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Category: Concert Reviews

REVIEW: Fleetwood Mac thrills fans at Toyota Center

Fleetwood Mac thrills Fleetwood Mac fans new and old at Toyota Center for two-plus hours.

Fleetwood Mac
Toyota Center
December 15, 2014

The Mac Attack is Back! And with the Songbird back in the nest, the Chain has been reforged, and seems stronger than ever.

Okay, that may be a little heavy on the symbols and metaphors. But it’s hard to overestimate the importance the Fleetwood Mac’s return to its classic mid-’70s to mid-’80s lineup of Lindsey Buckingham (vocals/guitar), Stevie Nicks (vocals), namesake rhythm section Mick Fleetwood (drums) and John McVie (bass), and returning vocalist/keyboardist Christine McVie.

So many references were made by other band members onstage to McVie’s unlikely and never-thought-possible comeback after 16 years (she had retired to her English castle, vowing never to make music again), that no one would have blamed her for blushing, even nearly 40 dates into this reunion tour.

Lindsey Buckingham: the higher the hair, the closer to God? (Photo: Jack Gorman)

Every classic-rock band of any importance or longevity has gone through lineup changes — including Fleetwood Mac, whose origins stretch back to 1967 as a straight-up, all-English blues band. But there just seems something so…right about this lineup reconstituting. Take out any one of the five, and it’s just not the same.

And for more than 2.5 hours, Fleetwood Mac put on a vibrant, strident, joyous show that was no robotic walk through the Greatest Hits. And they had the sold-out Toyota Center shaking, with even most of those on the floor standing up for the bulk of the set.

Opening appropriately with the band-of-brothers-and-sister anthem “The Chain” to a rapturous welcome, the band played a seemingly never-ending string of favorites. The included a whopping nine of the 11 tracks from their career apex Rumours, and that album’s haunting B-side “Silver Springs.”

The Mac’s other members weren’t shy about welcoming Christine McVie back into the fold. (Photo: Jack Gorman)

They also found set list space for a couple of deeper cuts from the more experimental 1979 double album Tusk (“I Know I’m Not Wrong,” “Sisters of the Moon”), possibly to the exclusion of bigger hits “Sara” and “Hold Me” from the set list. Other highlights included a slinky “Dreams,” buoyant “Say You Love Me,” and hard-charging “I’m So Afraid.” The band was augmented by three backup singers and two keyboardists/guitarists, tucked up on risers at the back of the stage.

Nicks dedicated a lush “Landslide” — performed by just her and Buckingham on guitar accompaniment — to a real-life Rhiannon in the audience who had/was facing some unexplained life challenge. She was likely not the only audience member either named for or conceived by that Tale of a Welsh Witch.

A handful of numbers were rejiggered from their album arrangements to great effect. Buckingham’s “Big Love” went from a more pop tune (with the orgiastic “oohs” and “aahs” of the chorus) into a howling, guitar-drenched cry of pain. Its author told the crowd that the track’s meaning for him had changed since its 1987 appearance on Tango in the Night.

“This song was about contemplation in alienation…and now it’s a meditation on the importance of change” he told the audience and — pointing to one close by younger member — “written before you were even born.”

Nicks’ cocaine elegy “Gold Dust Woman” turned into a far heavier, extended jam. It featured one of Nicks’ trademark stage twirls, all long blonde hair, scarves, and glittering shawl batwings. And while she pulled out her trademark stage moves more sparingly (being a 66-year-old in high heels and all), the audience went apeshit every time she turned.

This was no robotic walk through the greatest hits. (Photo: Jack Gorman)

She also turned out to be the night’s most chatty storyteller, introducing “Gypsy” with a mini-history lesson of her and Buckingham’s adventures first as teenagers in high school, then band partners in L.A. and San Francisco in the late ’70s, where the duo opened for acts like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Chicago.

For all the romantic soap opera that has been the band’s history with its members being together, separated, divorced, and changing partners, it’s clear this particular pair still have an unshakeable bond between them that’s neither forced nor fake.

All five had a sinewy energy about them belling their chronological ages, especially the super lean Christine McVie (who Nicks said has been “working out with a trainer every day since February”) and stage-stalking Buckingham, both in skinny jeans.

There were, as expected, some concessions to age among the band’s three singers. Christine McVie’s voice is a bit sharper, sometimes removed from its warmer tones; Nicks’ is a bit more gravelly, and Buckingham worked to make his upper register.

But these are all minor observances, and in fact, actually add to the songs, making them more lived-in and reflective of history.

When Nicks offered the wistful line “But time makes you bolder/ Even children get older/ And I’m getting older too” on “Landslide” (written in 1973!), it clearly struck a chord with both band and audience. And the vocals could have actually been turned up a bit higher in the mix throughout the show.

A slowed-down “Never Going Back Again” brought some more regret into the lyrics. And even Buckingham’s well-worn kiss-off “Go Your Own Way” had a visceral power live that belied its FM-radio overplaying. [Note: this paragraph has been edited after publication.]
The evening came to a close with a rousing “Don’t Stop,” though one can’t help by mentally picture a certain political power couple with the track playing now, and an elegant, heartbreaking “Silver Springs.” Then, fittingly, Christine McVie returned to a grand piano to play the strains of “Songbird.”

