Yes, I’m back. You can’t get rid of me, I’m like the relative that came to stay for a week and ended up moving in to the garage. I’m back to fill your heads with useless information about our daily life out here. I fear that with some 36-ish shows I’ll run out of things to talk about. So please, you’ll all have to bear with me if some days are shorter and/or more boring than others. I’ll do my best to keep you somewhat entertained. At the first show in Madison I was told by someone from the fan club that there are actually people out there reading these….and enjoying them? Wow. I’m in shock. So now I kind of feel like I’m talking to someone instead of just blabbing to a blank computer screen in a hotel room. Ok, here we go…I have to remember how I used to do this…

For starters, I have a big, fat, blue sausage finger right now. I smashed it between a door jam and a road case last night during load out, it doesn’t feel good. I can’t say whether it’s broken or not, all I can tell you is that I never knew typing could be so painful. Alright, now that I’ve gotten my daily quota of self-pity taken care of, we can move on!

I’ll get you up to speed on our schedule…we spent two weeks at home after Australia, then we headed to LA on the 24th of March for three weeks of rehearsals. We ended up cutting rehearsals a week short since the first two weeks were pretty productive, but more so because Lindsey and his wife were due to have a baby any minute. (She has since arrived, beautiful, healthy, and happy. Her name is Stella.) Rehearsals we’re great. The process of seeing new songs put together for a live performance is amazing. Even more amazing is seeing songs that are 25 even 30 years old being pulled out from the archives and given a new life.

We started out with rehearsing I Know I’m Not Wrong, from Tusk. It’s one of my favorite FM songs, so I was was thrilled about that. It sounds awesome live, if you’re coming out to any shows on this leg you can definitely look forward to it, it’s soooo good. Then out from the depths of the Buckingham Nicks era (and a brief, albeit glorious appearance on the FM Live album) came Don’t Let Me Down Again. That calls for pee your pants excitement in my opinion! It sounds great, and they played it at the first show in Madison. If you were at the Madison show, consider yourself lucky, because I think it will be leaving the set. Sadly, it seems it can’t find a place to fit in. It will be sorely missed, but at least I got to see it come to life, it was like a little piece of history…farewell Don’t Let Me Down Again, it was nice knowing you…sigh. But we’ve got Sara (big huge yay!), Destiny Rules (double yay!) and Red Rover (pass out from excitement yay!). Personally, my favorite live FM song is Monday Morning, I begged and pleaded for it this time around, to a point where I think they were actually becoming angry with me. (Okay, so I may have been a little pushy). They finally played it once at rehearsals to test it’s waters, I was like a teenage girl at an NSync show. It was incredible. But it got vetoed. I have wiped away my tears and with the help of good therapy and medication I am almost over it.

After rehearsals we all went home for three weeks (seemed like three days) and then flew out to New York on May 3rd for this MTV Networks thing. I won’t explain, it was really boring. We were there for two days to play three songs. I was bored senseless.

We then flew from NY to Madison for the first show of the tour. The best thing about arriving in Madison was the return of our tour buses. We have been in Europe and Australia since November, it had been months and months since we’ve seen a bus. When we were overseas we only flew, we had no place no call home…but our homes on wheels have returned, same buses, same drivers, it’s like we never left. Actually, I think three of the four buses are the exact same buses as last time, but the bus I’m on was changed out for a new one (I guess the one we had originally broke down) and now we have automatic doors on the bus. Instead of just manually pulling them open or closed, you push a button and they slide open, it’s like Star Trek, it’s hysterical. Most buses have these doors, but I can’t get used to them, I feel the constant pull to make really bad teleporting/Star Fleet/Captain Kirk jokes. As you can probably tell, it isn’t hard to entertain me. Anywho…moving on…

Day one in Madison was a load-in/rehearsal day. It had been weeks since the band had played the new songs, so they did a quick run-through and some final tweaking. That evening, after the band had all gone back to the hotel, Stevie stuck around for a fitting (new clothes!). There were only a few of us left in the building, most of the crew had gone back to the hotel for the night. (To enjoy this anecdote you’ll need to know that we all carry radios at the gigs to communicate.) So I’m standing outside on the loading dock when someone starts singing over the radio. It seems Stevie was bored, so she took Karen’s radio and decided to indulge our Production Assistant by giving an impromptu performance of Illume, our PA’s favorite Stevie song. After her radio debut, I asked if she was taking requests, and she was…so I got a radio performance of Storms, from Tusk. I can’t say how many of the little things I’ll really remember when this tour is over, but that will certainly be one of them, it was very sweet.

Cut to 24 hours later…the show went well, although there was a chunk of technical problems in the middle of the set. Guitar problems to be more specific. Long story short, Stevie and Lindsey had to fill a good 5 minutes of silence, the whole crew was mortified, we were all standing around staring at each other with our jaws on the floor. We couldn’t believe our eyes, it was the longest 5 minutes of our lives. Seconds feel like hours in those situations. The band handled it like champs though, they’re so funny, Lindsey finally just got down and started doing sit-ups and push-ups to kill time, Stevie laughed and said “I didn’t know you could do that!!” It worked out fine, I think it’s nice every once in a while when something goes just a little bit wrong, it’’s entertaining. And this time it was actually really funny.

