Fleetwood Mac wrapped up Leg 1 of the “On with the Show” Tour on Saturday night, performing at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida. The band logged 40 shows on the first leg of the massively successful tour, which saw sold-out arenas throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Stevie dedicated “Landslide” to the Fleetwood Mac stage and production crew.
Leg 2 of the tour begins on Friday, January 16, in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
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Videos
Special thanks to Celia Berru, Mark Bursik, Johnny Unicorn, LadyBonnieHeather Gibson, Kevin, Greehey, Susan Powers Hoffman, Kacey Mingus, Pamela B, Eileen Sallee, 27flyers27, and vankristlabs for sharing these videos!
COMPILATION: The Chain / You Make Loving Fun / Dreams / Second Hand News / Rhiannon / Landslide / Gold Dust Woman / I’m So Afraid / Go Your Own Way / Don’t Stop / World Turning / Songbird / Closing remarks (courtesy of vankristlabs)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XTRyewk3JQ
The Chain (courtesy of Celia Berru)
The Chain (courtesy of Kacey Mingus)
The Chain (courtesy of Kevin Greehey)
You Make Loving Fun (courtesy of Eileen Sallee)
Dreams (courtesy of Kevin Greehey)
Dreams (courtesy of Johnny Unicorn)
Second Hand News (courtesy of 27flyers27)
Rhiannon (courtesy of LadyBonnieHeather Gibson)
Everywhere (courtesy of Kevin Greehey)
I Know I’m Not Wrong (courtesy of Eileen Sallee)
Tusk (courtesy of Kacey Mingus)
Sisters of the Moon (courtesy LadyBonnieHeather Gibson)
Say You Love Me (courtesy of Kevin Greehey)
Seven Wonders (courtesy of 27flyers27)
Big Love (courtesy of Kacey Mingus)
Landslide with dedication (courtesy of Kacey Mingus)
Landslide – sepia effect (courtesy of 27flyers27)
Landslide (courtesy of Johnny Unicorn)
Gypsy story (courtesy of Susan Powers Hoffman)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXzr6W4fZcY
With Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac sound refreshed, revitalized at Tampa’s Amalie Arena.
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What does one member mean to a band?
Depends on the band and the member, but if we’re talking Fleetwood Mac and Christine McVie, it’s worth breaking out some stats.
A sold-out crowd of 17,620 packed Tampa’s Amalie Arena Saturday night to catch the Mac on their first tour with the songwriter, pianist and occasional lead singer since 1998. That’s up from 14,071 who came to see them last summer, up from 10,008 in 2009.
Why does McVie hold that kind of sway over the Fleetwood Mac faithful, when the band is better known for its other singers, perpetually linked ex-lovers Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, who sing their most massive hits?
Just as there are folks who call George their favorite Beatle, many say McVie is Fleetwood Mac’s strongest songsmith, and any version of the band that doesn’t include her just isn’t the same. A reunion with McVie was Fleetwood Mac’s ultimate trump card in their quest for continued relevance in this, their 47th year – a regrouping of their classic Rumours-era lineup, and a reopening of their songbook to classic tracks they haven’t played in years.
On Saturday, Tampa got ‘em all – Say You Love Me, You Make Loving Fun, Little Lies, Everywhere, plus a McVie-led Don’t Stop and Songbird as parting gifts. It was the band’s 40th and final North American concert of 2014, and they must be hitting their stride, because they haven’t sounded this vital and copacetic in years.
“They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” said Buckingham. “On this particular tour, and this particular moment now, with the return of the beautiful Christine, with her return, I believe that we begin a profound, a poetic and a prolific new chapter in the history of this band.”
Indeed, with McVie back in the fold, Saturday’s show felt more inspired than either of Fleetwood Mac’s previous two trips to Tampa. There was a little less focus on the occasionally melodramatic interplay between Nicks and Buckingham, and a little more focus on the lively, mood-lightening material the pianist penned for the band.
It wasn’t just McVie’s long-dormant ‘70s sing-alongs – 1987’s Tango in the Night, the band’s poppy and peppy final classic-lineup album, also got a welcome workout, with McVie handling lead vocals on the slick confections Everywhere and Little Lies; and Nicks propelling the equally upbeat Seven Wonders.
The lightness and sweetness that McVie brought to the table counterbalanced – perhaps even enhanced – the rest of Fleetwood Mac’s hit-loaded set. Her presence brings out the best in all-world guitarist Buckingham, who got his six-string rocks off on the frenetically fingerpicked Big Love, punkish rave-up I Know I’m Not Wrong and epically barn-burning I’m So Afraid. And as is her wont, Nicks wailed and convulsed like a banshee during the cauldron-boiling Gold Dust Woman and drifted into her inimitable twirl on Gypsy.
Buckingham and Nicks would pair off here and there for stripped-down numbers – Landslide, Never Going Back Again – but the night felt more complete, more celebratory, when all five members were out there together, rocking along like the last 16 years never happened.
Take Tusk: You had Mick Fleetwood rumbling away on his drum kit; Nicks crooning backup and sashaying across the stage; McVie pumping an accordion and coercing her ex-husband, stoic bassist John McVie, into a little soft-shoe shuffle; and Buckingham snarling into a mic, “Don’t say that you love me! Just tell me that you want me!”