In it, the avian of the title “knows the score.” And the score – brought home with Nicks and Fleetwood’s touchingly personal post-song address to the audience about the current reformation – is that the band has started a new chapter in its ever-unfolding book.

The quintet are already working on new material for an upcoming studio album, and a second Houston date has been added for March 3 of next year. Get your tickets…now.

Personal Bias: Longtime fan, and not just of this lineup. And I credit seeing a Mac show in Austin in the late ’80s (sans Buckingham, but with Rick Vito and Billy Burnette) with starting me on a music-journalism path.

The Crowd: Wider-range of ages than most classic-rock shows, from twentysomethings to sixtysomethings. A handful of shawled Stevie wannabes; Lots of couples.

Overheard in the Crowd: “I hope they do ‘Sara,’ but they probably won’t. It’s not a song really meant for concerts.”

Random Notebook Dump: Lindsey’s high, brillo hair is looking more Art Garfunkelesque all the time.

SET LIST

The Chain
You Make Loving Fun
Dreams
Second Hand News
Rhiannon
Everywhere
I Know I’m Not Wrong
Tusk
Sisters of the Moon
Say You Love Me
Seven Wonders
Big Love
Landslide
Never Going Back Again
Over My Head
Gypsy
Little Lies
Gold Dust Woman
I’m So Afraid
Go Your Own Way

ENCORE
World Turning (w/Fleetwood drum solo)
Don’t Stop
Silver Springs

ENCORE 2
Songbird

Bob Ruggiero / Houston Press / Tuesday, December 16, 2014

December 16, 2014
REVIEW: Toyota Center crowd has lovin’ fun with FMac

Never underestimate the power of the Mac.

Three songs into Monday night’s set at Toyota Center, Stevie Nicks promised the crowd she would “get this party started!” Until then, Fleetwood Mac had been pleasing and mostly polite: anthem-ic kickoff “The Chain,” “You Make Loving Fun,” “Dreams” shifted to a lower key.

But something kicked into gear with “Second Hand News.” Lindsey Buckingham ripped into the song, all wild eyes and stomping feet. It reverberated through the sold-out crowd and energized Nicks’ take on “Rhiannon.” The party had indeed started.

Christine McVie, who rejoined the band after a 15-year absence, was still soulful and sweet on “Everywhere,” which benefited from a punchy arrangement.

“Now she’s been here, and it’s almost 40 shows. And now I think she’s gonna stay,” Nicks quipped. The band returns in March for another Toyota Center show.

The enduring allure of Fleetwood Mac has been the story behind the music. The core unit Buckingham, Nicks, John McVie, Christine McVie and Mick Fleetwood – has continued to thrive both in spite and because of its tempestuous history.

Buckingham played up the sentiment, saying the band’s success is its ability “to continue to prevail through the good times and the bad.” He called Christine McVie’s reappearance “the beginning of a poetic, a profound and a beautiful new chapter.”

For now, though, it was about the music.

Nicks introduced “Gypsy” with a lengthy story about meeting Buckingham, shopping for rock-star clothes and opening shows for Jimi Hendrix, Santana and Creedence Clearwater Revival.

“Are you listening over there?” she asked him.

And, yes, something sweet and magical still happens when Nicks’ croons about getting older and snow-covered hills during “Landslide.” The entire venue seemed to sigh in unison.

Joey Guerra / Houston Chronicle / Tuesday, December 15, 2014

December 15, 2014
REVIEW: Fleetwood Mac takes Dallas crowd on fun ride

Fully-staffed Fleetwood Mac takes adoring Dallas crowd on a roller-coaster ride at American Airlines show.

Fleetwood Mac comprises former lovers, ex spouses, longtime friends and a tumultuous biography. Like any musical group that has survived decades of ups and downs, the members must constantly work at it to recapture their old chemistry.

That workmanlike spirit helped to define the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band’s sold-out show on Sunday night at American Airlines Center. Rejoined by vital vocalist and keyboardist Christine McVie after her 16-year-touring hiatus, the Mac leaned in admirably through a two-hour-plus performance that veered from soul-soothing to serviceable and back again.

Understandably, much fanfare was made of McVie’s return: Her warm, familiar vocals provided several highlights, from the smoky seduction of “You Make Loving Fun” to the melodic bliss of ’80s smashes “Everywhere” and “Little Lies.” Despite her solid performance, McVie was never one to bask in the spotlight.

Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, however, were more than happy to soak up the love of the audience on Sunday. With McVie on keys, her ex-husband, John, on bass and Mick Fleetwood behind his drums for most of the evening, it was up to the group’s two relative “newbies” to do the crowd work.

Guitarist Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac (Jason Janik)

Buckingham kept the folks up front entertained by harnessing a twenty-something’s energy, frequently screaming out lyrical lines and jumping into rock-god postures. Nicks was simply herself — a twirling and swaying mystical sage armed with raspy power pipes and a streamer-clad tambourine.

When the band took the stage to kick things off with “The Chain,” the entire arena leapt to its feet and folks around me were pointing out Nicks to each other (“There she is!”). The three vocalists, embellished by a set of backup singers, took a full verse and chorus to fully find their harmonic sweet spot.

