REVIEW Fleetwood Mac Live in Atlantic City, NJ March 9, 2019

Review: Revamped Fleetwood Mac in Atlantic City
Dan Deluca | Philly.com | Photos Elizabeth Robertson

ATLANTIC CITY — The Fleetwood Mac concert at Boardwalk Hall on Saturday night began with “The Chain.”

That entrancing vamp from 1977’s Rumours, which started the two-hour, sold-out show, is the only song written together by all five members of the band’s classic lineup: Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks, and Lindsey Buckingham.

Over the years, the song has become a signature of the enduring bond of the hit-making soft-rock act that’s been no stranger to drama, surviving multiple breakups of couples within the group and of the band itself, only to come back together to with a mantra of “never break the chain.”

This version of Fleetwood Mac, however, has one key link missing. That would be Buckingham, the guitarist, singer and arranger, who was tossed last year in a dispute that Nicks has said was simply about scheduling: The band was ready to begin rehearsals for a global tour last June, and Buckingham wanted to wait five months before getting started.

The solution was to replace, with not one but two guys, Buckingham, arguably the principal architect of the massive success the band achieved after he and Nicks joined on New Year’s Eve 1974. (It was founded in 1967 as a straightforward blues-rock band under the leadership of Peter Green.)

The substitutes in the already road-tested unit -- who have been touring since October and are scheduled to play the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia on March 22 and April 5 -- are Neil Finn, the New Zealand guitarist known for leading Split Enz and Crowded House, and Mike Campbell, longtime guitarist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.