The Champaign show was free of large technical mishaps, but instead, it was hotter than all get out. The arena in Champaign had no air conditioning. Even in cold weather, arenas really heat up when there’s thousands of people in them, so in hot weather (about 85 degrees), no air conditioning is a death sentence. Poor Mick and Lindsey were about to die from heat exhaustion. We even had portable AC units and tons of fans on the stage, but it just wasn’t helping, it was a sauna up there. Luckily the dressing rooms had good air conditioning. It was so funny, after the show we were all finding reasons to go in to the dressing rooms and stay there as long as possible just so that we could cool down a little. I suppose we might as well get used to it, it’s going to be a very hot and a very outdoor tour. Bring it on…I’m ready for summer.

We’re in Green Bay now, we have two days off before the show here, so I’m going to take my broken finger (self-pity mention #2) and get out of my hotel room.

Until next time…

CB

Sorry for the wait! It was a busy week.

Since I’m packing four shows and four days off in to one little report I’ll try and just give you a good recap, otherwise it will be 25 pages long…

Our two days off in West Palm Beach were great. There was a pool, it was sunny most of the time, although it rained both nights, the days brought good weather for the most part. It was disgustingly humid, but at this point I’ll settle for humid as long as it’s not raining. For a while it seemed like we were destined to have a rain cloud follow us this whole tour…

The really nice part about our stay in Florida is that we were staying literally right next door to the band and staff. It isn’t often that the crew is even in the same state, so it was tons of fun to have everyone in the same place for a few days. It was like a high school mixer. Good times.

The West Palm show went well. However, I got a call early in the day to inform me that Stevie’s vocal chords were swollen and that we may be dropping Silver Springs from the set that night. The range that Silver Springs requires can be hard on her vocal chords and she didn’t want to push it too much, especially since Silver Springs is right before Standback, both of which are songs that she really steps it up for. Originally, she was going to tell us after Rhiannon whether or not she was up for Silver Springs, but then after sound check, she and her vocal coach decided to play it safe. I realize that it must have been a total bummer for you guys in West Palm, but just know that if she doesn’t take precautionary measures like that and ends up blowing her voice out, then we’re canceling shows…and nobody wants that. Our production assistant and I suggested that she and I get up there and perform Silver Springs instead, but oddly enough, no one liked that idea. And have no fear, Mama Nicks can still sing her booty off, and she still puts on a show worth watching, she’s just being careful not to stress her pipes too much. Silver Springs will be back as soon as Stevie is 100% again, there is no need to panic.

Lindsey left the stage for Mick’s vest solo, he usually just sits on the side of the stage, but it was really hot, and he decided to go soak up some air conditioning and rehydrate a little. The change in routine threw him off and he ended up hurrying to get his guitar back on, and whacked himself in the head with it. He took a nice chunk out of his eyebrow and from what it looked like, he may have been seeing stars. He seemed a little out of it for the encore songs. He is alive and well, so again, no need to panic. The doctor used a little medical grade super glue to seal it up and he’s as good as new.

We had a nice long drive that night to Charlotte. Long drives are much better than short ones when you live on a bus. You know how babies always fall asleep in cars? It’s the same thing on the bus, as soon as the engine fires up and you climb in your bunk, you’re out like a light. As soon as the bus stops, you wake up, it’s really odd. If the drive to the next city is only two or three hours, you wake up at 4AM and can’t fall back asleep so you end up dragging your bags up to your hotel room in your pj’s at an ungodly hour of the morning. So, the ten or so hour drive to Charlotte left plenty of time to have an pre-bed cocktail and still get a good 8 hours sleep. Then you wake up and you’re at the hotel, ready for your day off. There’s today’s lesson in bus life for you. Class dismissed.

We had half a day off in Charlotte, there was a big mall that everyone went to (at this point I feel like I have been to every friggin’ mall in the country.) I ate way too much Chinese food and tried to get to bed at a reasonable hour since my alarm clock would be waking me at 5AM. The next morning it was apparent that we were in for a hot day, since at 6AM it was already about 85 degrees outside.

Stevie has a big comfy chair that she sits in to have her make-up done. If you guys watched the Destiny Rules documentary, it’s the same one she’s sitting in all through rehearsals. Anyway, it’s totally beat up, it doesn’t have a road case, so it basically just gets thrown on the back of the truck every night, and after 100 something shows, the chair has seen it’s better day. We’ve replaced the fabric about ten times and the paint is all worn away and chipped, so I decided that I would repaint it. I’m pretty sure I got more paint in my hair and on my clothes than I did on the chair. People kept asking me if I painted the chair or if the chair painted me. Only slightly embarrassing.

One of the local crew guys in Charlotte told me he was the “biggest Lindsey fan ever” and could I please get him some guitar picks…does this sound silly to anyone else?? He was visibly embarrassed and shocked when I revealed that Lindsey doesn’t use picks. That happens more often than you would believe.

The show went well, although it was really hot. There was no airflow on the stage and the heat was oppressive. A few of us later complained that we were on the verge of passing out halfway through the show. (I won’t even discuss what the humidity did to my hair, but let me just say that if it was 1983….I would have been soooo cool.)

