Stevie Nicks Says That Performing A Set on ‘Saturday Night Live’ Is Still ‘Bigger Than A Stadium Show’
Just like the white winged dove sings a song, sounds like she’s singing, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday night!”
Saturday Night Live has a long history of impactful musical moments that changed the course of the guest’s careers. Sinéad O’Connor closing her cover of Bob Marley’s “War” by tearing up a picture of the Pope. The Blues Brothers making their debut. Ashlee Simpson fucking up her lip sync and then doing that little prospector’s jig in her JNCO jeans. Ever since keyboardist and singer duo Billy Preston and Janis Ian introduced live music to the first-ever episode of Saturday Night, the sketch series has had the power to draw massive amounts of attention to any artist, for better or worse.
Fleetwood Mac frontwoman and independent star Stevie Nicks understood the power of SNL from a musician’s perspective when she made her near-disastrous but ultimately successful first appearance on the show in 1983, a set that Nicks said “definitely kicked my solo career up” in a recent interview with PEOPLE. Ahead of her second SNL appearance, Knicks claims that the guest spot is just as big a deal today as it was during her first set over 40 years ago, even more so than the average stadium concert.
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I guess SNL beats MSG by a landslide.
In the interview, Nicks recalled how her set at Studio 8H on December 10, 1983 almost tanked because the second singer who was slated to play the duet on the the above song “Nightbird” had horrible stage fright and couldn’t stand the bright lights of SNL. Thankfully, Nicks’ backup singer and sister-in-law, Lori Perry Nicks, knew the part perfectly, and she stepped up to save the performance that Nicks still considers one of the most important of her career.
“It was one of those shows, that even with that horrible wrench that was thrown in the middle of it, it came off beautifully,” Nicks explained. “I’ve never been so proud of anything as I was of that night. It was a magical show, and I was thrilled, and it definitely kicked my solo career up.”
Even though Nicks has been a household name as a solo act for longer than every Saturday Night Live cast member besides Kenan Thompson has been alive, she still has the same nerves that she had over 40 years ago when her band got the yips. “Well, performing on Saturday Night Live is now as it was then. It’s just about the biggest thing you can do, bigger than a stadium show because it’s going to go out all over the world,” Nicks posited. “So if you wanna talk about being nervous about something! It doesn’t matter how many shows you’ve done or how much you practice, you're going to be nervous!”
“You can never say that Saturday Night Live does not help you to gain lots of new followers, younger people, older people, etc.,” Nicks continued. “And so to be asked to do it again ... I never thought I would do it again — so to be asked to do it again has thrown me into an absolute nervous frenzy, but I’m really excited. I’m really excited to play the new song.”
Hopefully, Nicks’ band holds their nerve this time and don’t leave her crying in the night.