Nicks continued to get better and better throughout the night, at first avoiding the highest notes on “Dreams” and “Rhiannon,” but later reaching the mountaintops on “Gypsy” and the spine-tingling classic, “Gold Dust Woman.” She and Buckingham shined during what was essentially an intermission for the rest of the band — a three-song mini-set consisting of “Big Love,” “Landslide” and “Never Going Back Again.” All spotlighted Buckingham’s acoustic finger-picking skills, while the middle song benefited from Nicks’ refreshingly unsentimental vocal delivery.

As other legacy bands are wont to do, Fleetwood Mac’s players introduced a few of their songs by recalling elements of the band’s backstory. Nicks charmed while explaining the origins of the first line of “Gypsy.” Buckingham spoke to how certain tunes’ meanings have changed for him over the years. McVie got the biggest laugh of the evening while introducing “Over My Head”: “This goes back to the days when John and I were still married. Remember that, John?”

Thirty or so dates into their current tour, now might be a good time for the Mac to consider making a few edits. For instance, unnecessary drum and guitar solos during “I’m So Afraid” significantly slowed down the pace toward the end of the show, a point when most acts would try to speed it up. And then came another odd drum solo during the encore set. Fleetwood shut his eyes, played a variety of rhythms and screamed at the crowd like a madman — it seemed indulgent, even if it might have given folks one more chance to hit the beer stands.

My few complaints probably won’t register with diehard fans of Fleetwood Mac. Anyone who delights in the band’s unique blend of creative voices would have been thrilled to hear Buckingham toast “a poetic, profound and prolific new chapter” from the stage.

A new album is expected next year, as well as a second leg of the On With the Show tour (it returns to AAC on March 4). If that means I’ll get to see Nicks twirl in the shadows one more time, sign me up.

Hunter Hauk / Dallas Morning News / Monday, December 15, 2014

December 15, 2014
REVIEW: Fleetwood Mac at the Pepsi Center in Denver

Christine McVie always performed stage right with Fleetwood Mac, though she was never a side player. The keyboardist wrote a good number of the band’s hits back in the day and took the position of lead singer whenever they came into rotation.
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More than that, she was the supergroup’s third leg. Lindsey Buckingham was the rocker, Stevie Nicks the spiritual siren and McVie the pop songstress who brought a head-bopping bounce to the band’s sound with numbers like “You Make Loving Fun.” That combination gave Fleetwood Mac something for every prevailing taste in the 1970s and pushed it to the top of the charts.

And so when Christine McVie returned to the band after a 17-year vacation this fall, she brought not just her 71-year-old self, but also a little more easy-going fun. Fleetwood Mac’s appearance at the Pepsi Center in Denver Friday night felt much more like a pop concert than the raucous rock show it performed there in 2013.

Buckingham still did his high-jumps during “Big Love” and tortured his guitar until it screamed during “Tusk.” Nicks still growled through “Rhiannon” and danced and twirled in a sparkly shawl for “Gold Dust Woman.”

But there was also McVie, leaning into her mike and dropping those famously moony vocals on “Over My Head” and “Say You Love Me.” She took center stage for “Everywhere” and delivered the song’s happy, little trademark “boops” at the end with precision.

For the band, and the virtually sold-out crowd, it felt like home. There was McVie in her skin tight black jeans, Buckingham in his leather jacket, Nicks in her multiple layers of skirts and coats and those fingerless lace gloves. In the background, Mick Fleetwood banged his drums too hard like he has for four decades and John McVie plucked away on bass nearly invisible, except for a bright red vest. This was Fleetwood Mac as it was meant to be; the group, fully formed, that sold 100 million albums.

That not to say it was all nostalgia. The ensemble sounded tight and all the players brought what they had to. Nicks, who can have difficult nights, started strong and stayed relaxed. McVie lived up to the hype of her return, which was mentioned non-stop during the show. She was never the frantic type and that suits her well in her advanced years. Late in the game, the energy slowed, but that happens to a lot of bands on the 30th stop of a tour that offers few real breaks for musicians.

There were times when the proceedings felt programmed. The song list wasn’t all that different from June 2013 and neither were the renditions. The set and lights see med like an afterthought, with a series of distracting shapes projected through the giant monitor backstage — swirling bubbles, seashells and planets that looked more like screen savers for a home computer than the backdrop of an arena show.

But, of course, there was plenty to look without all that: Three of the world’s biggest music stars, trading off their best material. There wasn’t a huge amount of lovey dovey stuff between them, just a few sideways glances and one cute wink from Stevie to Christine during “Say You Love Me.”

They were co-workers whose best team was back together, with McVie stage right once again. They gave her the closer, leaving her alone with a spotlight for a gentle take on “Songbird.” She sounded comfortable to be back, and the fans, with their phones lit in a bright ovation, seems pleased as well.

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Ray Mark Rinaldi is a Arts and Entertainment writer and critic at The Denver Post and a regular contributor to Reverb.

Daniel Petty is a Denver-based photographer and digital director of sports at The Denver Post.

