Stevie Nicks has been singing in front of audiences for years, but one performance seems to have been more nerve-racking than others: Saturday Night Live. While she made her second and most recent appearance on the popular sketch comedy show only recently, the musician reflected on the first time she sang on SNL and how it didn’t go exactly as planned. The hero of the story? Her sister-in-law.
Stevie Nicks first performed on SNL over 40 years ago
Stevie Nicks first performed on SNL (1975-present) back in 1983. At the time, she was navigating life as a solo performer after having spent years with Fleetwood Mac, which made her appearance on the show even more stressful.
She reflected on her feelings at the time in an interview with PEOPLE, sharing, “That was about [two and a half] years into my solo career, so it was nerve-wracking because it was not Fleetwood Mac; it was my solo career, so it was very scary to go on the show when you’ve been in a huge band and now you’re going on Saturday Night Live as a solo artist.”
Despite her fears, Nicks took to the stage to sing two songs from her second solo album.
Thank goodness for Stevie Nicks’ sister-in-law
Unfortunately, the performance didn’t go exactly as planned.
“You know, we practiced and practiced, and everything went well,” Stevie Nicks said. “At the time, I had my friend who wrote ‘Stand Back,’ and she was gonna do the second song, which was called ‘Nightbird’ – and she freaked out and had terrible stage fright, so she couldn’t do it.”
Nicks had to find a replacement with only minutes until the performance. Thankfully, her sister-in-law came to the rescue.
“One of my singers, who ended up being my sister-in-law Lori, she said, ‘I’ll do it,’ and she’s crazy, but she said, ‘I’ll do it,'” Nicks continued. “This is literally right before we went on, and so we went on and we did it, and it came out perfect!”
After all was said and done, she wouldn’t have changed the way it went down.
“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 said. “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.”
Stevie Nicks still gets nervous performing on SNL
Stevie Nicks returned to the SNL stage for the first time in 41 years on October 12, 2024. As it turns out, even after years of being in the spotlight, it remains one of the most nerve-racking shows to perform on.
As she shared, “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. 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!”
For the performance, Nicks chose to sing her new song, “The Lighthouse,” along with her hit, “Edge of Seventeen,” and she’s thankful for the exposure the show gives.
“You can never say that Saturday Night Live does not help you to gain lots of new followers, younger people, older people, etc,” she said. “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.”
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Unlike her first appearance, this performance went off without a hitch!