It’s hard to imagine a performer like Stevie Nicks ever gets nervous, even playing to roughly 20,000 faces.
But the “Gypsy” singer openly admitted as much a couple times during her Wednesday performance at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, once after she started an anecdote about “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” the Tom Petty duet she wasn’t actually meant to queue up until a little farther into the setlist.
Nerves are somewhat understandable though. Nicks, 77, was playing a makeup performance after a fractured shoulder this summer forced her to postpone several dates of her tour, including her New York City stop, and it was clear she wanted to ensure she was worth the wait. And she was.
While Nicks acknowledged her shoulder still hurt her, she twirled — albeit a bit slower, more carefully — as she showed off her signature capes and captivated the audience with 100 minutes of solo hits and a few favorites she penned during her tumultuous career with Fleetwood Mac.
Though she stuck mainly to her hits of the past, Nicks was excited to perform “The Lighthouse,” a newer song she penned as a protest anthem for women’s reproductive rights and first performed on “SNL” in 2024.
She seemed buoyed by the spirits of friends who are no longer with us, though a couple times their spiritual presence seemed to overwhelm her. An emotional performance of “Free Fallin’” by frequent collaborator Tom Petty appeared to choke her up, as did her finale, “Landslide.”
During the latter, a collage of Nicks with late Fleetwood Mac bandmate Christine McVie played on the screen behind her. Nicks has ended her shows like this at almost every date she’s played since McVie died in 2022, never looking back at the screen lest the emotions overcome her.
The audience was not quite spared the same fate.
