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PHILADELPHIA – They aren’t the most obvious of pairings – Mr. Baseball Cap New Yawker and The Ethereal Goddess of Capes.
But Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks’ co-headlining romp through stadiums is effectively billed as “Two Icons, One Night” because despite their stylistic differences, their catalogs share the commonality of depth and endurance.
Their encore songs alone – the mesmerizing “Rhiannon” and sensitive “Landslide” for Nicks and a string of jukebox favorites including a bouncy “Uptown Girl” and pungent “It’s Still Rock And Roll to Me” for Joel – would top most artists’ repertoires.
But for these two, those songs are a mere smattering of their creative brilliance in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and exactly what a football stadium packed with fans wants to hear.
As Joel succinctly noted, “We’ll do the same old (stuff) we did the last time we were here.”
No surprise at the mighty roar of a crowd response Friday at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, the third show of the joint outing that will play cities including Baltimore, Minneapolis and Arlington, Texas, through March.
A tribute to Tina Turner
As with recent performances, Nicks took the stage at sunset for about an hour and 45 minutes and Joel closed the night with two hours of radio fodder and fan favorites (hi, “Captain Jack”).
Though no one expects – or wants – any drastic deviations from their adroitly crafted setlists, a couple of spotlight moments emerged.
Joel, 74, offered Tom Petty-esque vocals to counter Nicks, 75, on “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” (it wasn’t the tidiest of duets as Joel missed his cue to start singing and then his microphone blanked for several seconds). And during Joel’s percussive “River of Dreams,” he and his exemplary band swung into Tina Turner’s “River Deep, Mountain High,” with the multifaceted Crystal Taliefero belting and brass masters Mark Rivera and Carl Fischer coating the tribute with spiky horns.
Stevie Nicks conjures spirits, expels emotions
Nicks, looking resplendent in layers of black, her crimped blond hair flowing halfway down her back, offered her comforting warble on both solo and Fleetwood Mac treasures.
The overlooked “If Anyone Falls” paired with “Gypsy,” allowing Nicks’ two backup singers, Sharon Celani and Lori Nicks (her sister-in-law), to add plushness to the choruses.
Nicks’ songs are as layered as her chiffon skirts, their melody and meaning requiring hours of dissection. The poetry in the title tracks of her early solo releases, “Bella Donna” (1981) and “The Wild Heart” (1983), coupled with the galloping beat powering “Stand Back” and urgent guitar riffing in “Edge of Seventeen” reminded of Nicks’ unique song styling.
Her hand-fluttering bows and dramatic dips, too, are all distinctively Stevie.
Nicks is also always expelling emotion, whether playing air drums and conjuring the spirits during the ominously thumping “Gold Dust Woman” or quietly singing the pensive rumination on aging, “Landslide.” During that final song, photos of Nicks and her beloved bandmate, the late Christine McVie, scrolled one of the three screens looming above the stage, making an already wistful moment heartbreaking.
Nicks felt it, too, as she stammered at song’s end, “Can’t speak,” and blew the crowd a kiss before smiling and stating a simple, “Thank you.”
Billy Joel is still full of joy
Joel and his comrades took the stage in a burst of pink lighting and an “Ode to Joy” intro that seamlessly segued into “My Life” and a billion memories.
A blitz of hits was peppered with deep-cut fan favorites, including the twinkly “Vienna” with its scalloped piano notes, the whizzing synths and mild naughtiness of “Sometimes a Fantasy,” and the caustic evergreen content that fills “The Entertainer.”
Joel performed on a rotating platform, his voice robust but also supple, as he proved when impressively hitting the high note in “An Innocent Man.”
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Though he recently announced the impending end of his monthly Madison Square Garden residency – July 2024 after a decade run – Joel is (hopefully) nowhere near retirement.
He still emanates joy while playing songs that never get stale for audiences but could, understandably, for him, such as “Scenes From An Italian Restaurant,” its patchwork quilt of musical styles illustrating a mini movie of a song, and his inescapable signature, “Piano Man.”
But the grins shared between him and his musicians – at this point as much a family as the E Street Band is to Bruce Springsteen – are contagious, and the emotions he rouses from the simple snarl of “Big Shot” or the languid chug of “Allentown” aren’t things we want to say goodbye to just yet.
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