Enchanted
Show at Houston
18-7-98
Woodlands, Houston, TX
We got on the road for Houston around 12:30 Friday afternoon. It was very hot,
but we still took the t-tops off Karen's Camaro. We took the back roads from
Austin since the Woodlands is on the north side of Houston and we wanted to
avoid Houston traffic. Plus, this way is a lot more scenic. I don't know how
familiar you are with this part of Texas, but the older houses in these little
towns are all Victorian, very "Stevie" and "Big Love" video
looking stuff, lots of antique shops with Tiffany (blue) lamps in the windows.
Also, this part of Texas isn't flat like west Texas, it's very hilly. We ate
lunch in Giddings, at a little family-owned diner. We also went through Brenham,
where they make Blue Bell ice cream.
We
started listening to The Dance CD and it was at one point during Silver Springs
that I decided to start taking notes of all the little Stevie things we noticed
on the road. During Lindsey's solo on Silver Springs, I was gazing out upon the
Texas hill country and I just had a moment...I was finally on my way to see
Stevie!
Some
of the things we noticed along the way: A huge, iron WHITE WINGED DOVE over the
door of a little church; a billboard for DREAM Ranch; another billboard for MAC
Haik Realty and the signs for LEGENDS Greenery and THOUSAND (days) Trails
campsite. When we went through Brenham, it was, "Oooh, look at that Big
Love house, Aaaah, look at THAT Big Love house..."
We
got into town, checked into our hotel and since we were so close to the venue,
we decided to cruise by it. Chicago and Hall & Oates played the night before
Stevie. Oh, one thing you need to understand about the Woodlands Pavilion, it's
back in a residential neighborhood, surrounded by trees. The entire little
Woodlands community has every street lined with tall trees and everything is
hidden back in the trees. The mall, the pavilion, banks, gas stations,
everything.
One
of the streets to get to the venue is Research FOREST (of the black roses)
Drive. Other street names we noticed all around the venue were (running in the)
SHADOWbend, CATS CRADLE (like the back of Enchanted pic), Bear (silver) SPRINGS
Place, CRYSTAL Lake Lane, etc. We also saw a sign for a garage sale on ENCHANTED
Drive! If you drive to the back of the venue, you'll get to the GOLD (dust
woman) VIP parking lot. Okay, we were stretching for some of these, but it does
make a fun little road game to play.
We
went to dinner Friday night at Landry's. It's located next to a little lake with
a huge fountain in the middle. A thunderstorm came through and there was a great
lightning show.
Okay,
Saturday, the big day. We had lots to do. Bought champagne for pre and
post-concert partying, bought film for the camera and another roll for Karen to
keep in her purse in case mine got confiscated, took my RIANON license plate to
a florist and had a bouquet made around it. I picked out a card with hearts on
it and wrote, "Stevie, thank you for always being the poet in our wild
hearts." Karen had a red and white carnation bouquet made also. Oh yeah,
couldn't forget to do my nails, blue-green toenails flashing, which I made sure
to point out to Tracey when I met her at the show. ;-)
While
we were getting ready, I said to Karen, "I wonder if Stevie knows that fans
like us get as nervous as I'm sure she does before a show." Have another
glass of something French, champagne, okay, I'm better now...this was my 8th or
9th time seeing Stevie solo and I still get the jitters.
One
drawback of the Woodlands, you have to walk awhile on the trail through the
forest from the parking area. A bee was very attracted to Karen's bouquet and it
was freaking me out 'cause I'm allergic to bee stings. Lots of people were
making comments to us about the flowers.
Security
doesn't find my camera when we go in, cool. Of course, we had to go check out
our seats right away. We were on the aisle, middle section, Row 2, on the Carlos
side (also keyboard player Kevin, more about him later). Yeah, baby! Tracey came
over and found me (little did she know then that she'd be the lucky Landslide
dedicatee, is that a word?) My friend from Waco was sitting right next to us,
but they moved closer to the middle and I never saw him again after that. It did
seem like there were some empty seats in the pit all night.
Now
we're thirsty, time for a drink and check out the goods. We both brought plastic
shopping bags to haul our crud (thanks to whoever it was on the Ledge for giving
me that idea). I asked the T-shirt girl if she would let me pick out everything
I wanted, and then I would come back and pay her as soon as the concert was
over. She said "no." Whatever, I bought 2 T-shirts, 2 tourbooks
(bought one for a friend who couldn't go), a keychain, both pins and the magnet.