We headed to Raleigh that night, it was a pretty short drive, and I had to get off the bus at 4AM because my bus was heading right back to Charlotte. Why? Because my bus was serving as the charter service to take about 10 of our guys back to Charlotte so that they could spend their day off at the car races. Apparently, they got to sit in some famous race car driver’s box seat and watch the race. (Sorry about the lack of detail, but you know me and the sports.) So I crawled off the bus at the crack of dawn and cursed my way to my hotel room.

And you know how I said Charlotte was hot? I take it back. Raleigh was HOT. But, the stage in Raleigh was air conditioned, which helped ease the pain a little. Raleigh was one of those gigs where about 10 minutes in to load in everyone had their shirts off. I like to call it half-naked load in.

As I’m sure you all know, there is a tour that comes through the backstage area everyday and a lot of the time people bring gifts for the band. Someone brought some really cool gifts in Raleigh. Lindsey received a framed Pet Sounds Beach Boys poster, which I knew he would love. When he first saw it in the dressing room, he said “is that a gift for the whole band?”, I told him that it was just for him…”oooh! That can go in the studio!” It doesn’t matter who you are…everybody loves good presents. John received a very nice Hawaiian shirt, that to our surprise he liked so much he asked if we could have it pressed so that he could wear it that night. I’m sure he made someone’s day.

As usual the show was great, blah blah blah blah. There was a loud buzzing noise before dreams I think, so Stevie had to ad-lib a little while they tried to fix it…”talk amongst yourselves”, she then proceeded to try and help point out where the buzzing was coming from. The highlight of the Raleigh show for me, I owe to our lighting director. I’ll try and explain it quickly. What you guys see is a bunch of lights, but there are about six guys up in the truss, above the band, and four guys out at front of house, up in the rafters, running the lights. Then our lighting director (also one of the funniest men on the planet) sits out at the lighting board and for two and a half hours calls the lighting cues (all the while pushing a million buttons to run the more automated part of the show). All of them are on headset to each other and only four out of the twelve or so guys running the lights are from our crew, the other ten or so are local at each gig. So, I always hear these outrageously funny stories about what goes on over their headsets. In Raleigh, one of the lighting guys ran me a headset to where I sit during the show so that I could listen in. He even showed me how to talk if I wanted to say something. And it was hysterical. Most of the local guys didn’t even know which one was Lindsey and which one was Stevie (even though that topic was covered very well at the lighting meeting earlier that day). So there was a lot of “spot 6, 7 and 8 stand by to fade in on Stevie Nicks…the female singer. And 2, 3 and 4 stand by to fade in on Lindsey Buckingham…the guitar player.” It was two and half hours of pure funny. So that was my Raleigh highlight, I was an honorary lighting guy for a day.

Wow, this is already getting really long. I’ll try and wrap it up.

We had a back to back, so we left Raleigh and headed straight to Jacksonville, where, you guessed it…it was really hot! But this time we were back in an arena. Air conditioned buildings are my best friend. Stevie has been going crazy with her camera. She has this little digital camera that she takes everywhere. The best part..and I say this with love…is that she doesn’t really know how to use it. Every time she takes a picture, she has to take it three times while saying “this damn camera”. It’s a riot. She takes pictures of EVERYTHING and always says “we WILL remember this tour”.

We also had a golf cart, but it was a gas powered one and it smelled really bad. Didn’t stop me from taking a few joy rides, however. The hallways in this arena were kind of narrow, and the golf cart was a double seater, so it was hard to turn around in the halls. I was parked outside Stevie’s dressing room waiting to take her to the stage for sound check, when Mick came out, so I drove Mick down to the stage and headed back to her room. I told her security guard not to bring her out yet because I still had to turn the cart around. Well, midway into my very Austin Powers like turn around process, out comes Stevie. So now I’m trying to hurry and get the cart turned around. Her security guard is trying to help by telling me how much room I have behind me, but he’s a terrible driver, so I end up backing in to wall with a big “bonk” noise to accompany it. And Stevie is watching the whole thing. I fall over with laughter, as does Stevie, and everyone else who happened to be standing by. And of course… the whole time, Miss Photographer was snapping photos of my golf cart crash…or at least she was trying.

Gotta run…the mall across the street is calling my name.

CB

After 22 hours of traveling, I’ve finally made it home, I was expecting to come home to a cold, rainy San Francisco, but thankfully, it’s lovely here. It’s warm and sunny, so I’ve set up camp on my patio with a cup of tea, and I’m going back and forth between my computer and the newspaper. It feels good to be home, that’s for sure.

Sydney was amazing. It’s the most beautiful city. Even the best pictures I’ve seen don’t do it justice. On the whole, Australia is just an awesome place. I realize that no matter where you live in the world, it’s a pretty big trip to take, but I highly recommend it. I can’t say enough about it, but this has been a phenomenal trip.

Our five days in Sydney were fantastic, with the exception of pouring rain the last two days, we had a great time there. A bunch of our crew climbed the Harbour Bridge, others went to the zoo, the aquarium, the horse races, deep sea fishing, botanical gardens, the list goes on. There was a lot to do there, and I pretty much just shopped. What can I say, they have excellent shopping in Sydney. Grade A Prime Shopping. They also have bats. Bats bigger than the ones in Brisbane. But I’ve already given my two cents about the bats, so I’ll save you the trouble of listening to me rant about it.

