Zoë Howe - Stevie Nicks: Visions, Dreams and Rumours

Click below for an interactive Digital Timeline of Stevie Nicks' life; experience her creative genius through audio and video captured throughout her illustrious career...

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Click below to hear the music of Stevie Nicks; her favourite creations as chosen by her. Additionally, Click the Spotify logo at the beginning of each chapter to hear a curated playlist for that section. Surround yourself with the music of Stevie Nicks and all that surrounded her whilst you read about Visions, Dreams and Rumours.

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3 May, 1997. Warner Brothers Studios, Burbank, California. A soundstage has been transformed into a mammoth concert venue; MTVs camera crew is ready to film the spectacle that is just moments away; backstage, one of the most important and intriguing bands in rocknroll history is preparing to play live together in front of thousands for the first time in 15 years. The MTV special will be titled The Dance. The band is Fleetwood Mac.

A petite woman with waist-length blonde hair, three days shy of her 49th birthday, glances nervously at the people around her; friends, ex-lovers, a quasi family albeit a seriously dysfunctional one. So many complications, so much love and so much acrimony have gone down between these five people, and yet here they are, ready to go on stage as a unit once more after all this time. Drummer and founding member Mick Fleetwood, who at six foot five inches towers above her, bends down to kiss Stevie Nicks, the golden-haired, perennially mystical Queen Bee of the group, on the head. She tentatively clasps hands with the guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, their jagged chemistry undiminished and crackling between them, and not for the last time this evening. The lights dim, a hush falls over the restless crowd. Its time. Fleetwood pounds out quarter notes on his bass drum, percussion shimmering like shards of glass. Stevie raises her shawl and the riff to The Chain, a song that has never been more laden with significance to this band, begins, malevolent, mysterious. They are back.

Just two years previously, the idea of this seemed impossible to Stevie Nicks. Up until now, she had remained close to fellow singer-songwriter and keyboardist Christine McVie, but the third key writer in the group was not always friendly towards Nicks. In fact, as Stevie at least used to see it, Lindsey Buckingham just plain doesnt like me. Stevie and Lindsey, as you almost definitely dont need telling, were teenage sweethearts, collaborators, star-crossed lovers, creative rivals, sworn enemies. The fly in each others ointment.

Even now the pair are locked in an ongoing dialogue through their songs, searching for closure. You may be my love, but youll never be my love crooned Stevie during an interview in 2013, quoting from her new song You May Be The One, adding wryly, Guess who that ones about? Yes, theres a thin line between love and hate. Theres also an awareness inherent in the group that the fractured romance between Nicks and Buckingham is one of the most compelling elements of their live show, let alone their songwriting.

All the same, behind the sometimes stagey onstage glowers and finger-pointing is a genuine, unbreakable attachment between two people who still seem to yearn for something more, even if its only during the time they are onstage. What we saw when Fleetwood Mac reconvened on stage for The Dance, and in particular when Stevie and Lindsey locked eyes, was quite real; even in rehearsals for the show, nothing like this had happened. There was something about singing those songs in front of an audience again that touched something deep within them both. The audience went wild, witnessing something so personal, a tender moment of not-quite closure for one of the most famous rocknroll love stories of all time. Fleetwood Mac obviously cottoned onto this. Boy, do they milk it now. But thats not to say there isnt still something true at the core. Theyve just blended reality with theatricality, and, for the fans, it works.

After the final threads of the toxic Fleetwood Mac tapestry separated completely in 1995, no one within the circle imagined theyd be beating a path to each others door any time soon, although plenty were hoping for a miracle. On being asked (repeatedly) as to the possibility of a reunion, Stevie opined that Buckingham might do it if offered an exorbitant amount of money, but if she wasnt getting a good vibe from him, something that was rarely there anyway, it just wasnt worth it. Money obviously wasnt an issue; no matter how much of it had been inhaled, smoked or imbibed during the boom years, there was still more than enough to ensure she didnt have to go back to the tension and upset of working with the Mac, or Lindsey, again.

Safer as this option was, it was sad and unsatisfying; loose ends remained untied, and there was still a sense of longing for what might have been, if only creatively and not just for the people involved, by the way. Lindsey himself has admitted he is a different man now, and thousands of Fleetwood Mac fans remain obsessed with the idea of Lindsey and Stevie not just getting along, but getting back together. There are websites, blogs and YouTube channels dedicated solely to collating and poring over footage and imagery of the pair during happier times, cooing over each other, sharing meaningful glances, embracing onstage, the scars left by decades of hurt having been picked at repeatedly during a show consisting largely of songs that lament or berate each other. Yes, theres an element of theatre there, this is what the audience wants to see, but when Stevie and Lindsey are onstage together, a love affair springs back to life, only this time there is a little more maturity and perspective. Maybe Mr and Mrs Intense, as Stevie has jokingly dubbed themselves, have reached a happy medium after all.

The Fleetwood Mac story a saga of incongruity even before Stevie and Lindsey joined was never over, even when each member of the band had supposedly closed the door on it. Stevie had always dreamed that, under different circumstances, they would reunite, and sure enough, those golden, binding threads that had become so frayed and ripped, slowly started to knot together.

Just weeks after the split of the final Fleetwood Mac line-up in 1995 (bearing in mind that Stevie and Christine had left five years earlier, and Buckingham had quit in 1987) word was rife that Mick Fleetwood had started working with Buckingham on his solo album. Then Christine and John McVie came on board. The following year, Stevie even recorded a duet with Lindsey for a movie (Twisted) and in May 1996, around the time of Stevies birthday, the band reunited at a private Kentucky Derby gala at the home of Louisville actress/super-hostess Patricia Barnstable Brown. There they celebrated 20 years of Rumours, their seminal album post-Peter Green, and second album post-inclusion of Buckingham Nicks. The TV host Dick Clark was among the star-studded audience. (Presumably hed forgiven Lindsey for puking in his office at the American Music Awards 30 years previously.) The idea of a tour was floated and, assuming Lindsey would be the hardest to convince, Christine McVie organised a dinner at her house, which turned out to be the most blatant form of what you might call an intervention, as Lindsey remembers. People got in a circle around me and said, You gotta do this thing.