As Buckingham kicked and shredded his way back and forth across the stage on Go Your Own Way, lingering for an extra half-measure by the grinning, bobbing McVie, it was clear that her return meant more to Fleetwood Mac than just a few thousand extra tickets sold. In a way, it meant new life.
With Christine McVie’s return, Fleetwood Mac’s musical chain is together, as good as ever at Sunrise concert
Finally, 16 years after playing her last gig with Fleetwood Mac, Christine McVie is back in the band.
Hard to tell who seemed happier for her return, the fans or the band members. Drummer Mick Fleetwood said in a pre-concert interview with the Miami Herald that this enduring band’s autobiographical music has served as a soundtrack for its audience’s own similar experiences. Love, loss, joy, heartache.
“It’s astoundingly powerful that for the vast majority of that audience their lives are unfolding in their own world and we’re triggering that.”
These fans have made the superstar group’s On With the Show Tour one of the year’s top touring attractions. At Sunrise’s sold-out BB&T Center Friday night, a crowd of 16,000 or so lustily cheered reinvigorated classics like Rhiannon, Go Your Own Way and Landslide.
Immediately after the standard Fleetwood Mac opener, The Chain, fans got their first taste of McVie’s burgundy warm, bluesy alto, which, reassuringly, sounds much as it did on Rumours 38 years ago. “Sweet, wonderful you/You make me happy with the things you do,” she sang in the opening line of You Make Loving Fun, the fourth Top 10 single from the landmark Rumours album. Back then, the song was about her lover, the band’s former lighting director, whom she briefly turned to as her marriage to bass player John McVie ended. Now, the lyric seems directed at her fellow musicians, including her ex, as well as the fans.
“Usually I’d say, ‘Welcome back, Christine,’” a genuinely friendly, chatty Stevie Nicks said, referring to her previous stage patter early in the tour’s run. “But since this is the 39th show, we can safely say, ‘She’s back!’’’
Guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, Nicks’ ex and the subject of many of her songs like Dreams and Silver Springs — much as she is the subject of his biting numbers, Go Your Own Way, Never Going Back Again and Second Hand News — has always had a particularly symbiotic musical relationship with McVie. The chemistry in the way their voices intertwine — McVie’s out of British blues, Buckingham’s inspired by ’50s folk — on the blues-rock stomp of World Turning and the rock shuffle, Don’t Stop, proved intact.
A couple hours earlier, just after McVie’s power pop charmer, Everywhere, and his own edgy rocker, I Know I’m Not Wrong, Buckingham delivered Fleetwood Mac’s State of the Union. He singled out McVie for providing a reason to think about tomorrow.
“With her return I believe we begin a profound, poetic and prolific new chapter in the life of this band,” Buckingham said. Encouraging, and inspiring, given he’s 65, McVie’s 71, Nicks is 66 and the rhythm section of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie are 67 and 69, respectively. Given how well these men and women performed, for nearly three hours, you fully believe Buckingham.
Indeed, McVie’s contribution is the necessary sunlight amid Nicks’ and Buckingham’s darker ruminations. This additional voice made the harmonies on her Say You Love Me, Over My Head and Little Lies, the latter done with considerably more edge and kick than its stuck-in-the-’80s studio version, as well as Nicks’ Dreams and Rhiannon, ring with clarity. She also seemed to have inspired the others to deliver the best vocal performances we’ve heard from anyone in this outfit since the Reagan administration.
Sure, Nicks has lost her top range on Dreams and Sisters of the Moon. Buckingham’s voice is deeper.
But Nicks sang full-bodied and in-tune throughout, including on her showcase Gold Dust Woman and Seven Wonders, reintroduced thanks to its prominent use last season for Nicks’ witch character on FX’s American Horror Story: Coven. She dedicated Landslide to a fan who held a sign that said she’d had a stroke and that her bucket list wish was to see a Fleetwood Mac concert. Nicks responded, “I feel it in my heart. You’re going to be just fine.”
Buckingham had a regained suppleness and adventure in his phrasing that gave fresh nuance to Never Going Back Again, Big Love and the anguished I’m So Afraid. His inventive lead guitar playing, Flamenco style on Big Love; blues on I’m So Afraid; or classic rock soloing on Go Your Own Way, all played without a pick, elevates him among the greatest to play the instrument.
After an expertly paced 150-minute set, closed by McVie’s trademark promise of undying love, Songbird, a clearly grateful Fleetwood roared, “And remember, the Mac is most definitely back.”
No doubt, at 100 percent.
Fleetwood Mac returns March 21 at AmericanAirlines Arena in downtown Miami. Follow @HowardCohen on Twitter.
FLEETWOOD MAC 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
Encores:
World Turning
Don’t Stop
Silver Springs
Songbird
Closing farewells from Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood.
Howard Cohen / Miami Herald / Saturday, December 20, 2014
Fleetwood Mac performed at the BB&T Center in Sunrise, Florida (near Fort Lauderdale), on Friday night, the 39th show of the tour. The band has one final show tonight at the Tampa Bay Times Forum in Tampa Bay before taking a one-month break for the holidays.