I
really had planned to watch Boz, but I ran into an old friend from San Antonio
and had to talk with him for awhile. Then, this little boy comes running up to
me out of nowhere, "Excuse me, is your name Stacey?" (not the first
time that would happen tonight). I said, "Yes," he said, "from
the internet?" It was Classic's son, he led me straight to her and her
husband. Unfortunately, we didn't get much time to visit, I knew Stevie was
going to start soon and I definitely wanted to be in my seat.
The
pit security told us that we should put our flowers on the side of the stage for
one of Stevie's security people to pick up, that Stevie wouldn't be taking
anything herself. We decided to hang onto them anyway.
Okay, here comes Chris w/ the Enchanted introduction and you know the song list,
here are my highlights:
Stevie gave her flowers to the girl in front of us and off to the right, who
started crying immediately, it was cute.
Outside
the Rain and Dreams - I'm still getting over the shock of our seats and how GOOD
Stevie looked!
Enchanted
- LOVED IT!! I noticed she sang, "It's just a light through the night"
instead of "voice through the night."
Gold
Dust Woman - Yes, I did the spider fingers, but Stevie didn't really do them,
she did do the "shadow" fingers. The "go hooooooome" was
awesome...
While
setting up for the acoustic set, Brett was playing the intro to "Rooms on
Fire." I don't remember anybody else mentioning this, so at first, Karen
and both thought they were going to do it.
After
the Glitter Fades was flawless - I noticed she hit a couple notes even higher
than the studio version.
Garbo
was excellent - gave me goosebumps.
Rose
Garden - I had eye contact with Stevie on this one - she saw me twirling my
finger with her on the "roses dangling down to the ground" line....
Sleeping
Angel - I have always loved this song and if there was ever part of the concert
where I almost lost it, this was it.
I think Stevie forgot she had to change because she stayed at the microphone as
if waiting for some music and then realized, "Oh, I'm supposed to be
changing now," and she ran off, it was funny.
Throughout the entire concert, we had MAJOR eye contact with Kevin Stoller, the
keyboard player behind Carlos. It was so intense, that I even said to Karen,
"I can't look at him anymore, every time I do, he's watching us, it's
starting to freak me out." But, it was still fun.
Rhiannon
- Stevie screwed up at the beginning, she started to repeat "Would you even
try," when she should have gone into another verse. It threw everyone off
for a second, but they recovered nicely. I think it was during this song where
her microphone cut out for a second.
Gold
and Braid - I couldn't help thinking about Hayley. It was great...
Whole
Lotta Trouble - Okay, this is when things started getting crazy...the deadbeat
couple who was sitting down the entire concert, left their 3rd row seats behind
us. Toward the end of this song and before Landslide, a guy came up behind me
and was talking on a cell phone. He had a laminated crew pass around his neck. I
suddenly had a flashback to the Van Halen grid system and thought Kevin had sent
a roadie down to give us passes. That wasn't the case, but I was close. The guy
behind me kept talking on his phone and looking at me. Then, he says,
"Excuse me, is your name Stacey?" I said, "Yeah, who wants to
know?" He went back to the phone and told me to wait a second, then he
hands me the phone!! Keep in mind, this is at the end of Whole Lotta Trouble and
it's loud! It was my friend Lisa, calling from Austin. The guy with the phone
works for the promoter and she met him at a recent concert in Houston. She
wanted to come to Stevie, but changed her mind (she's not a diehard fan).
Anyway, she said, "That's my friend, he's going to get you backstage."
He had already given Karen a pass and sent someone back to get one for me. I
told Lisa "Thank you, and I really need to go, because it's Stevie and I'm
in heaven right now." Landslide had already started, so I missed Tracey's
dedication. :-( I would have loved to have seen the look on her cute li'l face!
Well,
these crew guys offered to take us backstage right then and there to watch the
rest of the concert from the wings. I said, "There's no way I'm leaving
this spot until after Edge of 17."
Twisted
was wicked cool and everything everyone has already said about it.
Toward
the end of the song, I told the scrawny high-school security kid that it was
time for us to be able to move up to the stage. Poor thing, he was so naive...he
said we'd all have to get past him and 3 other security guards first. I said
"Watch!", grabbed Karen, and got up there as soon as the bongo solo
started. We put our flowers on the stage and beat our hands on the stage, inches
away from Stevie's microphone. The rest of the pit joined us, the girls in the
4th row who were where I thought Phillip would be, ended up right next to me.
