Backstage at the St. Paul Civic Center in 1980, only minutes before Fleetwood Mac was scheduled to perform, Stevie Nicks walked into the dressing room and quietly asked Lindsey Buckingham to step aside. Crew members nearby thought it was a quick check-in or perhaps a whispered encouragement.

But Lindsey would later describe that moment as one of the most disorienting in his life. Stevie didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t cry. She stood in front of him with her makeup already perfect for the lights, her voice steady as she said, “This is it. I can’t do this with you anymore. We’ll tour, we’ll record, but you and I, we’re done.”

The words didn’t register right away. In the chaos of pre-show prep, with roadies shouting and guitars tuning in the distance, Lindsey had expected a moment of familiarity. What he got instead was an emotional break that had been building for four years. Since their breakup in 1976, they had continued to share stages, studio sessions, and lyrics loaded with double meanings. But tension boiled beneath every harmony. As Fleetwood Mac pushed through the demanding and often fractured “Tusk” tour, the emotional gaps between them widened with each performance.

A sound technician, who witnessed the scene unfold from a few feet away, later recalled, “It was surreal. One second she’s telling him she’s done, the next he’s grabbing a water bottle and hurling it into a wall. It exploded like a grenade. Then he stormed off without saying a word.”

Ten minutes later, both stood under the stage lights, side by side, harmonizing on “Sara.” Their voices intertwined with a haunting closeness that betrayed no trace of the backstage storm. Stevie’s delivery of the line “Drowning in the sea of love where everyone would love to drown” carried a quiet ache that felt like confession, not performance.

What Lindsey felt in that moment remained private, but his fingers moved across the strings of his guitar with an intensity that only comes from emotional unraveling. The stage had become their battleground and sanctuary, the only place where they could express what words behind closed doors could not capture.

Years later, in an interview with Rolling Stone, Stevie offered a rare moment of clarity about that night: “That was the moment I chose peace over pain. I told him what I had to, not because I wanted to hurt him, but because if I didn’t say it then, I never would have.” She added, “We were never good at being lovers. But we were always magic when we sang.”

Their relationship had always defied simple definitions. It was rooted in the days before fame, when they were sharing a battered car, gigs in bars, and peanut butter sandwiches.

Their journey through the intensity of “Rumours”, the experimental sprawl of “Tusk”, and the chaos of international fame had exposed every weakness and strengthened every musical bond. But that night in Minnesota marked a turning point. Stevie wasn’t walking away from the band. She was releasing herself from the emotional prison she had been living in since 1976.

For Lindsey, the shock didn’t fade quickly. After the show, he sat alone in the bus for nearly an hour, staring out the window at the cold parking lot. He never mentioned that moment publicly. But those closest to him said his energy onstage shifted from that night forward. It became sharper, more aggressive. The softness had left his playing. And in moments where their harmonies rose together, a trace of sadness had crept in.

By morning, the crew moved on to the next city. Tour schedules waited for no heartbreaks. But those few minutes backstage in St. Paul lived on between them, replaying quietly each time they stood in front of an audience and pretended they were still whole.

Some songs never end. They just change key.