Stevie dedicated “Landslide” to Eve, a woman from Key West, who showed Stevie the area when she visited in 2013. Stevie also acknowledged a fan in the audience holding a sign that read “I had a stroke. This is on my bucket list.” In response, Stevie said, “I want you to know that we totally appreciate the fact that coming to see Fleetwood Mac is on your bucket list. I feel in my heart that you are going to be fine and that you’re just going to have another 20-30 fantastic years. So not to worry, you’re going to be fine!”
Leg 2 of the “On with the Show” Tour kicks off at the Xcel Energy Center in St Paul, Minneapolis, on Friday, January 16.
Read the interesting pre-show writeup of the show, at the bottom of the page, that goes over Fleetwood Mac’s rich 47-year history.
Videos
Special thanks to datflys, donutcookiepie, edu figueroa, Ken Hartfield, Eduardo Miguel, Hawkeye75, David S Kessler, Patrizia Rojaz, Christine Rollo, and skip2eight for sharing these videos!
The Chain (courtesy of Hawkeye75)
Dreams (courtesy of Ken Hartsfield)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5sxFLqCSNg
Rhiannon (courtesy of Ken Hartsfield)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14kt_oTwSFo
Everywhere (courtesy of Patrizia Rojaz)
Tusk (courtesy of Ken Hartsfield)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUK8W14uMyk
Sisters of the Moon (courtesy of Ken Hartsfield)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSBc0aGu6u0
Seven Wonders (courtesy of Ken Hartsfield)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRMjMzaLZoA
Big Love (courtesy of Ken Hartsfield)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvuOeRUHA4E
Landslide with dedication (courtesy of Ken Hartsfield)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1LlVS1oqFI
Landslide (courtesy of datflys)
Never Going Back Again (courtesy Hawkeye75)
Over My Head (courtesy of Ken Hartsfield)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W40A55eCgMY
Gypsy (courtesy of skip2eight)
Little Lies (courtesy of edu figueroa)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MI3OV92n6ZU
Gold Dust Woman (courtesy of datflys)
I’m So Afraid – partial (courtesy of donutcookiepie)
Go Your Own Way (courtesy of Ken Hartsfield)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUK8W14uMyk
Go Your Own Way (courtesy of Christine Rollo)
Go Your Own Way (courtesy David S Kessler)
Don’t Stop (courtesy of edu figueroa)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c28dLPh9fMs
Don’t Stop (courtesy of Eduardo Miguel)
Silver Springs (courtesy of Ken Hartsfield)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvzHlzH0Bpg
Songbird / Closing remarks (courtesy of Ken Hartsfield)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmVY2xSIR14
I can still hear you saying/You would never break the chain.
The Chain, Fleetwood Mac (1977)
Just two years ago, Stevie Nicks told Rolling Stone that the chance of Christine McVie returning to Fleetwood Mac — a band she was a member of for 28 years —was as likely as “an asteroid hitting the earth.”
LATE ’70s: For ‘Tusk’ in 1979, which drew some musical inspiration from New Wave bands like the Clash and the Talking Heads, but sounded like no one else, not only the music changed. The band, pictured on the inner sleeve of the cutting-edge LP, seem to be admiring a newly-shorn Lindsey Buckingham (right). Pictured (l-r): John McVie, Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie, Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. LATE ’70s: For ‘Tusk’ in 1979, which drew some musical inspiration from New Wave bands like the Clash and the Talking Heads, but sounded like no one else, not only the music changed. The band, pictured on the inner sleeve of the cutting-edge LP, seem to be admiring a newly-shorn Lindsey Buckingham (right). Pictured (l-r): John McVie, Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie, Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. | Warner Bros.
Nicks’ image as the group’s resident mystic poet behind gauzy, hypnotizing tunes like Rhiannon, Sisters of the Moon and Gypsy, took a hit with that prediction.
Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood can only laugh when you suggest he would be well suited to a diplomatic position within the U.S. government. If anyone could bring the combatant political parties together it would this 6-foot-6-inch drummer from Cornwall, England.
After all, he is largely responsible for McVie’s unexpected return to Fleetwood Mac after her 16-year retirement. She left after the close of a reunion tour in 1998 and the band’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Fleetwood held McVie’s hand on a flight from England to his home in Maui to soothe her nerves and get her on the plane. One of the reasons McVie left the group was her intense dislike of travel, which she’d revealed as far back as 1972 on her pleading track, Homeward Bound, from the group’s Bare Trees album. She’d sold her house in Los Angeles and returned to England and lived a mostly reclusive, rural life near Canterbury.
The Maui trip led to McVie’s participation on a couple of songs with Fleetwood’s side project blues group. In September 2013, McVie performed her Rumours single and President Clinton inauguration tune, Don’t Stop, with Fleetwood Mac at a London concert. After a hiatus for her ex-husband John McVie to seek treatment for cancer, the band announced its official reunion earlier this year.
McVie’s return reunites the classic Rumours-era lineup as she once again folds her bluesy, warm English alto with Nicks’ and Lindsey Buckingham’s Southern California harmonies. Her comeback also allows the band to reintroduce her buoyant, hit songs like Little Lies, You Make Loving Fun and Over My Head into the set list.
Between McVie’s welcome return, and Nicks’ acting debut on FX’s popular American Horror Story: Coven earlier this year in which she played a version of her witchy woman persona, the resulting On With the Show Tour is a smash. The band plays Sunrise’s BB&T Center Friday and a new leg of dates have been added for 2015. The group will also play Miami’s AmericanAirlines Arena on March 21.