Karen and I moved our flowers up against the monitor so they were out of the
way. The girl next to me looked like she was about to cry. She told me her
friend bought their tickets and had her believing they were on the lawn. She
didn't know they had 4th row until they got there and she wanted to cry all
night.
Stevie
and Sharon finished their duet at the microphone and it was time. She started
stage right, as usual, I'm getting more and more crushed by the people behind
me, but it was cool, I wasn't getting hurt or anything. Karen was on my left,
with both hands up, Stevie grabbed both her hands and squeezed, then she reached
over Karen, I'm getting more crushed at this point. I put up both my hands and
Stevie grabbed them both and squeezed! I told her I loved her. As she moved on
to the others, I rubbed my hand across the top of her velvet boots and her dress
brushed across the top of my hand. I noticed the 2 security guards following her
left our flowers exactly where we put them. We pushed them further back so
nobody else would take them.
>While
Stevie was still making her way down the stage, my friend from San Antonio was
right behind us, he had made it down from the 11th row. We gave him our spot and
let our crew friends lead us backstage. Through a maze of equipment, cables and
wooden sidewalks, we end up stage right, standing amongst the equipment. Wow,
what a different view from here. I saw Tracey, the 4th row crying girls, and my
other friend up against the stage. I missed her introduction, did she say the
Tom Petty thing? Anyway, I still hadn't taken any pictures all night, the only
people I saw getting away with it were not using flash. Karen and I both decided
I HAD to take a picture. When "Has Anyone...." started, I dug out my
camera and went for it. As I said in my earlier preview post, one of Stevie's
people got a little miffed about that, I told him I wouldn't take any more, but
I had to get at least one or nobody would believe where I was. He laughed about
it.
The
first person we run into is Kevin. He asked us if we had a good time, I smiled
and said, "Didn't it look like we were?" He laughed and said the girl
in front of us looked like she was having MORE fun (she had a shawl and kept
playing with it). Then he wanted to know if we were going to the "band
party" at the hotel. Now, I don't want to imply anything or be
misinterpreted, but isn't Kevin the one that handed some passes to a 13-year old
girl earlier in the tour? Hmmm, I'm way too old for him!! They were staying
downtown, a good 45 minutes away from the venue. Our crew friend asked if Stevie
was going to do a meet & greet and Kevin said he wasn't sure, that she's
been hanging out in her room a lot more, but you never know. Later, we found out
that they had chartered a plane for her to fly straight to Denver after the
concert.
On
our way down the stairs to the VIP area, we ran into Don and Carlos. (Travis,
you'll be happy to know that I did refer to him as "The Tree!!"). They
actually said hello to us first, our crew friend said, "You two don't need
any help from me, you seem like you know everybody already." We laughed and
told him they recognized us from the audience.
Land,
the drummer was sitting at a table with his father and a bunch of kids. I
thought they might have been relatives too, but he was asking them their names.
Lenny came over to meet Land's father, Christopher Nicks gave teddy bears to all
the kids. Mindy Stein came over to that table also.
I
didn't get pictures with anyone or ask for anyone's autograph. :-( It seemed
like everyone was in a hurry to leave and there just wasn't a good opportunity.
We went to the production office with our crew buddies and hung out in there for
awhile. I got out my tourbook and was pleasantly surprised to see that Stevie
has the same big, pink Wembley arena poster that I have. Also, the picture of
Stevie and Herbie and Robin on her mantlepiece, see the blue sun and moon candle
votives? I've got those too, there's a star that goes with the set also.
Enchanted?
Yes!!!! The entire evening was enchanting...I will gladly invest the bucks to be
in the first 5 rows for every future Stevie and (hopefully) Fleetwood Mac
concert. There is just nothing that compares to being surrounded by true fans
(except for the deadbeats behind me who left early.) Looking around at the crowd
and noticing the ones who knew all the words to Garbo and Sleeping Angel, the
ones who can't take their eyes off of Stevie, the ones who know every hand
gesture, the ones who cry tears of joy, the ones who sing at night...
Thank
you, Stephanie Lynn Nicks, YOU are a legend and yes, you are a priestess of
something...never change...never stop...
with thanks to
Livia who sent this review to me)
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