Ray Mark Rinaldi / Reverb / December 13th, 2014

December 13, 2014
REVIEW: Fleetwood Mac celebrates Christine McVie’s return

“Our songbird has returned,” Mick Fleetwood told the sold-out crowd at Talking Stick Resort Arena Wednesday night before the reunited “Rumours” lineup treated the fans to an encore performance of “Don’t Stop” that featured the songbird in question, Christine McVie, taking a turn on lead vocals and contributing a rollicking piano solo.
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This is McVie’s first tour with Fleetwood Mac since 1998. And Fleetwood was far from alone in viewing her return as cause for celebration, reuniting as it does the soft-rock icons’ most successful lineup. The crowd responded with enthusiasm when she took her first lead vocal, two songs in, on “You Make Loving Fun,” which was followed by a heartfelt tribute to McVie by Stevie Nicks.

McVie herself talked about “what a thrill it is for me to be standing on this stage singing with these amazing musicians and friends” before taking another lead vocal on “Everywhere.”

Lindsey Buckingham shared his thoughts on how “the return of the beautiful Christine” had signaled a new chapter in their history.

And the second encore started with McVie alone on piano and vocals for two verses and a chorus of an understated “Songbird” before Buckingham joined in on lead guitar.

That was it for the music, but Nicks returned to share a charming anecdote about a phone call she got last October in Italy, imitating McVie’s British accent to ask, “What would you think if I decided to come back to the band?” and ending her speech with “We so wanted her to come back. And we’re so happy to have our girl back.”

They did a lot of talking in the course of their nearly three-hour performance. Buckingham talked about how thrilled he was to be in Phoenix, where he and Nicks had spent a lot of time, saying “It kind of feels like a second home.” He gave a lengthy monologue before tearing it up on a solo acoustic performance of “Big Love,” talking about how although that “Tango in the Night” track is actually newer than much of the material in Wednesday’s set, it feels like it came from “a whole different lifetime,” before he “pulled back and made a few adjustments.” The song began, he explained, as “a kind of contemplation on alienation perhaps” but had become “more a meditation on the power and the importance of change.”

And Nicks talked at length about living in Phoenix.

“I actually lived here for 20 years,” she said before admitting that she wished she hadn’t sold her house. “I miss coming home to write and being near Camelback Mountain and all of you.” After acknowledging her friends and family in attendance, Nicks said, “A lot of our songs were written here. It’s good to be home.” And after talking about McVie in the second encore, she signed off with “And Phoenix, I’m so sorry I don’t live here anymore.”

As for the music, they made their way through nine of the 11 songs on “Rumours” and half the songs on 1975’s “Fleetwood Mac,” their first release with Buckingham and Nicks.

Fleetwood set the tone for their performance with the thumping kick drum of “The Chain,” the first of several tracks that thrived on Buckingham’s intensity both as a singer and as one of rock and roll’s most underrated lead guitarists. The man should be enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Most Watchable Guitar Gods. His tone is amazing and his presence makes his most electrifying moments that much more electrifying. The excitement he seems to be feeling when he plays those leads couldn’t be more contagious.

They kept the focus on “Rumours” as they traded off lead vocals from McVie on “You Make Loving Fun” to Nicks on “Dreams” and back to Buckingham for “Second Hand News.”

Highlights of the early part of their performance included “Rhiannon,” an electrifying “Tusk,” which was accompanied by footage of the USC Trojan Marching Band playing the song at Dodgers Stadium, “Say You Love Me” and “Seven Wonders.”

Buckingham’s solo performance of “Big Love” was exhilarating and far more intense than you’d imagine one man on acoustic guitar can be — unless, of course, you were familiar with Buckingham’s solo performances of that awe-inspiring song. They kept things in acoustic mode for “Landslide,” which featured Buckingham accompanying Nicks on her best vocal of the night. And then he took it up a notch with a haunting performance of “Never Going Back Again.”

At that point, their bandmates returned for a stripped-down set with Fleetwood on a kit out front for “Over My Head” and “Gypsy,” which was set up by another lengthy monologue from Nicks about a San Francisco dress shop called the Velvet Underground.

The set built to a climax from there with McVie’s “Little Lies” giving way to a haunted arrangement of Nicks’ “Gold Dust Woman,” Buckingham’s most insane guitar work of the concert on “I’m So Afraid” and a set-closing “Go Your Own Way.”

After starting the encore with a version of “World Turning” that featured a lengthy drum solo, they brought things up a notch with “Don’t Stop,” ending that first encore with an aching “Silver Spring” (the B-side of “Go Your Own Way”) with a really nice vocal from Nicks. And saving “Songbird” for the second encore was a nice touch, shining the spotlight one last time on the prodigal daughter, McVie, whose return really does suggest, as Buckingham said, a new chapter in Fleetwood Mac’s history.

Setlist

1. “The Chain”

2. “You Make Loving Fun”

3. “Dreams”

4. “Second Hand News”

5. “Rhiannon”

6. “Everywhere”

7. “I Know I’m Not Wrong”

8. “Tusk”

9. “Sisters of the Moon”

10. “Say You Love Me”

11. “Seven Wonders”

12. “Big Love”

13. “Landslide”

14. “Never Going Back Again”

15. “Over My Head”

16. “Gypsy”

17. “Little Lies”

18. “Gold Dust Woman”

19. “I’m So Afraid”

20 “Go Your Own Way”

Encore

21. “World Turning”

22. “Don’t Stop”

23. “Silver Springs”

Encore 2

24. “Songbird”

Ed Masley / Arizona Republic / Thursday, December 11, 2014

December 11, 2014
REVIEW: Fleetwood Mac, The Forum, Dec 6

Fleetwood Mac
The Forum
December 6, 2014

On Saturday, Fleetwood Mac played their last of three sold-out shows at the Forum. And who cares, right? Reunion tours at the Inglewood arena are as plentiful as scarves on Stevie Nicks’ mic stand.