“It is beyond amazing,” Fleetwood said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles earlier this month. “Looking at this stage that used to be empty, and now all of her keyboards and stuff are there, it’s magnified. The whole story of this band is that we carried on and we did fine without Chris and, sadly, it was without Chris, but we got a separation and you get used to it when you lose somebody. So having it come back … full circle is huge musically for me and John. It’s major, major, major having the rhythm section truly complete.”
To have this musical chain gang intact is major for fans, too.
“The most astounding thing is what it does with the relationship within this band and with the audience — it literally is performance art at this point,” Fleetwood said as fans relive the soundtrack of their lives through featured songs like Dreams, I’m So Afraid and The Chain.
“It’s astoundingly powerful that for the vast majority of that audience their lives are unfolding in their own world and we’re triggering that. The fact a Neil Young or any of us who have managed to last and have been blessed and retained an audience for this amount of time, you get this performance art happening and emotionally it’s at a peak. The celebration of Chris being thrown in there, as well, it pretty much can’t get any better than this.”
During Fleetwood’s near 48-year career with the band, he has been the musical timekeeper, the constant, the cheerleader, the father figure. (Christine McVie’s affectionate Oh Daddy is for him; and he’s the protective “great dark wing” in Nicks’ Sara.)
Fleetwood even served as band manager when its previous one created a fake version of Fleetwood Mac in 1973, sent it on the road, and claimed ownership of the name. He weathered the defections of band mates to mental illness, religious cults, affairs, solo careers, and fear of flying and exhaustion in McVie’s case. All along, he has kept a version of Fleetwood Mac intact, for better or worse, since its formation in 1967.
Today, Fleetwood is also a photographer. Reflections, his images of Hawaiian landscapes, nature and vintage vehicles, will be on exhibit through Sunday at Fort Lauderdale’s Wentworth Galleries.
In the late ’70s, amid the record-setting sales, excesses — chemical and otherwise — and romantic uncoupling that saw the McVies divorce and the Buckingham-Nicks relationship split there were songs documenting the turmoil.
You can go your own way, Buckingham brayed at Nicks.
You’ll never get away from the sound of the woman who loved you, responded Nicks.
There were couplings within the band, too. Nicks had an affair with Fleetwood, he writes in his new memoir, Play On: Now, Then, and Fleetwood Mac (Little Brown; $30). “What unfolded was a therapeutic session,” he said of reliving the memories of a lifetime with co-author Anthony Bozza.
There were dreams to be sold/(Chain of chains)/You’re like my 24 karat gold, Nicks wrote of the ill-fated romance with Fleetwood on her illuminating new album, 24 Karat Gold: Songs From the Vault, which features recordings cut earlier this year in Nashville of songs she wrote from 1969 to 1995.
They’ll sing about it all over again Friday night, while the more optimistic McVie closes the 150-minute concert with Songbird’s tender, And I love you … like never before.
More than 45 million copies of the aural soap opera document Rumours that contained these songs in 1977 have been sold worldwide. A 2011 Glee episode that paid tribute to the album led to Rumours’ return to the Billboard and iTunes sales charts that extends to the current day, along with greatest hits compilations. A whole new generation of pop, rock and country acts like Little Big Town, One Direction and Haim revere and emulate the Mac’s sound.
Fleetwood credits his father, late Royal Air Force wing commander John Joseph Kells Fleetwood, with giving him the fortitude to keep the band an ongoing concern even after key members like founding guitarist Peter Green, Danny Kirwan, the late Bob Welch, Buckingham, Nicks and McVie had all departed.
“I truly believe, and I’m trying not to sound all humble and stuff, but I have a sense of humor and it’s about my dad,” Fleetwood said. “By the nature of his position in the Royal Air Force he was a people organizer and a successful one. Dad, from time to time, would say, ‘Mick, remember this, as long as whatever it is gets done, you don’t need to take the credit. If, for the good of the whole thing, if it involves you and you put in a good stead, if it gets done, hey, it’s done, you got it done, move on.’ And that’s what I try to remember.”
But as the echoes of an old song, one that has opened Fleetwood Mac concerts for decades, come to mind —Chain, keep us together/Running in the shadows — Fleetwood reveals one last link in the chain.
“I’m allowing myself to say I am not responsible for writing all these fantastic songs but I’ve been a major part of the process. I don’t mind owning that in good humor.”
Follow @HowardCohen on Twitter.
IF YOU GO What: Fleetwood Mac in concert
Where: BB&T Center, 1 Panther Pkwy., Sunrise
When: 8 p.m. Friday (a second show has been added for March 21 at Miami’s AmericanAirlines Arena)
Tickets: At press time the show was nearly sold out
Information: Ticketmaster or 800-745-3000
Photo exhibit: ‘Reflections: The Mick Fleetwood Collection’ runs through Sunday at Wentworth Galleries, 819 E. Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale; 954-468-0685.
FLEETWOOD MAC TIMELINE
Fleetwood Mac has had 14 different lineups since its formation by guitarist Peter Green in 1967 as a traditional blues band. Green, uncomfortable as a band leader, named the group after its rhythm section, drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie. His decision was sound: the rhythm section has been this band’s only constant.
Here’s a timeline of various incarnations of Fleetwood Mac, along with the albums these lineups recorded. The essential album is listed in bold.
