told the story of how her at-the-time boyfriend Jimmy Iovine managed to get Petty and the Heartbreakersโwho he had produced Damn The Torpedoes for a few years priorโto help spawn a hit for Bella Donna by duetting on the Petty-Campbell-penned track.
The second remembrance came at the start of the encore, in the form of a โFree Fallinโโ rendition. If you didnโt shed some tears or at least take off your hat for that one, are you even a true Floridian?
She didnโt skip over โEdge of Seventeen,โ which everyone going up to the packed lawn knew was about to be performed based on the tempo of the drums that opened the song. She also didnโt forget to salute the Fleetwood Mac songs that put her on the map in the first place. โLandslideโ was a strange way to follow the 10-minute-long epic that was โGold Dust Woman,โ but guitarist Waddy Wachtel provided the acoustic accompaniment for the one tune that has been performed just about every time Nicks has hit a stage, which was penned in a really dingy house belonging to her friends.
โRhiannonโ was presented as one final witchy spectacle at the tail end of Nicks’ all-too-short 105-minute set.
โItโs almost Halloween!โ She announced afterwards. โIโm just getting myself ready.โ
Nicks may take a bit longer to prepare herself, but Iโm certain that everything majestic about her has a few thousand witches and wizards of Tampa Bay fully ready.
This article appears in Oct 20-26, 2022.

