Rock legend gave fans plenty to cheer as she fought through a recent injury at her concert Tuesday night.

Stevie Nicks told a cross-generational audience of 13,000 fans at Little Caesars Arena on Tuesday night that she still likes to take time, every now and again, to remind herself of who she is.

“77, still Stevie!” Nicks said she tells herself, which caused a roar from the crowd of 20-somethings, 70-somethings, and everyone in between.

And the two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Famer — she was inducted as a member of Fleetwood Mac and later as a solo artist — proved it over the course of her 1 hour, 45 minute show, which included solo hits, Fleetwood Mac songs and a reverent cover of her old friend Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin,'” all filtered through Nicks’ ethereal stage presence and her sense of black magic mysticism, which has long made her one of music’s most distinctive and inimitable personalities. (She was also recently captured in Barbie form, and she plugged her new dolls from the stage, saying, “they’re pretty fantastic, I have to say.”)

Nicks was warm and talkative with the audience, thanking them for bearing with her after she suffered a shoulder injury in August, which caused the show to be bumped back from its originally planned September date. “Always avoid breaking your shoulder under any circumstances,” she said. “Never do it. Always watch where you’re going, always wear shoes in an unfamiliar room, never fall. Ever.

“That being said, I have fought through it, and I’m really glad I have somewhere to go besides just my living room,” she said. “So I just kinda turn you into my bigger, better living room.”

In addition to the postponement, the performance was a make-up, of sorts, from her scrapped date at Ford Field with Billy Joel. That date was originally supposed to happen in March but was later moved to November until it was ultimately canceled after Joel’s diagnosis with Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus caused him to put all touring plans on hold indefinitely.

Between Joel’s health and Nicks’ fall and the tributes to Petty and Nicks’ late former bandmate Christine McVie, whose image appeared on the stage’s video screens during closer “Landslide,” there were plenty of reminders of rock star mortality on Tuesday.

But Nicks barreled through them with confidence, grace and the power of rock and roll behind her, and she ultimately gave the audience a message of perseverance through difficult times.

“Dance. Dance. Just keep dancing, and we’ll be OK,” she said at the close of her 14-song set. “Keep dancing. It’ll save our world, because nobody cares when you’re on the dance floor. So just keep that up.”

Nicks dressed in all black and showed off several of her vintage capes, including the navy blue one she wore on the back cover of 1981’s “Bella Donna” album, as she twirled in circles on stage. Her microphone stand was draped in beads and she made one strategic allusion to witches, which she would have done even if it wasn’t Halloween week.

She was backed by an eight-piece band that gave muscle to standards such as “Stand Back,” which she joked she’s never performed a concert without playing, and “Gold Dust Woman.” She opened with a cover of the Crickets’ “Not Fade Away,” itself a message of defiance, of refusing to back down when the going gets rough. It was the overriding message of the evening.

The show was elegant in its simplicity; there were no tricks or gimmicks or production gags, just a legendary singer, a rich body of work (including mighty Mac selections “Dreams,” “Gypsy” and “Rhiannon”) and an adoring audience. “Edge of Seventeen” was given an extended intro by guitarist Waddy Wachtel, a pulsating set closer before a two-song encore.

A fan in the first row managed to toss a flower crown into Nicks’ arms near the close of the show, and she wore it atop her head for the remainder of the evening, and promised to pass it on to her grandniece, Willow, who was born just last week.

But she’s not collected her last flower crown in Detroit; Nicks said her and her band will be back to perform again, and there’s no reason to doubt her. The gold dust woman rocks on.

agraham@detroitnews.com