Personally the second show in Sydney was the most memorable for me, but only because I got in a bit of trouble. The trouble only lasted about the length of one song before it was cleared up…but it was the longest song of my life. To make a long story very short, there was a misunderstanding as to what song was supposed to come after Peacekeeper, and in front of 10,000 people Ms. Stevie Nicks pointed to me and blamed me for a this little screw up, she also called me by my full name, which as we all know from having mothers, that this ALWAYS means you’re in trouble. After Say You Will, when Stevie went stage right to get her Rhiannon top, Karen cleared up the misunderstanding and was sent to give me Stevie’s apology, which was sweet. I met Stevie in the quick change tent after Rhiannon to give her a hard time about it, and as soon as she saw me she just covered her face and smiled, gave me a hug and apologized, it was really funny. After the show the crew definitely gave me a hard time about it. The next show during Second Hand News she came over to my side of the stage, looked down at me, smiled and gave her tambourine a little shake in my direction, she’s very funny.

Brett will kill me for telling you this…but it’s too funny to let go. Brett leaves the stage and goes back to his dressing room after Gypsy, since he doesn’t play on Big Love or Landslide, the two songs that follow Gypsy. The first show in Sydney, he apparently had a momentary lapse of reason and headed back to his dressing room after Rhiannon instead. The problem here is that Come is right after Rhiannnon, and Brett plays on Come…a lot. Halfway to the dressing room Brett heard the beginning of Come and realized that he was supposed to be on stage, and thankfully made it back just in time.

During the last show John asked his bass tech if he had a dollar, as he wanted to give Mick a dollar when he introduced him. In perfect Mick fashion, he accepted the dollar, stuck it to his forehead and left it there for the entire duration of Don’t Stop, before handing it someone in the audience.

Before I sign off I just realized that the “big wardrobe surprise” Karen was telling me about for the last show in Sydney didn’t seem to happen, either that or I was so out of it that I didn’t notice, but I really don’t remember anything new. I’ll have to investigate that further when he head back to work in a few weeks.

I am indescribably happy that we decided to tour Australia, it was most definitely a month of my life that I will never forget. Thanks to everyone for coming out to the shows and making our experience there such a good one. But it’s back to The States for Fleetwood Mac…see you guys there.

CB

It doesn’t take much for me to like a city. I’m just happy to be out of the house, really. I can find something enjoyable about nearly every place we’ve been over the last year. I didn’t have to look very hard in Perth. I had such a good time here. For starters, there are parrots just flying about everywhere, perched in the palm trees outside my window. Where I’m from, the only place you see parrots is at the zoo.

The city itself is really cute, with lots of nice little shops and restaurants. The gig was amazing, it was an outdoor cricket arena, comparable to an American football field. It was monstrous. It was circled by enormous stadium lights, the grass is so green you’d swear it was fake, there must be 30,000 seats, I mean this place is big. The stage was in the middle of the field, and we sectioned off an area of 10,000 seats for the show. I love playing outdoor shows. They’re my favorite. We loaded in the evening before the show to avoid the heat, so when we arrived at the gig the sun was just setting and I was feeling very happy to be in Perth.

That happy feeling turned in to sheer joy when I was informed that we had not one, not two, but THREE golf carts. Golf carts on a cricket field is something everyone should experience in their lifetime. It was better than Disneyland. No one else really seems to care much about the golf carts, so I basically always end up adopting a cart and I refer to it as “my golf cart” for the rest of the day. It’s great. I did however almost crash a few times, because although they had American drive carts (meaning the steering wheel is on the left side), they drive on the left side in Australia. There were all these narrow roads at the gig and whenever another cart or car was coming at me I would go to the right, but they would go to the left and we’d almost crash into each other. I should have put a sign on my cart that said “I’m an American”. At least then they would be aware that I had a valid reason to be such a bad driver. Near fatal crashes and all, it was still heaps of fun.

Now bear with me, I have to talk about myself for a minute, which I don’t particularly like doing, but the guys told me I just have to tell this story, so here goes…I am fully willing to admit that I have an attitude. When it’s called for, that is. I guess to put it nicely, I don’t take crap from people. To preface the story, it was really windy in Perth and I didn’t think we were going to be able to use Stevie’s usual mic stand. The ribbons and beads would have just been flapping everywhere and hitting her in the face and it would have been a disaster, so we used a plain, undecorated mic stand. I tied roses on for her as usual, but she also asked that I take her rosary from her stand and see if I can put on the new stand just to jazz it up a bit. So I do. But it looks silly. I keep trying to make it look nice, but it just keeps looking silly. So one of the guys comes over and we’re spending far too long trying to drape a strand of beads on a mic stand. We know we’re taking too long, and we’re laughing at ourselves about it. We are by no means taking ourselves seriously. We realize that we’re not solving world hunger here. This woman comes up to the front of the stage, looks up at us and says “excuse me”. We kindly give her our attention when she rudely replies something along the lines of, “are you guys really this silly and dumb or are you just trying to look silly and dumb, how long does it take to hang a strand of fking beads on a stand?” Now, why this woman felt the need to involve herself in my life, I have no idea, but like I said, I don’t hold my tongue well, so without really thinking it through, I say “who the FK are you?…Go back to your f**king seat”. I then realize that the first 5 rows of the audience had been watching this and they all applaud me telling this woman off. Right then the spotlight operator was calibrating his spot and just happened to light me up. It was hysterical, with the spotlight on me and the audience cheering, I couldn’t help but to take a bow. Word travels fast on our crew and within 10 minutes pretty much everyone had heard about my little episode and were yelling bead related jokes at me all night. I hope I didn’t offend anyone with that story, I just thought the woman was rude, and that there was no need to speak to us like that. I promise I would never speak to anyone like that, not to mention a ticket buying fan, unless it was called for. Oh, and by the way, we ended up not using the rosary at all. I told you it looked silly.

