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Review & setlist: Stevie Nicks wraps TD Garden in friendship — and iconic capes
"I just want you to know that you live in a very, very, very attractive city. However, it is a very, very, very cold city."
Stevie Nicks, with Abby Anderson, at TD Garden, Boston, Nov. 24, 2025.
Stevie Nicks fans were jubilant when the icon finally took the stage at TD Garden on Monday night, after a fractured shoulder forced her to postpone her scheduled Aug. 12 show.
The multi-platinum, Grammy Award-winning singer, 77, kicked off Thanksgiving week in Boston with beloved hits and inside stories from her illustrious career. Nicks is a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee who, as a solo artist and member of Fleetwood Mac, has collectively sold more than 220 million albums.
But even rock ‘n’ roll queens get injured. And she wasted no time addressing the reason for her postponement before the night’s festivities began.
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“I’m very glad to be here. Me and my shoulder are here. Don’t ever ever trip and break your shoulder because it is not a good thing,” Nicks said.
Shoulder aside, Nicks’ signature raspy voice was on point. And so were her signature capes — velvety, sparkly, fringy — and all the originals from her albums and videos, she pointed out. Each time she emerged in a new one, the crowd went wild.
Despite the injury, Nicks determinedly moved about the stage throughout the night, even shimmying and twirling at points. Upon the conclusion of “Gold Dust Woman,” she turned her back to the audience while stretching her caped arms out and flapping the material slowly like a majestic bird.
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It was moments like that when Nicks seemed ethereal. Yet, she was also down to earth through much of the evening, chatting about her awe when meeting Tom Petty, and even demonstrating the physical therapy exercises she’s been doing to rehab her shoulder (to a chuckling audience).
She also talked about Boston.
“I have to say, driving to the show tonight and driving through the streets of your city, the city is really a very beautiful city,” Nicks said after the opening song (a cover of “Not Fade Away” by Buddy Holly and the Crickets). “I’m sure you know that, but for me, I’m like, ‘It’s so beautiful, this whole city.’ So I just want you to know that you live in a very, very, very attractive city. However, it is a very, very, very cold city.”
The multi-generational packed house, with women dressed in Stevie-inspired attire — velvet, lace, full skirts, shawls, and fringe vests — laughed at the Boston weather reference. As for Nicks, she wore a black velvet and ruffly dress with high black boots (no heel anymore, she said, as she’s too old for that now).
Nicks hasn’t released a solo album of new material since 2011’s “In Your Dreams.” But the audience was more than ready for a trip down memory lane as Nicks sang songs like “Stand Back” and “Edge of Seventeen” from her ’80s albums “The Wild Heart” and “Bella Donna,” as well as Fleetwood Mac classics like “Dreams,” “Gypsy,” and “Rhiannon.” Her voice was strong through all of them.
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The newest song she sang is “The Lighthouse,” released digitally to streaming services in September 2024, a powerful and rallying cry for women’s rights that she premiered on “Saturday Night Live” last year. As she sang, the large screen behind her portrayed a lighthouse shining in the dark while a turbulent storm raged.
Nicks shared that she went to England to mix the song at Abbey Road and simultaneously practiced with Harry Styles in the next recording studio. The two were singing together at the BST Hyde Park concert series in July 2024 to commemorate Nicks’s close friend and bandmate Christine McVie, who passed away in 2022.
Nicks is clearly all about honoring her friends, and friendship was a common theme throughout the night.
Nicks paid tribute to McVie in the night’s final song, “Landslide,” while photos of the longtime pals ran like a digital scrapbook behind her. Another decades-long friend, Tom Petty, who passed away in 2017, was honored in the same way. In fact, Petty’s song, “Runnin’ Down a Dream,” signaled her arrival to the stage for the evening.
Nicks told the story of how her hit song with Petty, “Stop Dragging My Heart Around,” off her 1981 debut solo album “Bella Donna,” came to be. She said her producer Jimmy Iovine told her she didn’t have a single when the “Bella Donna” album was finished.
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“There is nothing that anybody can ever say at the beginning of your solo career that can be worse than that, because writing a single is just not that easy,” she said.
Iovine then hooked her up with Petty, who said he had a song and even offered to sing it with her. Nicks was thrilled, and said she remembers how she “dressed to the nines” when meeting Petty. Her fans, familiar with her fashion sense, got a big chuckle out of that.
“Thank you, Tom,” she said, before launching into an energetic “Stop Dragging my Heart Around” with Waddy Wachtel, her guitarist and music director of 40 years, singing Petty’s part.
Nicks closed out the show with more thoughts on friendship. She said she recently saw “Wicked: For Good” with Wachtel.
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“I can honestly tell you that Waddy and I cried all the way through it,” she said. “We did, because it’s all about friendship and how friendships last. Waddy and I have known each other since 1971.”
A sentimental Nicks also let her fans know that, despite her age, she’s far from retiring.
“When you leave here I want you to remember that, you know, me and Waddy, we’re quite old,” Nicks said, to laughter. “We love you so much that we don’t care how old we are. We’re out here. And we’ll be out here next year, and the year after that. Because you give us back so much.”
Bubbly Dallas native and country artist Abby Anderson opened for Nicks, singing original and cover songs in a soulful voice and playing both piano and guitar. She sang an unreleased song, “Untamed Woman,” written about her mom who was in the audience, and teared up while talking about her. The artist said she grew up listening to Stevie Nicks and that touring with her is a thrill.
Setlist for Stevie Nicks at TD Garden, Boston, Nov. 24, 2025:
- Not Fade Away (Buddy Holly and the Crickets)
- If Anyone Falls
- Outside the Rain
- Dreams (Fleetwood Mac)
- Stop Dragging My Heart Around
- The Lighthouse
- Wild Heart
- Bella Donna
- Stand Back
- Free Fallin’ (Tom Petty cover)
- Gold Dust Woman (Fleetwood Mac)
- Gypsy (Fleetwood Mac)
- Edge of Seventeen
- Rhiannon (Fleetwood Mac)
- Landslide (Fleetwood Mac)
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