Nicely timed to cash in on the singer’s recording renaissance with In Your Dreams, this “classic broadcast” from 1994 promises much. Live Nicks prior to 2009’s Soundstage Sessions is rarer than rocking horse doo-doo, 1986’s Red Rocks being the exception. Yet the premature fade on this disc’s opening Outside The Rain indicates straight away that this set, which started life as a Westwood One radio broadcast 2-CD, might not be a totally treasurable listening experience.
The material is split equally between Fleetwood Mac classics and solo hits, but songs such as Rhiannon, Edge Of Seventeen and Gold Dust Woman are extended to ridiculous lengths. Some intros are two-minute instrumental vamps as Stevie exits for a costume change – acceptable, perhaps, on a DVD, but interminable on a sound-only recording. Also on the minus side, Nicks ducks out of singing many a high note in favour of her backing singers, though in fairness, 1994’s Street Angel tour wasn’t her classic performing period.
On the positive front, we get one of the last ever performances of Rooms On Fire, a song Nicks has never sung live since. Listen, but do approach with care.