Keeping with the topic of the mic stand, Stevie is so accustomed to having all the ribbons to play with, she was reaching for them all night. It was so funny to watch her, especially on Second Hand News when she uses the ribbons a lot. She handled the loss of the ribbons like a champ though. And we have new wardrobe to discuss! It was a little chilly at soundcheck and Stevie was worried about being cold during the show, so for the two Perth shows she wore a new skirt, basically the same style, heavier fabric with different patterns, and a bit longer than the usual one. She also wore satin gloves and a black silky scarf. She looked fabulous with a capital F. And to top it all off, she still wore the new-ish Gypsy top, the new Goodbye Baby top and she wore a brand new white layered blouse with beautiful beading and lace work for Don’t Stop. It was the nights of the new wardrobe!

Also, I would just like to mention that Stevie takes such good care of us girls. We were on a break during Christmas, so the second night in Perth she called the three girls on tour up to her dressing room and gave us belated Christmas presents. I won’t go in to details as some of the gifts were personal, but let’s just say she spoiled us, the gifts were very sweet and thoughtful. I just thought all you Stevie lovers would like a confirmation that she’s as caring and generous as I’m sure you imagine and hope her to be. She’s a pleasure to work for. (And she doesn’t read these, so you know I’m not sucking up to the boss!!)

The shows were so much fun. Being outside, in the night, under the stars, breeze blowing, music blaring, it was wonderful. The only problem is that I’m usually 6 feet below the stage, where no one can see me, and that’s how I like it. For a lot of the outdoor shows we’re all right on stage with the band, I was a mere 5 feet from Brett Tuggle, every time the lights shined on him I felt the need to crawl under the table and hide. And we’re doing a whole tour of outdoor gigs this summer, so I guess I’m just going to have to get used to it. The good part about being on the stage is that I can see our guitar players, Carlos and Neale. We make faces at each other all night and they do silly dances and make me laugh, it’s rather entertaining.

I’ve babbled for far too long now, so I’ll be on my way. Next stop: Adelaide.

CB

When we left Brisbane is was the hottest day they’d had in ten years. Literally. When we landed in Melbourne it was raining. I’d to like request that we find a happy medium as far as the weather goes.

Melbourne is a great city, however it reminded me a lot of San Francisco, so instead of feeling like I was on vacation, I almost felt like I was just staying in a hotel at home. An odd feeling, but a lovely city nonetheless.

The shows in Melbourne went well. After Landslide someone yelled “It’s better than the Dixie Chicks!” which threw Lindsey off a little, he just laughed and thanked them. It gave all of us a good laugh as well.

Stevie’s been bringing out a lot of new wardrobe pieces, she’s not only been wearing the new Gypsy top and boots, but for the second show in Melbourne she wore a new top for Goodbye Baby. It’s a gorgeous pink, sparkly corset style top that she wore under her usual pink Goodbye Baby cape. It looked really pretty, especially under all the lights. I realize that Stevie’s outfit choices might not be a topic worthy of the evening news, but I, along with the few other gals on tour, I love when she wears something new, so I somehow feel the need to share it with you. Stevie’s assistant Karen, who knows how excited I get over these new clothing items, says we’re in for a real surprise in Sydney. So we have that to look forward to…I’ll keep you updated.

During World Turning a girl managed to climb over the speakers and made it on to the stage, right in front of Stevie. I’ve never understood the need as a fan to get on to the stage. As much dedication as that may display, it’s still kind of weird, if you ask me. One of our security guards stands right behind me during the show, and when I turned around to point the woman out to him, he was already gone. I looked back to the show to see the stage climber being kindly assisted off stage. Our security boys are quick, that’s for sure, the woman was on stage for a total of 2.3 seconds…hardly worth the work in my opinion, but now she has a great story to tell, I suppose.

Lindsey knocked over Stevie’s mic stand during I’m So Afraid….both nights. The first night he actually swung his guitar into it, the guitar got all caught in up the beads and ribbons and he kind of dragged it around. Now, me being the one who has to “care” for her mic stand, I never like to see this, as I’m the one who ended up coming in early the next day to repair the damage. So when he knocked the newly repaired stand over again the second night I was about ready to go on stage and kick some Lindsey butt. However, Stevie has my back…when she came back on stage for Landslide, one of the sound guys was picking her stand up. She just leaned in to the microphone and said “he’s so grounded.” My sentiments exactly.

As the band was all heading back to the dressing rooms after the last show, Stevie was singing ‘Take Me Home Country Roads’. Which isn’t weird in itself, she often bursts in to song for seemingly no reason. But it was cute, mid-verse she couldn’t remember the words, so Lindsey filled them in for her. She proceeded to stroll along singing while Lindsey hummed in the background.

