By Alex Rawls / Rolling Stone
Monday, May 6, 2013
Fleetwood Mac headlined Saturday, the biggest day of Jazz Fest. The first sunny day of the weekend helped, as did the last-hour musical choices: Phoenix, New Orleans-born Frank Ocean, Los Lobos and Fleetwood Mac, who were as physical and relentless as the Black Keys in their own way. Lindsey Buckingham played guitar and sang as if every song was a challenge, and he celebrated the ending a hard, rocking version of “Not That Funny” from Tusk with an emphatic “Yeah!” and a couple of foot stomps. At the conclusion of an extended version of “I’m Not Afraid,” complete with a lengthy, aggressive guitar solo, he leaned forward, hands on his knees, to catch his breath.
Their two-and-a-half-hour set was essentially the one the band is playing this tour, including some deep cuts and two from the new Extended Play. Stevie Nicks explained that “Without You,” one of the new cuts, was a lost song from the unreleased second Buckingham-Nicks album rediscovered on YouTube, and that Mick Fleetwood and John McVie listened to them for the guitarist.
“I told them they had to take you,” Buckingham said.
“Thank you for taking me on the ride,” she answered.
In honor of the setting, Nicks performed the chorus to “New Orleans” from her In Your Dreams album, with lines written after Hurricane Katrina. “I wanna sing in the streets of the French Quarter,” she sang. ” I wanna dress up, I wanna wear beads/I wanna wear feathers and lace/I wanna brush by the vampires.”