But in the 16 years since a Fleetwood Mac tour featured the entire Rumors lineup, something notable happened: The band, long a favorite among baby boomers and Gen X’ers, got discovered by a new generation of fans, many of whom are themselves making emotionally dramatic pop music laced with lush harmonies and fiery guitar parts.

Tame Impala, Haim, the Entrance Band, even Miley Cyrus: all have worshiped at the altar of the Mac. Foxygen told L.A. Weekly that they recorded their new album while listening to Tusk on repeat, and Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino breathlessly tweeted out “Fleetwood Mac is honestly THE most important band in my entire life” after one of the band’s first two Forum shows.

So Saturday’s show — not their last in L.A., as we had originally described it, since they announced an additional Forum date next April just a few days ago — felt important. With the return of singer/keyboardist Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac are now the biggest band of their era whose “classic” lineup remains intact. And they’ve become, arguably, the most influential.

Photo by Timothy Norris Christine McVie The importance of McVie’s return can’t be overstated. Though far less flashy than her fellow lead singers, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, her cool alto, underrated piano skills and flair for an irresistible pop hook provided the perfect foil to Buckingham’s histrionics and Nicks’ witchy balladry. She wrote the first and last hit singles of the quintet’s remarkable 12-year run (“Over My Head” and “Everywhere,” respectively) as well as their signature anthem, “Don’t Stop.” More than once, her bandmates expressed elation over her return — though no words could convey more than the ear-to-ear grin Buckingham wore for much of “Say You Love Me,” one of Christine’s most indelible tunes and perhaps the evening’s best showcase of the band’s pinpoint harmonies.

(Photo: Timothy Norris)

Though the night in many ways belonged to McVie, Buckingham and Nicks still provided most of the highlights. After nearly 40 years, Buckingham remains the band’s wild card, a guitarist so brilliant — and so clearly enamored of his own brilliance — that his admittedly jaw-dropping solos at times threatened to hijack the whole show. The shrieking cascades of notes pouring forth from his signature Renaissance Model One guitar earned their fair share of cheers from the crowd — but no moment of the show got a bigger cheer than Stevie Nicks’ first twirl during “Rhiannon.”

It is Nicks, more than any other member of the Mac, who has captured the imagination of a younger generation of fans. During her songs “Dreams,” “Gypsy” and especially “Landslide,” women who clearly weren’t even born when Rumors came out could be seen throughout the crowd, singing along rapturously with every word.

Wisely and graciously, the band let Christine McVie have the last word, rolling out a baby grand piano on which she delivered a haunting rendition of “Songbird,” the prettiest song on Rumors, accompanied only by some admirably restrained acoustic guitar by Buckingham.

Afterward, when the band came out to take their final bows, Stevie Nicks credited Fleetwood Mac’s fans for McVie’s return. “You made this happen. You’re magic! You have magical powers,” Nicks declared. And maybe she’s right, but our magical powers pale in comparison to those of a reunited Fleetwood Mac.

Overheard in the crowd, after Stevie Nicks’ twirling performance of “Rhiannon”: “She knows how to work a shawl.”

Random notebook dump: The giant floating Lindsey head on the projection screen during “I Know I’m Not Wrong” is freaking me out. It’s like his ego made manifest.

Andy Hermann / LA Weekly / Monday, December 8, 2014

December 8, 2014
REVIEW: Fleetwood Mac leads a loaded reunion at Oracle Arena

Stevie Nicks is going for it. She’s been dressed in all black all night — a confusing, drapey, sequined and, yes, Stevie Nicks-esque shawl over a dress, whose shimmering tendrils she seems to be handling like rosary beads — but for “Gold Dust Woman” she’s brought out a sheer gold shawl, and she is putting it to work. With her back to the crowd at Oracle Arena, she spreads her arms out wide before bringing both hands to her blonde head for something that looks like the marriage of headbanging and the gesture one performs when experiencing a migraine; the midway point between rocking the fuck out and being in severe pain.

Fleetwood Mac live in Oakland (Photo: Noah Graham)

Which is, really, the main thrust of the mood at a Fleetwood Mac show — at least, at the first Fleetwood Mac show in a decade in a half that includes the original ’70s lineup: Christine McVie, notably fresh-faced behind the keyboard after 16 years away; Lindsey Buckingham, whose virtuoso fingerpicking on the electric guitar is rendered nearly unfair when combined with the fact that he apparently doesn’t age at all; John McVie, perhaps the only member of Fleetwood Mac who could reasonably be described as understated, despite providing the crucial bass heartbeat to so many hit songs; Nicks, whose stage presence alone makes Lady Gaga seem like John Kerry; and drummer Mick Fleetwood himself, who — dressed in short pants and red sneakers, wispy sideburn hair a-flying, taking indulgent solos — was quite possibly having more fun than anyone in the room, letting out animalistic yelps between taps of the hi-hat and punctuating his between-song banter with a gesture recognizable as the universal sign for “I am on Splash Mountain and we have just started going downhill.”