We’re off to Perth, where it will be unbearably hot. And we’re playing an outdoor gig. Time to get the sunblock out…

Until next time…

CB

If you can remember what the last day of school before summer vacation feels like…that’s what the last day of tour feels like. It’s a good feeling. Especially when you know you don’t have to say goodbye to everyone forever since we’ll be back on the road in 6 weeks time.

I’m sure you’ve all heard rumors of Christine coming to the last show, and you might be surprised to know that even we didn’t know if she was coming. Late in the day we found out she would be attending the show, but not performing. She came early and hung out, watched the show and stayed for a while after the show as well. She and Stevie were like schoolgirls, giggling and chatting. She looks fantastic, might I add.

My personal victory of the day was at soundcheck. One of my favorite songs is Trouble, one of Lindsey’s solo songs. I beg and plead about once a month for him to play it at soundcheck, to no avail. But in London, I used the “as a going away present to the crew” excuse, and he finally agreed. So after the rest of the band left the stage, he stayed, along with the back-up band and I finally got my Trouble. It was so good. In September, Lindsey recorded a show in Chicago for PBS called Soundstage, and about 12 of our crew stayed in Chicago to help out. I was lucky enough to be one of them, because there was very little work required and we basically got to sit around and watch Lindsey and the back-up band rehearse and screw around. Stevie came for a few songs too. He performed Trouble, and a handful of other great songs. I highly suggest you check it out when it airs, if it turned out half as good as it was live, it’ll be worth your time. And that wasn’t a shameless plug, I swear, when he did Trouble at soundcheck it reminded me of the Soundstage show, and how good it was.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand. The show went well, the band gave thanks to Christine during the introductions, before we knew it Mick was on stage screaming “The Mac is Back” and our last European show was over. The band stayed late, being that Christine was there and that it was our last show for a while, but eventually everyone filed out, a few hours later load out was over and we also left. We headed back to the hotel where the hotel bar was packed with our crew. We stayed up until the wee hours of the morning having our own little going away party, and for those of us with early flights (myself included) I think the decision was made at about 4:00AM to forgo sleep and just head straight from the bar to the airport.

Turned out to be a good decision, I slept for nearly 7 hours of an 11 hour flight. I had a 3 hour layover in LA, and at 7:00 yesterday evening, I touched down in lovely San Francisco, and was delighted to get home, get in my own bed and sleep for 24 hours. As I write this I am cuddled up in bed with my cats and a cup of tea. It’s good to be home.

I hope I’ve done my job of at least providing a little entertainment and giving you a window into our world. I can only hope that I’ve conveyed how much fun it is out here, and how thankful I am to have been a part of it. Until next time…

We had a day and a half off in Glasgow after the drive from Manchester. I slept the first day and spent the second walking around, followed by a very late night at the hotel bar. A group of people took the train to a castle in Edinburgh on one of the days off, but I have to admit I didn’t see much of Scotland. And talk about accents, I didn’t understand a word anyone said, they might as well have been speaking Swahili. I hadn’t an idea what they were saying, but it was cute anyhow.

The best part about the arena in Glasgow was that the Stage was about a 5 minute walk from the production offices and the dressing rooms, and you know what that means….golf carts!! For about three hours during the day I ran a taxi service to and from the stage. Back and forth, bacjk and forth. And no one even bothered to tip me! Cheapskates. The show was good, went off without a hitch, which is both good and bad, good because nothing went wrong, but also bad because it means I have no funny stories to tell you.

There were a few penguins thrown on to the stage in Glasgow. John saves every penguin anyone has ever given him or the band. And when I say every penguin, I mean every penguin. After taking the penguins in to John so they could introduce themselves, I went to put two penguins in his road case after the show…and there’s no room. There’s not even room for clothes anymore. It’s all penguins, shoved in to every drawer, in to every spare bit of space. It’s a good thing this leg of the tour is almost over, because we might have had to start sacrificing penguins.

We left right after load out to drive to Belfast. We have sleeper buses with us again, so I thought the drive would be ok because you could just crawl in bed and sleep the whole way there. Silly me. We had to take a ferry to Belfast (obviously, since Ireland is an island). I’ve never been on a ferry, well at least the kind that you drive your car onto. It’s very weird, the bottom level of the ship is basically just a big parking lot, and the upper part is restaurants and bars and lounges. So at 5:00AM, after 2 hours of sleep, everyone on my bus woke up to get off the bus and go upstairs to the main part of the ship. I asked why we couldn’t just stay on the bus and sleep, and was bombarded with replies about how I wouldn’t want to be down here on the bus if the ferry happens to sink. Everyone on my bus was going upstairs and I really didn’t feel like being alone on the bus in the dark on the bottom level of a ship, dreaming about the ship sinking, so I got up too.

Walked around delirious in my pj’s for 2 hours and nearly cried for joy when they announced we could go back downstairs.The funniest thing about it is that no one from any other bus woke up and came upstairs, they all slept through the ferry ride except for our bus. I guess they put all the paranoid people on my bus. Fell back asleep the second my head hit the pillow only to wake up an hour later for load-in in Belfast. Grrrrr.