1967: Band forms with Peter Green, guitar; Jeremy Spencer, guitar; Mick Fleetwood, drums; Bob Brunning, bass. (John McVie briefly resisted joining the band that carried his name.)
1968-70: Green; Spencer; Fleetwood; McVie; Danny Kirwan, guitar.
Albums: ‘English Rose,’ ‘The Pious Bird of Good Omen,’ ‘Then Play On,’ ‘Fleetwood Mac in Chicago.’ The group’s 1968 single, ‘Black Magic Woman,’ would become famous in the States thanks to a 1970 cover by Santana.
In his new memoir, ‘Play On: Now, Then, and Fleetwood Mac’ (Little Brown; $30) Fleetwood cites ‘Then Play On’ as his favorite Fleetwood Mac album, followed by 1979’s ‘Tusk.’ “On the surface, ‘Then Play On’ and ‘Tusk’ have little in common sonically, but listen deeper and you’ll hear a band with its back against the creative wall, recording music at the brink of its existence.”
1970: Fleetwood, McVie, Spencer, Kirwan. Christine McVie joined as a touring member, sang background vocals on ‘Kiln House’ and drew its album cover.
Album: ‘Kiln House.’
1971-72: Fleetwood; John and Christine McVie; Kirwan, Bob Welch, guitar.
Albums: ‘Future Games,’ ‘Bare Trees.’ The latter features the original version of Welch’s ‘Sentimental Lady,’ a song he would re-record and have a hit single with in 1977 as a solo artist (with assistance from Fleetwood, Christine McVie and his replacement in the band, Lindsey Buckingham.)
1972-73: Fleetwood; John and Christine McVie; Welch; Dave Walker, vocals; Bob Weston, guitar.
Album: ‘Penguin.’
1973: Fleetwood, John and Christine McVie, Welch, Weston.
Album: ‘Mystery to Me,’ the finest album of the post-Green, pre-Buckingham Nicks eras and the soft rock bridge to what was to come. Includes the FM radio hit, ‘Hypnotized.’
1974: Fleetwood, John and Christine McVie, Welch.
Album: ‘Heroes Are Hard to Find.’ The band’s first Top 40 album in the United States.
1975-1987; 1997-98; 2014: Fleetwood; John and Christine McVie; Lindsey Buckingham, guitar; Stevie Nicks, vocals.
Albums: ‘Fleetwood Mac,’ ‘Rumours,’ ‘Tusk,’ ‘Live,’ ‘Mirage,’ ‘Tango in the Night,’ ‘The Dance.’ ‘Tusk’ was the most daring, four sides of Buckingham’s wack New Wave and punk-influenced experiments paired with McVie and Nicks’ more traditional pop/rock tunes. But the passionate ‘Rumours’ remains the soundtrack of a generation. This lineup has recorded new music for a possible 2015 release.
1987-1991: Fleetwood; John and Christine McVie; Nicks; Rick Vito, guitar, Billy Burnette, guitar.
Album: ‘Behind the Mask.’
1994-95: Fleetwood; John and Christine McVie; Burnette; Dave Mason, guitar; Bekka Bramlett, vocals. Christine McVie did not tour with this lineup.
Album: ‘Time.’ The 1995 album was a commercial failure, but two overlooked Christine McVie songs, “Sooner or Later’ and ‘Nights in Estoril,’ are obscure gems worth a download.
1998-2014: Fleetwood, John McVie, Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks.
Albums: ‘Say You Will,’ ‘Live in Boston’ (CD/DVD), ‘Extended Play.’
Howard Cohen / Miami Herald / Friday, December 19, 2014
Fleetwood Mac continued its tour of the Deep South on Wednesday night, performing at Philips Arena in Atlanta, the band’s 38th show of the tour. The band has two more shows remaining on Leg 1 of the “On with the Show” Tour, first a stop in Sunrise on Friday and the closing show in Tampa Bay on Saturday.
Stevie dedicated “Landslide” “for my father to all the beautiful women in Atlanta.”
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Videos
Special thanks to R Albert, cadon35, David Eckoff, LynnBerry, marykristalin, Jim Miller, and oldnitebaker for sharing these videos!
You Make Loving Fun (courtesy of R Albert)
Dreams (courtesy of R Albert)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCnWbkEj1Yk
Everywhere – short clip (courtesy of marykristalin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yneGABi8eAs
I Know I’m Not Wrong (courtesy of Jim Miller)
Tusk (courtesy of R Albert)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moRoGI7yj1Q
Sisters of the Moon (courtesy of R Albert)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LP3VMcWkxVE
Say You Love Me (courtesy of R Albert)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IleS6I6_pz4
Say You Love Me (courtesy of Jim Miller)
Seven Wonders (courtesy of Jim Miller)
Big Love – partial (courtesy of LynnBerry)
Landslide (courtesy of R Albert)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yc8U8j0a2v8
Never Going Back Again – partial (courtesy of oldnitebaker)
Over My Head (courtesy of R Albert)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUfmN98wOEM
Gypsy – intro (Jim Miller)
Gypsy (courtesy of R Albert)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jM9VaEWkWQ
Little Lies – partial (courtesy of oldnitebaker)
Gold Dust Woman (courtesy of R Albert)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7v5nohwgR4
Go Your Own Way (courtesy of R Albert)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IleS6I6_pz4
World Turning (courtesy of cadon35)
World Turning – partial (courtesy of LynnBerry)
Don’t Stop (courtesy of R Albert)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UGn5WWQ7ho
Don’t Stop (courtesy of David Eckoff)
Silver Springs (courtesy of R Albert)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhNcu91enqo
Fleetwood Mac has never been considered a “fun” band.