Fleetwood Mac live in Oakland (Photo: Noah Graham)

In short, emotions ran high last night. From Nicks dedicating “Landslide” to her first real boyfriend at Atherton High School, to Fleetwood’s assertion that things get crazy when you let the drummer up front (his headset mic failed to work at some point, and briefly holding court at the tip of the stage seemed to make many people very happy), the whole thing felt loaded. This is, of course, difficult to separate from the soap opera that is Fleetwood Mac’s history, the romantic entanglements and illicit affairs and buckets upon buckets of cocaine that somehow went up people’s noses and came back out transformed into songs as sunny as “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow.” There’s a theatrically implied underbelly to nearly everything they do, and no matter how much you’ve painted Stevie Nicks into some kind of fantasy-mom corner — and no matter what percentage of the 19,000 people around you appear to be squeaky-clean retirees with varying degrees of former hippiedom in their pasts, all cutting loose with widely varying degrees of rhythm — there’s the ever-present knowledge that yeah, she partied way, way harder than you ever will, and the same probably goes for a lot of these old-school fans. Lived to tell the tale, too.

Which is why you indulge Nicks when she starts telling the same story, verbatim, that she apparently told last week in L.A.: About being a poor student at San Jose State University (crowd: “woooooo!”) and driving up to San Francisco to shop at the Velvet Underground, which was the coolest and most expensive rock star store in the world, as evidenced by having Janis Joplin and Grace Slick as customers. About how she couldn’t afford anything, but she stood there in that store and she knew she’d be able to someday. Cue a curtsy, plus exaggerated fondling of her sequined outfit. Cue “Gypsy,” with the opening lines “So I’m back, to the Velvet Underground…”

Fleetwood Mac live in Oakland (Photo: Noah Graham)

Can you blame her if it’s cheesy? You can’t. Especially when Christine McVie, her alto and perfect hair seemingly untouched by the ravages of time, launches into “Say You Love Me,” or sits down at the piano for “Little Lies” and you realize that half the Fleetwood Mac songs you hear so often they’ve become background music (in the best possible way) are driven by that almost unnervingly sweet, easy voice. This requires ignoring the weird background visuals — gold dust for “Gold Dust Woman,” strange, unnecessary combinations of water droplets and psychedelic swirls of color for nearly everything else. It also requires removing yourself from the reality of, say, things that actually happened earlier in the day, back in 2014, like the grand jury’s decision in the horrifying police brutality murder case of Eric Garner. It requires shutting off your brain for long enough to live inside a year when Ronald Reagan was a great hope for a great many people.

Noah Graham for Oracle Arena This will, you see, help with getting into the proper headspace for receiving Nicks’ lines about how Christine McVie came back to the band in January of 2014 — less than two years after Nicks told Rolling Stone that was about as likely as “an asteroid hitting the earth” -— because “when you put something out into the universe, it comes true, and you Fleetwood Mac fans all woke up one day and wanted that. You have magic powers. If you want something bad enough, dreams come true.”

If nothing else, it requires believing that Fleetwood Mac believes those things. And last night, there were absolutely zero doubts to be had about that.

Fleetwood Mac live in Oakland (Photo: Noah Graham)

Emma Silvers / SF Weekly / Thursday, December 4, 2014

December 4, 2014
REVIEW: Fleetwood Mac concert reunion a triumph

With Christine McVie back in the fold after a 16-year hiatus, Fleetwood Mac begins a welcome new chapter by looking back to its heyday.

If Mick Fleetwood’s shout-out to his own band in San Diego Tuesday night simply (and loudly) stated the obvious, well, he’s surely earned the right to crow a bit.

“The Mac is definitely back!” the towering, 6-foot-5-inch drummer proudly declared. The sold-out audience of nearly 10,000 fans at SDSU’s Viejas Arena cheered loudly in return, just as it had through nearly all of the 2½-hour-plus show.

For the record, apart from a hiatus of a few years in the 1990s, this legendary rock act has never been away. Fleetwood is the only member to have performed in each of the band’s many lineups since its inception in 1967, including the one that performed here last year at Viejas Arena.

But Tuesday’s concert was especially memorable because it found this veteran ensemble taking a major step forward by taking a major step back. After a 16-year hiatus — a period of time far longer than the entire careers of many rock bands — singer, keyboardist and songwriter Christine McVie this year rejoined Fleetwood Mac for her first tour with the group since 1999.

Her welcome return is both exhilarating and liberating. This holds true both for the band and its multigenerational fans, many of whom remained standing and often sang along for much of Tuesday’s show.

Or, as Fleetwood put it after “World Turning,” the first of four encore selections: “Having this wonderful lady share the stage, making us complete, our songbird has returned.”

At 71, McVie is the oldest member of Fleetwood Mac, which was a three-year-old English blues-rock band when she came on board in 1970. Her return has bolstered the group in several key ways.