I saw nothing in Belfast other than the arena, which is too bad, I would have liked to see the city a little bit. The funniest thing that happened in Belfast? Well, funny to me anyway. During the show, about four songs into the set, a very bad smell started making it’s way over to the stage area. We all noticed it immediately, you could see everyone looking at each other as if to confirm that they smelled it too. Come to find out there was a sewage leak in the main dressing room hallway during the show and the building maintenance people were not best prepared to handle such a situation. Apparantly the best way to fix it was to just throw a large section of carpet over it. Then, they used a wet-vac to try and clean up the water, which only worsened the smell immensely. (I have to tell you that I have a really sick sense of humor, and bathroom jokes make me laugh so hard I could cry, so needless to say, as much as grossed everyone out, I found the whole situation downright hysterical and could hardly form a sentence for about an hour after the show. Even as type this I’m laughing so hard I’m crying.)

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again….it’s a glamorous life we lead out here!

We had yet another ferry to catch that night, but it didn’t leave until 8AM, so we stayed at the gig, on the buses until 4:00AM. A lot of people sat in catering drinking Guinness until the building finally kicked us out. I woke up to go upstairs on the ferry ride again, this time it wasn’t as bad since I’d had 4 hours of sleep, and we had a 12 hour drive ahead of us so I knew I had plenty of time to sleep later. The drive was long and boring, we watched a few movies and slept on and off until we arrived in London at about 7:00PM this evening. Tomorrow is our last show before we pack it up and head home for 6 weeks. I hate goodbyes, so I’m not looking forward to it.

Our four day stay in Manchester was full of happenings. We had two days off after we arrived from Manchester, the first day off was really only a half day since we arrived in the early evening. There wasn’t much to do near the hotel, there were a few restaurants and an outlet mall that I was smart enough not to visit, knowing I would spend far too much money if I did. But the hotel was right on the water, so I was perfectly happy just being outside and going for walks. We went to an enormous mall that was a ten minute cab ride away, it was so big that by the time we had covered the whole mall, I was exhausted. Shopping is tiring. The hotel bar was also perfectly suitable, so it was constantly occupied by at least a few of our hooligans.

But on with the show…Behind the stage there is this lift, in addition to 4 sets of stairs to access the stage, the lift is a quick way to get Stevie on stage. It’s a pretty simple concept, it’s just a platform that is operated by a single button…up or down. Stevie comes off stage a few times during the show, takes the lift down, goes to her tent behind the stage until she needs to come back on, then she takes it back up. Simple. Only it’s not so simple if the lift decides to stop working when she’s standing on it and is already late to be back on stage.

Our stage manager took note that the lift was not going to work, and somewhere between Stevie, our stage manager and one of our security guys, the decision was made that there wasn’t enough time to go all the way around the stage and take the stairs, so they decided to pick her up and lift her on to the stage. Halfway there, Stevie started laughing uncontrollably, causing our stage manager to start laughing, and getting her on stage turned into one big laughing party. She made it up there, but I think it took her the whole song to stop smiling and giggling. We’ve now purchased a small ladder in case this kind of thing ever happens again. We laughed about that all night and into the next day.

Then on the second night, near the end of the show, during the intro of Tusk, Lindsey started yelling. At first I thought he was just having a crazy night and really getting in to it, but he was pointing in the audience yelling “stop that!”. Mick knew there was something wrong and stopped playing, the arena was totally silent. I guess Lindsey had spotted a fight out in the crowd, someone who had obviously come to the show for the wrong reasons, and Lindsey wasn’t having it. It was great, he told them to get out, and they did, security escorted them out immediately. But not before Stevie put her 2 cents in as well, “how dare you! Get out of our concert!!” Such a cute, fiesty little thing she is. Come on people, this isn’t a Guns N’ Roses concert, this is Fleetwood Mac, we’re all about the love. No fighting allowed. If there’s one thing this band won’t have it’s fighting in the crowd. They’ll stop a show over it. Tonight was proof of that. After the troublemakers were escorted out (embarrased as all get out, I’m sure) they started Tusk again and finished the show with flying colors.

All in all a great 4 days. Goodnight Manchester… Scotland, here we come.

Upon arriving in London I was most pleased to see that there are actually bright red phone booths everywhere, and policemen actually do wear tall, funny hats. I did a lot of shopping, a lot of eating, and then some more shopping and more eating. I didn’t do any sightseeing, I didn’t feel the need to see Big Ben or Buckingham Palace or anything like that. I was more interested in just checking the city out. My most impressive acheivements for the four days in London? Taking the subway multiple times and not getting lost, but even more impressive…I did not get hit by a car, I came really close a few times, since my brain was not capable of grasping the concept of looking right THEN left when crossing the street. I’ve been honked at a lot the last 4 days. I’ve gotten used to it.

The gig here was a little hard to manage. The stage is on the ground floor, but the production offices, dressing rooms and catering were all up 4 flights of stairs, or you could wait 5 minutes and take a huge freight elevator. Neither option is all that appealing. I opted for stairs, and it was a painful reminder of how out of shape I am. The upside to this problem was that we had golf carts to drive the band around.

I love golf carts.

I would drive one all the time if they were street legal. After hours of begging, our stage manager finally let me drive one. And when I say he let me, I mean that he didn’t come chasing after me or start cursing me over the radio when I got in and drove away with out anyone’s permission. Mission accomplished. But then I ended up having to drive Stevie up to the dressing room when she arrived and then back down for soundcheck. Driving with one of the band members is kind of nerve racking, I felt like I was taking my drivers license exam. If my golf cart had turn signals, I would have used them….in addition to using hand signals. All I could think was “don’t crash, don’t crash, don’t crash”. I didn’t crash. Yay for me.

