Marking the 35th anniversary of its blockbuster album Rumours, Fleetwood Mac makes a tour stop at the Tacoma Dome.
By Gene Stout / Seattle Times
Friday, May 17, 2013
Concert preview
Fleetwood Mac
- 8 p.m. Monday
- Tacoma Dome, 2727 E. D St., Tacoma
- $53-$87 (800-745-3000 or www.ticketmaster.com)
Fleetwood Mac may still be singing old hits like “Second Hand News” and “Never Going Back Again,” but the band’s timeless songs continue to resonate with generations of fans.
If you were born the year the Grammy-winning band released its landmark album, Rumours, you’re about 35 or 36 years old now and maybe wondering where all the time went.
You can mark that milestone — and celebrate Fleetwood Mac’s commercial heyday — by buying the reissued 1977 album (with previously unreleased studio and live tracks) and acknowledging that you’re “getting older too,” as Stevie Nicks sings in the classic song “Landslide.”
“Don’t Stop (Thinking About Tomorrow),” one of the most enduring songs from Rumours, was already a classic when U.S. presidential candidate Bill Clinton used it as the theme song for his first campaign in 1992. He later persuaded the group to reunite for a performance at his inaugural ball in 1993 (Nicks had left in 1991 after a dispute with Mick Fleetwood).
So here it is 20 years later, and the Fleetwood Mac juggernaut is back on the road with “Don’t Stop” as the de facto theme song.
“Don’t Stop” was written by singer and keyboardist Christine McVie, who retired from the band in 1998. The current 34-city tour (which follows a three-year hiatus from the road) features original members (from 1967) Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, as well as Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, who joined the band in 1975 and ushered in a more pop-oriented sound for the former British blues-rock group. The entourage includes a number of side players and backup vocalists.
The tour featuring such songs as “Dreams,” “Rhiannon,” “Tusk,” “Landslide,” “Gold Dust Woman,” “Don’t Stop” and “Go Your Own Way” includes a concert Monday night at the Tacoma Dome. (Announced last year, the trek marks the 35th anniversary of Rumours.)
Before the start of the tour, band members kept busy with other pursuits (except for John McVie, who spent the time mostly relaxing at home with his family in Hawaii).
Fleetwood opened a new restaurant, Fleetwood’s On Front Street in Lahaina, Maui, and continued to operate Mick Fleetwood’s Private Cellar, which has made wines from grapes sourced in California and Washington since 2002.
Meanwhile, Buckingham toured in support of his sixth solo album, Seeds We Sow, and Nicks launched a two-year tour coinciding with the release of her solo In Your Dreams CD, a collaboration with songwriter-producers Dave Stewart and Glen Ballard.
Still alluring at 64, Nicks last performed in Seattle in April 2011 as part of the “Heart & Soul Tour” with Rod Stewart.
Gene Stout: ge**@ge*******.com