Between the tempestuous relationships among its members and the differing opinions about musical direction over the decades, the collective of Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham was never the cheeriest bunch.
Christine McVie (Photo: Robb Cohen)
But wow, did that drama make for some amazing music.
The band returned to the road in October after taking some off late last year for John McVie to combat cancer, and this time they had a secret weapon that has elevated Fleetwood Mac to a new level of vitality – Christine McVie.
Back with the gang after a 16-year gap, McVie, an unbelievable-looking 71, injected a palpable energy into the band, both by allowing them to further open their songbook and by providing Nicks with her perfect female vocal foil.
Lindsey Buckingham (Photo: Robb Cohen)
When was the last time you heard Nicks girlishly squeal, as she did when welcoming McVie with an enthusiastic, “She’s baaaaaack!”? For that matter, when was the last time Mac fans heard “You Make Loving Fun” and “Everywhere” played live (OK, it was 1997’s “The Dance” tour, but you get the point)?
From the moment part-time artist Fleetwood ushered in the band’s standard opener “The Chain” with his heartbeat bass drum, to more than 2 ½-hours later when McVie closed the show with her tingly “Songbird,” the show felt fresh and alive and yes…fun.
The sold-out crowd at Philips Arena Wednesday night erupted into cheers for McVie before the complete opening phrase of “You Make Loving Fun” – “Sweet wonderful you” – exited her mouth, setting the appreciative tone of the night.
John McVie (Photo: Robb Cohen)
Of course, the other major benefit of McVie’s return is her contributions as a vocalist. She added another layer of harmony to the silky “Dreams,” steered the sunshiny “Everywhere” and helped “Rihannon” breathe as Nicks donned a black shawl to drape over her jagged-edge black dress as she sang an invigorated version of the song.
While the female energy on stage resounded mightily, that isn’t to diminish the continued awesomeness of the band’s tortured musical genius, Buckingham.
Whether bouncing on the balls of his feet during “Second Hand News” or unleashing primal yells during “Tusk” – the band’s most polarizing song that was balanced by Fleetwood’s unrelenting beat and Christine McVie on accordion – the Twizzler-thin Buckingham was a riveting presence who sounded robust after shaking off some initial hoarseness.
Mick Fleetwood and Lindsey Buckingham (Photo: Robb Cohen)
And what a hoot that at 65, he still has groupies who basked in his aura at the front of the stage and even requested a couple of his onstage towels.
By giving fans a well-paced, 24-song set, Fleetwood Mac was able to liberate its extensive catalog and demonstrate the differing tones each member brings to the forefront.
McVie’s sweet pop tendencies soared on “Say You Love Me,” Buckingham tore off a finger-blistering solo during “Big Love” that almost sounded symphonic and Nicks twirled and grinned during her ethereal “Gypsy,” after sharing a lengthy – yet interesting – story about its origin.
For a certain generation of Fleetwood Mac fans, the moments between Buckingham and Nicks prompt the greatest pangs of wistfulness. The twosome didn’t disappoint as they stood alone on stage for “Landslide,” with Nicks’ warble sounding poetically perfect and Buckingham’s gentle guitar strains lovely as always; the pair then stayed together for a hushed duet on “Never Going Back Again.”
Stevie Nicks (Photo: Robb Cohen)
With the full band back onstage (not that Buckingham ever leaves it), the easy-going, hip-shaking “Little Lies” led to Nicks’ defining moment of the show. She absolutely smoldered with sensuality as she snaked through “Gold Dust Woman,” saturating the song with an intensity not heard from her in years (the band’s 2013 appearance at Philips featured some fantastic moments, but none compared to this).
Eternal fan favorites “Go Your Own Way” – featuring Nicks in her traditional black top hat – and “Don’t Stop,” their anthem of cheerful optimism, provided the show with a final jolt, as did Fleetwood’s fluid drum solo in the middle of “World Turning.”
It’s almost a relief to know that Fleetwood Mac will be back at Philips Arena in March, because who wouldn’t want to see one of – if not the – best concert of the year one more time?
Yep, yesterday’s gone indeed and a new Mac has been born.
Lighting/production designer Paul “Arlo” Guthrie talks about lighting design, as Clay Paky Fixtures hit the road with Fleetwood Mac’s On With The Show Tour.
The iconic rock band Fleetwood Mac never stops thinking about tomorrow – and planning their next tour to delight fans. For their current “On With the Show” tour a complement of Clay Paky A.leda B-EYE K20 LED-based moving lights and Sharpy Wash lights have been specified by lighting designer/production designer Paul “Arlo” Guthrie.
The band launched the 40-city North American tour September 30 and, after playing to packed houses, added at least 28 more dates in a second leg, which will begin in January 2015. “On With the Show” marks the first full-member tour for Fleetwood Mac since 1997.