The dressing rooms at this venue are all trailers, which I like, because they are all arranged in a little corral. So it leaves this open space in the middle where we set up couches and some mood lighting. It gives everyone a place to hang out together & mingle, it’s nice. We call it Camp Fleetwood Mac, now all I need is a firepit and some marshmallows.

The shows were good, there was a strict 10:45 curfew, which basically means if the band is still playing at 10:46, there’s a big, huge, fat fine to pay. So we were planning on going on at 8:00, that didn’t happen, I think we went on at 8:15, and we ended up having to cut the last song. But the second night, our lesson was learned and the band was saying good night at 10:40 after a full set.

The band stayed really late after both shows, London was full of friends, family and guests. We had to have two huge tents in addition to our normal hospitality area just to accomodate everyone.

We’re off to Manchester in the morning. Only 5 more shows to go and then The Mac is going on vacation! As much as I’m loving Europe, I’ll be ready to go home when it comes time….I’m tired and I miss my own bed.

If I have to blow my nose one more time, I’m going to jump off a bridge. I hate to be melodramatic, but I’m deathly ill, and it’s only getting worse. The only time I complain about being out on the road is when I’m sick, because all I want to do is call in sick to work, crawl in to my bed at home and cuddle with my cats while I feel sorry for myself. That is not an option. I can’t call in sick, I’m thousands of miles from home and from my bed, and my cats don’t even remember me at this point. I know, it’s just a cold, but I’m a big baby about being sick.

Tour is like day care, if one kid shows up with a cold, it’s only a matter of days before everyone has it.

So unfortunately, I can’t tell you that much about Birmingham, since I spent one and half out of two days sleeping and coughing and watching television. We arrived mid-day on the 23rd after a 3 or so hour drive from Newcastle. I fell asleep as soon as got to the room and saw a fluffy white down comforter with 4 huge pillows. If there’s anything I’m good at, it’s staying in bed for downright unhealthy amounts of time. The bed doesn’t even need to be comfy, but I’ll take all the help I can get.

The first night we were there a bus was scheduled to pick us all up and take us to a pub that was about 45 minutes away. Our production manager lives near Birmingham and his friend who owns this pub was nice enough to open up just for us and have us all for dinner and drinks. I over slept and nearly missed the bus. Big surprise. In case I haven’t mentioned it before, I have a little reputation for missing the bus. It doesn’t happen often anymore, but there were a few weeks where I missed nearly every other one. Oops.

Dinner was great; the pub was adorable, very cozy and cute. I was still pretty out of it from being ill and sleeping so long, but everyone ate and drank too much and had a good time.

The next day was the day I spent in bed. We’ll skip that day.

Which brings us to the shows. I’m sure most of you know about the meaning behind the penguin, it was sort of a mascot for Fleetwood Mac way back when. We don’t see many penguins at the shows in the states, but here in the UK, penguins are taking over. At the first show in Birmingham, someone put this dancing penguin on top of Stevie’s monitor. It had a sensor on it so it never fell off, it just stayed, going from side to side, dancing and spinning. Stevie was having the hardest time keeping a straight face. The first time she came off the stage that night she proclaimed that she loved the dancing penguin and wanted it. I don’t think she realized that she’s at a Fleetwood Mac show, and that the people with the penguin would probably be more then happy to give it to her. At the end of the show, they offered the penguin up, and Mick took it…Stevie ran over and grabbed it out of Mick’s hands. Backstage later that night I had to help her figure out how to turn the dancing penguin off, because after 20 minutes…you just want the penguin to stop dancing.

Continuing the penguin theme, the second show in Birmingham was John’s birthday. After World Turning, Mick introduces everyone on stage, and when he introduced John and announced that it was his birthday, it was like a penguin downpour. There must have been 30 stuffed penguins thrown on stage. It was hysterical. We bagged them up after the show and we are now traveling with a penguin arsenal. You need a penguin? We’ve got a penguin for every occasion! Penguins dressed like Santa, penguins with scarves, penguins dressed as reindeer, penguins with little Fleetwood Mac shirts on, dancing penguins, singing penguins, penguins with sunglasses on….you name it, we have it.

I also have to mention that a fan, or a group of fans, made Stevie a cake. They managed to give it to the right people and it actually made it back to Stevie’s dressing room. It was incredible. Stevie made sure we took plenty of pictures of it. It had little mini album covers on it, painted perfectly. It must have taken them forever to make, so incase any of the bakers of that cake are reading, we were all very impressed, Stevie included.

We drive 2 hours to London tonight, where we have two days off and then two shows. Hopefully the cold that is kicking my butt right now will be better soon, I don’t want to miss any of London.

On a completely unrelated note…if you’ve never been to the UK, you should come for the candy alone. There’s this candy bar called a Crunchie. I’m considering leaving the United States simply because candy like this doesn’t exist there. I would happily live in an igloo in the Antarctic as long as I had Crunchies. There must be some conspiracy as to why we these aren’t sold in the US. My new mission in life is to find out why. I’ll let you know what I find out. Until next time…