Down to earth and free of even a hint of affectation, she provides a welcome counterbalance to singer Stevie Nicks and singer-guitarist Lindsey Buckingham. The two American musicians joined Fleetwood Mac in 1975 and helped propel it to international pop-rock superstardom with the classic 1977 album, “Rumours.”

McVie sang lead on nearly a third of the 24 songs performed Tuesday, nearly all of which had been deferentially shelved by the band when she retired in 1999. It was a treat to hear her rustic, fuss-free lead vocals on “You Make Loving Fun,” “Little Lies,” “Say You Love Me” and the concert-concluding “Songbird.”

It was equally enjoyable hearing her harmonize again with Nicks and Buckingham, who clearly relished having their longtime collaborator back in the fold. So did drummer Fleetwood, 67, and bassist John McVie, 69, Christine’s former husband, who sounded and appeared none the worse after starting treatment last fall for cancer. (The band was tastefully augmented by three female backing singers and two male auxiliary musicians, who also supplied periodic vocal support.)

Christine McVie’s return also means Nicks and Buckingham no longer each have to handle 50 percent of the lead vocals. As a result, both were able to tackle such classics as “Dreams,” “Rhiannon,” “Second Hand News” and “Tusk” with renewed energy and enthusiasm. They also beamed broadly as they harmonized with McVie on “Don’t Stop,” “Go Your Own Way” and other decades-old gems that still sound fresh and vital.

Buckingham delivered a number of inspired guitar solos that showcased his finger-picking prowess. His rippling lines on “I Know I’m Not Wrong,” “Big Love” and the Wishbone Ash-inspired “I’m So Afraid” were highlights. Ditto Nicks’ deeply moving singing on “Landslide,” and “Gold Dust Woman,” which turned into a rare (at least for the current iteration of Fleetwood Mac) extended jam.

Fleetwood and John McVie provided a rock-solid foundation throughout. Their tirelessly robust playing in no way indicated the two, both of whom are longtime U.S. residents, qualified for Social Security several years ago.

Alas, the pacing of the concert sagged in places, including a rousing, but overly extended, Buckingham solo segment that seemed designed to give his band mates an extended offstage break. Fleetwood’s 5-minute drum solo on “World Turning,” while an undeniable crowd-pleaser, overstayed its welcome. Conversely, Nicks’ introduction to “Gypsy” was as long as some of the songs performed, but she reminisced about her years as a young aspiring musician with more than enough infectious verve to compensate.

And when everything clicked, which was often, time almost stood still — even as Buckingham, 65, boyishly bounded across the stage and Nicks, 66, did her witchy woman twirls. Don’t stop, indeed.

George Varga / UT San Diego / Wednesday, December 3, 2014

December 3, 2014
REVIEW: Fleetwood Mac live at The Forum, Los Angeles

“That’s not Stevie Nicks,” asserted the woman sitting next to me at the first night of Fleetwood Mac‘s 2-night stay at The Forum in Los Angeles. “I’ve been to hundreds of her shows and that is not her. She does not move like that.”

Not that I would know: this was my first time seeing the band—now in the glory of their classic lineup—and had little more than music videos and her time on American Horror Story: Coven from which to judge. When I looked up at the wispy-but-imposing blonde woman six rows ahead of me, and then compared it to the screen-sized version hung up above, I felt confident that this was the gypsy herself. I posited as such to the woman to my right. She paused before pointing, “look at her ankles!”

(Photo: Alicia Lutes)

Maybe Stevie Nicks was moving differently that night—but she’d have good reason to be. The band’s most famous

lineup was back in action, including the long-gone Christine McVie, who very well may have stolen the show from her compatriots that night. Her return after a 16-year absence from the group had clearly shot a bolt of electricity up Fleetwood Mac’s collective spine.

And it was evident from minute one. The 2.5 hour show (with no opener) began with “The Chain,” the only song off of 1977’s Rumours that was written by all five members. The energy— from the stage to the very large room surrounding it was one of celebration and fulfillment. Finally, they were right where they belonged.

McVie took over for the second song of the night, “You Make Loving Fun,” during which she beamed the whole time. Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, and Nicks were all vibrating on that frequency of celebration, loving every minute they were praising McVie’s grounding presence.

(Photo: Alicia Lutes)

This early momentum made this particular concert-goer a bit nervous. The first half of the show was s0 packed with hits—from “Rhiannon” to “Dreams” to “Second Hand News” to “I Know I’m Not Wrong”—that we were, personally, a bit afraid it would all hit a wall.

But oh no, how that gypsy shines when the stars are aligned. When people talk of star and staying power, of a seemingly otherworldly talent and ability to create things that emotionally resonate with people, all they need do is point to Fleetwood Mac as Stevie Nicks spins and spins and spins her way into the mystic magic she’s creating with her voice. There is truly nothing like her, how she demands your eye with her tambourine playing, how hair swirls around her twirling frame, how she conveys emotional honesty within a single note. It’s something special that cannot be diminished by age or time—it just is, and will continue to be, until there is no more sound to be heard.

Other highlights included “Tusk,” complete with a video accompaniment of the USC Marching Band performing the very song while McVie broke out the accordion and Buckingham strutted his way across the stage, and “Lies” for its sheer energy and exuberance.

