Stevie Nicks marked her return to the stage with a remarkable performance that transported audiences back to Fleetwood Mac’s golden era.
The legendary vocalist performed “Angel”, a deep cut from the band’s 1979 album Tusk, for the first time since 1983 during her Wednesday night concert in Portland, Oregon.
The performance came after Nicks was forced to reschedule several tour dates due to a fractured shoulder, making her return all the more significant for devoted fans. The rarity of “Angel” in her setlist added an unexpected dimension to the evening, with the track serving as a testament to the enduring depth of Fleetwood Mac’s catalogue.
Nicks has previously revealed the personal significance behind “Angel”, explaining that the song was inspired by her bandmate Mick Fleetwood. “Not so much my love affair with him,” she clarified in the liner notes to the 2015 reissue of Tusk. “I was always taken with his style, and in those days he would walk in the room and I would just look up. ‘I still look up when you walk in the room… I try not to reach out.’ It’s all about him and his crazy fob watch and his really beautiful clothes.”
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The singer described Fleetwood as “a very stylish individual,” contrasting his sophisticated presence with her own identity as “just this little California girl who’d never really known anybody like him.”
The Portland show also featured Nicks performing her recent composition “The Lighthouse”, which she debuted on Saturday Night Live last year in her first appearance on the programme in four decades.
“I used to have a dream that I would buy a lighthouse and it would have that twisty staircase that would go all the way up,” Nicks told Rolling Stone in 2024. “I would have a little place at the bottom with a bed and a bathroom, and that would be my place when I wanted to go and record by myself, right on a cliff.”
The timing of the “Angel” performance coincides with renewed interest in Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham’s pre-Fleetwood Mac work, following the recent reissue of Buckingham Nicks. The 1973 album had remained out of print for decades before its long-awaited return to availability last month.
