Stevie Nicks brings emotionally charged tour to Memphis' FedExForum: Here's what to expect

Singer, songwriter and Fleetwood Mac great Stevie Nicks is headed back to Memphis for a solo show this week.

Nicks extended her “Live In Concert” tour, which will make its way to FedExForum on Saturday. Following the 2022 passing her Fleetwood Mac mate and close friend Christine McVie, Nicks has suggested that the band may not tour again, so this may be the only chance to hear many of the Fleetwood Mac classics as well as Nicks’ solo gems as she takes the stage of the Downtown venue.

Here are five things to know ahead of Nicks' stop in the Bluff City.

The Bella Donna

Born Stephanie Lynn Nicks, the 75-year-old, has been inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, first as a member of Fleetwood Mac and then as a solo artist.

Nicks brought an element of enchanting glamor as well as a distinctive and mysterious artistic sensibility to Fleetwood Mac when she joined the long-running band in 1975. Contributing such songs as the oft-covered "Landslide" and the signature "Rhiannon" to the albums "Fleetwood Mac" and "Rumours," she helped lift the band from blues-rock cult status to multiplatinum superstardom.

She launched her solo career in 1981 with the release of “Bella Donna,” which made it to the top of the Billboard charts and spawned four hit singles. Since then, she’s moved between band and solo projects, with her most recent LP coming nearly a decade ago — though she did put out a cover of Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” last year.

Stevie Nicks in Memphis

Nicks' last concert appearance in Memphis came six years ago, also at FedExForum, where she headlined a bill that included fellow female rock iconoclast Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders. The show featured  Nicks and her big band — which includes longtime guitarist/musical director Waddy Wachtel on guitar — on an 18-song performance that was part storyteller’s session, part deep dive into her catalog.

During the 2017 concert, Nicks’ tremendous personal charm — part girl next door, part witchy woman, part mother figure — was hard to resist, and the crowd of devotees was held rapt by her, expressing their devotion vocally and visually, with many dressing in homage to her. Nicks covered plenty of ground in the show, delivering strong versions of her solo hits (“Stand Back,” “Edge of Seventeen”) and closing with a flourish of Fleetwood Mac favorites (“Rhiannon,” “Gold Dust Woman,” “Landslide”) that were impossible to resist.

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Stevie Nicks' 2023 tour

Nicks has been on the road since March, doing her own shows as well as concerts in which she is a co-headliner alongside Billy Joel. (The Nicks-Joel tour played Nashville in May).

The Memphis concert was a late addition to the tour, which will wrap for the year in mid-December, and then resume in February with a further run of shows in the South. (This includes a March 6 concert in Little Rock.)

Nicks’ upcoming FedExForum show will also feature an opening set from New Jersey-bred, Nashville-based singer-songwriter Nicole Atkins. Atkins is no stranger to Memphis, having worked extensively at the local Memphis Magnetic studio, where she cut her most recent critically acclaimed album, “Memphis Ice.” Atkins has also been backed by a band that includes a Memphis rhythm section of drummer Danny Banks and bassist Matthew Wilson, and guitarist John Paul Keith.

Unfinished emotional business

Reviews of the current tour have highlighted what have been emotionally powerful and heartfelt performances by Nicks. The shows include tributes to fallen friends like Christine McVie and Tom Petty.

As Consequence of Sound noted in its review of her Seattle show earlier this year, “There was a sense that Nicks was returning to the stage to deal with some unfinished emotional business” in honoring both Petty and McVie.

The review noted that the “nods to her fallen comrades went from far beyond a simple tribute. The compounded losses appeared to have given Nicks a stronger urge to make even a fleeting emotional connection with the people around her, be that her backing band or the thousands of ticketholders before her."

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Tickets to Stevie Nicks' FedExForum show

Currently, a wide range of tickets to the Stevie Nicks concert at FedExForum are still available. This includes upper-level seats, which cost $74 and prime front row seats which will run you more than $1,000.

In between, there are plenty of options. Good floor seats (roughly 10 rows back from the stage) can be had for $279, while lower bowl seats at the side and back go for between $176 and $227.

Tickets are available for purchase at Ticketmaster.com.

Stevie Nicks in Memphis, with Nicole Atkins

7 p.m. Saturday, FedExForum, 191 Beale St.

Tickets: $74 and up. Go to Ticketmaster.com.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Stevie Nicks in Memphis: What to know about FedExForum show