And, of course, we’d be remiss to not mention “Landslide,” with nothing more than Buckingham on guitar and Nicks on vocals. After all the years between them, and all the words already said about this song, its origins, its relationship to the band that performs it, there’s little more to note that hasn’t already been said. To feel it in that moment, even after the hundreds of thousands of times we’ve all heard it before, it still somehow felt raw, damaged, and poignant. The magic a song like “Landslide” possesses will never really go away—only evolve and get better with age.

It’s like Buckingham noted before his acoustic take on “Big Love,” when he explained, prior to performing it, how much the song’s meaning has changed for him as the years have accumulated. It’s still the same song, sonically and lyrically, but its frame of reference had changed. The way he moves throughout the song’s meaning has shifted, like a dancer acclimating to the new limits and abilities of an aging body. Yet it looked natural next to Stevie and her new dance moves

In that way, the woman next to me was right: this wasn’t Stevie Nicks, not like before. This was something new but still familiar, and it moves to a whole different beat.

(Photo: Alicia Lutes)

Here’s the full setlist:

The Chain
You Make Loving Fun
Dreams
Second Hand News
Rhiannon
Everywhere
I Know I’m Not Wrong
Tusk
Sisters of the Moon
Say You Love Me
Seven Wonders
Big Love
Landslide
Never Going Back Again
Over My Head
Gypsy
Little Lies
Gold Dust Woman
I’m So Afraid
Go Your Own Way

Encore:
World Turning
Don’t Stop
Silver Springs

Encore 2:
Songbird

Alicia Lutes / Nerdist / Tuesday, December 2, 2014

December 2, 2014
REVIEW: A band reunited, team spirit intact

Fleetwood Mac played the Forum on Saturday night with Christine McVie, back after a long break.

(Photo: Michael Robinson Chavez)

Fleetwood Mac is having a moment.

Decades after its late-1970s commercial peak, the band can still fill arenas around the world with fans eager to relive memories indelibly linked to old hits like “Dreams” and “Go Your Own Way.”

Yet Fleetwood Mac’s polished pop-rock has also become a touchstone for younger, hipper acts such as Jenny Lewis and One Direction. In 2011, the television show “Glee” built an episode around the group’s music; the next year it was the subject of a high-profile tribute album.

So it’s not hard to understand Christine McVie’s decision, announced in January, to rejoin the band after retiring in 1998.

She helped create the legend — shouldn’t she enjoy the glory?

(Photo: Michael Robinson Chavez)

Fleetwood Mac’s tour with McVie, whose presence restores the lineup that made the gazillion-selling “Rumours,” stopped at the Forum for two concerts over the weekend. (It will return for a third on Dec. 6.)

But if the cheers that greeted McVie on Saturday confirmed her reasoning, the singer’s participation also reminded you that, despite its huge success, this is a deeply weird rock group, with three songwriters – McVie, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks – whose approaches hardly seem compatible.

Backed by the stalwart rhythm section of drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie (to whom she was married until 1977), Christine McVie was warm and trusting in “You Make Loving Fun” and the buoyant “Everywhere.” The cheerful optimism – and the propulsive groove – of “Don’t Stop” inspired thousands in the audience to sing along.

(Photo: Michael Robinson Chavez)

And though “Little Lies” hinted at the romantic deception that famously runs through Fleetwood Mac’s history, the tune’s sweet melody neutralized any sense of real desperation.

Buckingham offered no such protection as he growled the lyrics of “Big Love,” about the cold comfort of material fortune, over harsh finger-picked guitar. He was similarly intense in the stomping “Tusk” and a long, raw rendition of the bluesy “I’m So Afraid.”

“Second Hand News” was catchier but still anxious, its crisp tempo a promise of escape from the turmoil the song describes.

Then there was Nicks, who set aside her bandmates’ realism in favor of imagery rooted in history and mythology: “Rhiannon,” “Sisters of the Moon,” “Seven Wonders,” the last of which, she told the audience, had made it back into Fleetwood Mac’s set list after the song appeared in a recent episode of “American Horror Story.”

That quasi-mystical vibe is a big part of what’s endeared Nicks in particular to a new generation of musicians, including the sisters of L.A.’s Haim, to whom she dedicated “Landslide” on Saturday. (The Haim sisters weren’t the only admirers who turned up to pay their respects: According to a tweet from the Forum, Harry Styles of One Direction took in Friday’s show.)

Twirling in one of her trademark shawls during “Gypsy,” Nicks drew a wildly enthusiastic response from the crowd. And fans seemed untroubled by the adjustments she made to the melody of “Dreams,” a song whose high notes are now presumably out of her reach.

Yet that adulation hasn’t led, as it does with so many stars, to an unquenchable need for more.

Here Nicks appeared happy — even relieved, perhaps — to share the spotlight she grew accustomed to filling while McVie was away, and it was that sense of camaraderie that held Fleetwood Mac’s internal contradictions together.

“Once you come back, you can’t leave again,” Nicks recalled telling McVie in a rambling monologue about the reunion. That she meant it was clear when McVie, singing her ballad “Songbird,” closed the show.

Twitter: @mikaelwood / Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times

Mikael Wood / Los Angeles Times / Sunday, November 30, 2014

December 1, 2014