06/07/2026
"Janis Joplin Yelled Stevie Nicks Off The Stage In San Francisco. She Said It Was The Greatest Honors.."
Stevie Nicks was yelled off a stage by Janis Joplin & has been telling this story for 55 years. She says "Being yelled off the stage by Janis Joplin was one of the greatest honors of my life. Not one of the most embarrassing moments, not one of the most frustrating, one of the greatest honors." This is the story of why.
1968, San Francisco when Stevie Nicks was 19 years old, she had dropped out of San Jose State University to pursue music full-time. She was singing with a band called Fritz, a California rock band. Included was a young guitarist named Lindsey Buckingham, who would become her musical partner for the next 50 years. Fritz was a good band, not yet a great one.
They had a small following in the Bay Area & were building something the way bands build things slowly, show by show, learning their craft in real time. They got the opportunity to open for Janis Joplin not once, multiple times between 1968 & 1970. Fritz opened for Janis Joplin & Jimi Hendrix at concerts in San Francisco & at the big shows that the city was producing in those years, when the scene was at its peak. The stages were full of people who were changing what American music was.
For Stevie Nicks, these shows were school. The first time she saw Janis Joplin, she did not recognize her. This is what Stevie Nicks told Q magazine in 2008.. "The first time I saw her, I didn't know who she was because she wasn't all dressed up. She was backstage in ordinary clothes, small & wild-haired & not performing. She was telling the band that whoever was on before her, had gone over their time & to get off her stage.