“Designing for Fleetwood Mac is always a challenge since you’re dealing with five different personalities,” says Guthrie. He began by giving them “the biggest, cleanest, most open stage set up I could, so every single seat in the house gets a clear view of the stage. I made sure to remove clutter so everyone can see the band members.”
Guthrie added a big upstage videowall, three above-the-head ribbon videowalls and 12 lighting pods.
A dozen B-EYE K20s are on the audience side of the pods to light the fans. “They do pixel effects and perform very quick, easy and huge washes from 12 watts – they can light the entire audience,” Guthrie says. “We don’t use smoke or haze so we don’t really use beam effects. But we do use a lot of pixel animation. For some songs the fixtures replicate what’s happening on the videowall.”
Guthrie was introduced to B-EYE K20s at LDI last year. “This is the first time I’m using them. The colors, dimming and patterns are great. The idea that we have 12 lights we can switch on and then light up the entire arena is great!”
“Designing for Fleetwood Mac is always a challenge since you’re dealing with five different personalities.”
Lighting Director Chris Lose adds, “The things that impressed me the most about the B-EYEs was their ability to act like an LED fixture and then with a simple flip of a channel behave just like an incandescent fixture. Most LED fixtures on the market are missing that warmth and glow.
Three Sharpy Washes are mounted on each pod for a total of 36 fixtures. “They serve as the workhorse overhead wash light,” Guthrie explains. “Because of their brightness we get a little bit of a beam effect even with no smoke. That’s a real bonus.”
Guthrie first used Sharpy Washes for Fleetwood Mac last year then subsequently deployed them for Nine Inch Nails. “I like the fact that they don’t dim like an LED: Their mechanical dimmer is fantastic. I like the size, speed and colors – it’s a great little workhorse light. There’s still room in my shows for lights that actually light stuff, and with Fleetwood Mac, we have to see the band and the stage, not just millions of pixels in your eyes.”
George Masek, A.C.T Lighting Vice President – Automated Lighting, commented “We really enjoy working with Arlo on his projects, and I’m very proud that he has chosen Clay Paky products to support his visions.”
Francesco Romagnoli, Clay Paky Area Manager for North and Latin America, added, “It’s great to see our newer lights employed for such an iconic band. Arlo and Chris are great talents and have truly put the fixtures to great use.”
A.C.T Lighting is the exclusive North American distributor for Clay Paky.
About Clay Paky Headquartered in Seriate (Bergamo), Italy, Clay Paky SPA has a history of designing and manufacturing innovative professional show lighting. The company was founded in 1976 by entrepreneur Pasquale Quadri who anticipated the enormous impact the evolution of technology would have on the show and entertainment worlds.
For more information on Clay Paky products, please contact: Francesco Romagnoli fr*******@******ky.it Davide Barbetta we*******@******ky.it
Putting on a show to match the grandeur and longevity of Fleetwood Mac is a massive undertaking, but Stevie Nicks needed just a minute to personalize it for the crowd of mostly Coloradans in the sold-out Pepsi Center on Dec. 12, 2014.
“I have like a whole tribe here because one side of my family is all from Colorado,” Nicks said to a roaring audience in Denver. It was about an hour into the 35th performance of this “On With The Show” tour that marks the return of songbird/keyboardist Christine McVie to the stage — and the band — for the first time in 16 years.
Stevie Nicks sings”My great-great grandmother came across the Rocky Mountains in one of the last Indian massacres,” Nicks (left) added. “Seriously. And she crawled in the trunk (of a wagon train) and stayed there. And she was the only survivor. Strong woman.”
Nicks, who dedicated her tender “Landslide” to the 100 or so friends and family members — “my entire tribe” — in attendance, thus making the Colorado connection feel even stronger, certainly shares the strength of her ancestors.
McVie, Nicks and the male members of this lineup — frontman Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie (the pair for whom the band is named) — also possess those staunch survival instincts long after all coming together in 1975.
This stunning show was a perfect example of that willingness to sustain a coexistence, finally blessed with the valuable missing piece of the puzzle that turns an already priceless picture into a beautiful work of pop art.
The fact that a wild-eyed drummer and a couple of exes can keep that romantic spark an integral part of a crammed songbook long after the final flicker of hope in their relationships was extinguished makes such a transformative accomplishment even more endearing.
Fleetwood Mac had toured and made one studio album — 2003’s Say You Will — since Christine McVie’s departure in 1998 (the year of their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction), but had to feel a hole in their collective heart while passing the time trying to keep the band alive and staying involved with other projects.
The McQuintet — bolstered on this tour by three female backing vocalists and two male musicians — made up for all that lost time by covering much of the material that shaped them into what they still are today — a supersonic supergroup.
Once a formidable British blues project, the Buckingham-Nicks addition for the eponymous Fleetwood Mac album got the popularity ball rolling in 1975. And that record was well-represented on this set list by “Landslide,” “Rhiannon,” “Say You Love Me,” “Over My Head” and “I’m So Afraid,” followed by an energetic “World Turning” during the energetic first encore.
The latter song was driven by Fleetwood’s five-minute drum solo with eye-bulging whoops and hollers — “Are you with me?” — and a few riveting samples that proves the band remains relevant in the 21st century.
Even though the age of this fivesome totals 338 years, they acted nothing like old-timers during what these days is considered a marathon concert — more than two and a half hours — without an intermission.
