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Stevie Nicks: Storyteller, rocker

YOUNGSTOWN — Stevie Nicks wrote “Stand Back” after hearing Prince’s “Little Red Corvette” on the radio.

She wrote most of the songs for her second album while recording Fleetwood Mac’s “Mirage” because she felt her initial solo success would be considered a fluke if she didn’t have a quick follow-up ready.

Those are a couple of the stories Nicks shared Friday during her concert at the Covelli Centre.

Early on she described the show as a “Storytellers” concert built around her 2014 album “24 Karat Gold: Songs From the Vault,” made up of previously unreleased tracks from Nicks’ “Gothic trunk of forgotten songs.”

Storytellers-style concerts usually take place in more intimate venues than hockey arenas, and there were times when the nuances of her stories were lost in the echo-y acoustics. There also were times when some in the crowd became restless with rambling tales instead of familiar hits.

To Nicks’ credit, for a show she’s been touring for nearly a year with essentially the same setlist, those stories had a loose, natural quality to them. It didn’t feel like an over-rehearsed script read too many times.

And while there were rarities (the title track from “Bella Donna,” which Nicks said she hadn’t played live for decades before this tour) and should-have-been hits (“Starshine,” a song she originally demoed with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers but never ended up getting released until “24 Karat Gold”), Nicks didn’t leave out her signature songs.

Solo career favorites “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” “Edge of Seventeen,” “Stand Back” and “Enchanted” (I’d forgotten how great that is) joined Fleetwood Mac staples “Gypsy,” “Gold Dust Woman,” “Rhiannon” and “Landslide” in the 18-song, 135-minute show.

She also turned “New Orleans” from her 2011 album “In Your Dreams” into a plea to help out the victims of the most recent hurricanes.

The audience was filled with women who echoed their idols’ fashion sense by wearing scarves, shawls, capes, flowing black dresses and top hats.

Nicks showed she still had one of those original capes, which she admitted paying several thousand dollars for in the ’70s. She admitted it was a ridiculous amount of money back then, but when you count the number of performances she’s had over the years with it, that price may have been a bargain.

Nicks’ voice sounded strong and she’s made the transition in her onstage persona from wispy, witchy enchantress to rock icon.

Her longtime guitar player Waddy Wachtel served as her onstage foil, wailing on an assortment of guitars and handling Tom Petty’s vocals on “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.”

Vanessa Carlton, one of the many younger artists who would consider Nicks to be an influence on them, opened the show with a half-hour solo set accompanying herself on piano. She started with the only song most of the crowd knew — her 2002 hit “A Thousand Miles” — and also played “Carousel,” which she wrote and Nicks covered on “24 Karat Gold.”

She was engaging and likable, with the music shining above the inevitable dull rumble that comes from several hundred people simultaneously trying to find their seats in the dark.

agray@tribtoday.com

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