Sure, most of them took needed breaks, and consistently solid but subdued bassist John McVie (Fleetwood called him the “backbone of Fleetwood Mac”) looked somewhat drained the year after undergoing cancer treatments.
But Buckingham’s manic vitality — and virtuosic, sleight-of-hand performance on acoustic and electric guitars — kept the showmanship and spirit at a high level. His work clothes this pleasant Friday evening were black leather jacket and blue jeans. They offset the exotic garb of a dressed-in-black Nicks, whose beguiling voice, bewitching glances and come-hiter hand gestures kept the audience under her spell.
In a distinguished tone, Fleetwood praised each of his band mates while presenting the group that needs no introduction during the first encore, including backing vocalists Sharon Celani, Stevvi Alexander and Lori Nicks (who’s divorced from Stevie’s brother), along with guitarist Neale Heywood and Brett Tuggle (keyboards, guitars).
The drummer who helped launch this band in 1967 with Peter Green also made sure his current axman — “one helluva guitar player” — got his due, saying of Buckingham, “I don’t know whether you, ladies and gents, have noticed that this gentleman on my left has not even left the stage if but for 30 seconds this evening.”
Lindsey Buckingham was the only member onstage during the acoustic “Big Love,” which was one of several songs — including a rollicking “Tusk” (with Christine on accordion) and the marvelously rearranged “Never Going Back Again” — that ended with him raising his guitar and throwing kisses to the crowd.
Of “Big Love,” the powerful number from 1987’s Tango in the Night that was a first-half highlight, he said, “I think it’s interesting because even though it’s not really one of the earliest songs, it represents a time, the making of the album was at a time when I was about ready to make a turn and make some changes, some adjustments in my life. … It began as kind of a contemplation on alienation, and I think it’s now, for me, become more of a meditation on the power and importance of change.”
Nicks (dedicating “Seven Wonders” to the creators of American Horror Story “for taking that song and all of Fleetwood Mac’s music to 60 million people” during last season’s Coven episodes) and Christine McVie (“Everywhere” and “Little Lies”) also dove into Tango in the Night territory. But what kept most of the 18,000 or so spectators on their feet throughout the 24-song show were nine of the 11 selections from the 1977 landmark Rumours album, starting off with “The Chain.”
That was followed in quick succession by “You Make Loving Fun” (with some hearty cheers for those so pleased to hear the woman whose birth name — Christine Anne Perfect — still seems appropriate), “Dreams” and “Second Hand News.” (Christine McVie performs at left.)
Nicks brought out the gold shawl and the age-defying dance moves for an 11-minute version of “Gold Dust Woman,” while “Go Your Own Way” and “Don’t Stop” attracted the most group sing-along participants.
Following “Go Your Own Way,” the fab five shared hugs and took a bow, Nicks holding a black top hat and the dapper Fleetwood a bright red one that matched the color of his stylish shoes. Returning for the first encore, Buckingham gave Nicks and Christine McVie soft, sweet kisses before he moved back into his rightful place as Guitar God.
It was almost like 1997 — the year of The Dance tour — all over again, when these same core band members returned to the stage after a long absence to play most of these same songs and made a magical evening in Denver happen — only then it was at McNichols Sports Arena.
How many bands can outlive arena-sized venues while — almost 40 years later — remaining basically intact and managing such masterful musicianship? Then dare to return to that same venue in another four months?
Only a year ago, Nicks was uncertain about the band’s future, keeping her fingers crossed that John McVie (right) would get healthy and that Christine was tiring of a life of leisure after making a couple of cameo appearances in Dublin and London.
“If Christine decides she wants to do it again, she will,” Nicks said during our interview on Dec. 3, 2013, for an article that appeared later that week. “If she looks deeply into it herself and says, ‘Oh my God, another five years with what I just saw them do, I can’t do it.’ You just don’t know. It’s totally up to her.”
After the final notes were played on Dec. 12, 2014, the loquacious Nicks grabbed the mic one final time to tell the crowd they were responsible — along with all the other Fleetwood Mac fans in the world — for making Christine’s return to the fold last January a reality.
“They say if you throw a wish like that up into the universe, that the universe conspires to make that happen; and honest to God … on that one day, the universe said OK, and sent a message down to Christine. …
“And we got our girl back.”
So count on McVie and the rest of Fleetwood Mac to come back in 2015, when they’ll perform throughout North America again — including an April 1 show in Denver (tickets went on sale Dec. 15) — before heading to Europe in May.
How far can they go this time? Among the numerous testimonials for Christine McVie during one of the final shows of 2014 came a most passionate prediction by Buckingham:
“In this particular moment now, in this particular moment, with the return of the beautiful Christine, with her return, I believe that we begin a profound, poetic and a prolific new chapter in the history of this band.”
With that, he tore into “I Know I’m Not Wrong,” punctuated by a searing solo and an eardrum-splitting scream of joy.
Loud and proud rang true, of course, but the lovely back-to-back Mac sentiments delivered by Nicks on “Silver Springs” and Christine McVie on “Songbird” (fittingly taking its place again as the show’s grand finale) are what ultimately will make them an everlasting symbol of endurance.
“Time casts a spell on you, but you won’t forget me” and “the songbirds keep singing” have never sounded better.
Set list: Dec. 12, 2014, at the Pepsi Center, Denver
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”
