Friday, December 05, 2014

DENVER: Fleetwood Mac drummer steps out front with photo show

MICK FLEETWOOD 
PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBIT
Fascination St. Fine Art presents recent work by the founder and drummer of the band Fleetwood Mac through December 26th.  Mick Fleetwood will also appear at the gallery to greet fans from 7:30 to 9:00 PM on December 11th, prior to the band's concert at Pepsi Center on December 12th at 315 Detroit St. The gallery is free but register for the appearance in advance by calling. 303-333-1566 or fascinationst.com.

Stevie Nicks' Polaroid Self-Portraits on Display in Miami Today


After a successful run in New York City, a collection of Polaroid self-portraits -- old school selfies, if you will -- that Stevie Nicks took of herself in the '70s and '80s is going on display starting today in Miami, Florida, as part of the city's prestigious Art Basel show of modern and contemporary art.

Unlike these days, when taking a picture of yourself is as easy as breathing, Nicks says creating her portraits -- featured in the packaging of her current solo album, 24 Karat Gold -- was "a huge deal," adding, "It was like writing a song."

"You know, that Polaroid had a button that plugged into it and then it was on a long cord and that was on a tripod.  So it really was a thing," she tells ABC News Radio of the portraits, for which she styled herself in a variety of costumes and poses.  "So if I was setting up...to take photographs, I could set up a whole scene, and then...leave it set up for two or three days.  So I could take two or three nights after shows, and really go for that one shot."


Thursday, December 04, 2014

Review: Fleetwood Mac Oakland, CA December 3, 2014

Fleetwood Mac Leads a Loaded Reunion at Oracle Arena
SFWeekly
Posted By Emma Silvers
Photo by: Noah Graham
VIEW MORE PHOTOS AT SFWEEKLY
Fleetwood Mac
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Oracle Arena

Better than: listening to a cassette tape of Rumours on repeat on a long drive down I-5.

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.

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."

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..."

Can you blame her if it's cheesy? You can't. You can't blame any of them, especially not Christine McVie, her alto and perfect hair seemingly untouched by the ravages of time, when she 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 choking death of Eric Garner at the hands of plainclothes police officer in New York. 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.

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.

Critic's Notebook

— They played for a solid three-plus hours, with minimal breaks. Wide, wide grins all around.

— Three backup vocalists, though tucked at the back of the stage, added a layer of epicness to the most bombastic choruses. Bonus: One of them was Nicks's red-haired sister, Lori Nicks.

Photos by Gloomboy - View Gallery on Flickr


SEVEN WONDERS
LANDSLIDE

Mick Fleetwood: "I felt like a whore"

CBC.ca
Q Arts Music Culture Entertainment

Fleetwood Mac has long been associated with chaos and change, but for the band's 47 years, there has been at least one constant: the steady drumming of Mick Fleetwood. 

The veteran musician joins guest host Tom Power to discuss his new autobiography, Play On: Now, Then, and Fleetwood Mac, the blues-turned-rock band's many manifestations, and why he "felt like a whore" pulling his reluctant co-founder Peter Green along after the singer and guitarist became disillusioned. 

Click on this Link to hear Micks full 18 minute interview segment.

NEW DATES: Fleetwood Mac Add 11 Additional U.S./Canada Dates To On With The Show Tour

Fleetwood Mac have added 11 additional U.S. shows next March and April, 2015.



Fleetwood Mac have announced 11 additional U.S./Canada dates to the On With The Show Tour. Last month the band added more than 25 new dates to its “On With the Show” tour, the first to feature the full Mac, including Christine McVie, for the first time in 16 years.

Tickets will go on sale to the public at 10 a.m. Dec. 13 through all Ticketmaster outlets, www.ticketmaster.com, www.livenation.com, the Live Nation app or by calling 1-800-745-3000. American Express cardholders can get a jump on purchasing tickets beginning at 10 a.m. Dec. 9 through 10 p.m. Dec. 14. Ticket prices for the new date haven’t been announced, but the range for their December show is $49.50-$179.50.

Tickets available via Ticketmaster

Mar 03, 2015 Houston, TX Toyota Center**
Mar 04, 2015 Dallas, TX American Airlines Center
Mar 21, 2015 Miami, FL American Airlines Arena
Mar 23, 2015 Orlando, FL Amway Arena
Mar 25, 2015 Atlanta, GA Philips Arena
Apr 01, 2015 Denver, CO Pepsi Center**
Apr 04, 2015 Vancouver, BC Rogers Arena
Apr 06, 2015 Bakersfield, CA Rabobank Arena
Apr 07, 2015 Oakland, CA Oracle Arena
Apr 10, 2015 Los Angeles, CA The Forum (on sale Dec. 13)
Apr 11, 2015 Las Vegas, NV MGM Grand Garden Arena

Wednesday, December 03, 2014

Review: Fleetwood Mac Live in San Diego, CA December 2, 2014

Fleetwood Mac's concert reunion a triumph

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

by George Varga
UTSanDiego.com
Photos by: John Gastaldo
View Gallery

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 "Gold Dust Woman" 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.

I'M SO AFRAID
GOLD DUST WOMAN (Stevie was on fire!)
NEVER GOING BACK AGAIN

Stevie Nicks brings her self(ies) to South Beach Dec 4th and 5th

Stevie Nicks will grace the aptly named Dream South Beach with her bewitching self-portrait collection 

The Dream South Beach is showcasing our supreme witch/hippie goddess’ collection of self portraits taken from 1975 to 1987. Just released by Nicks this year, the polaroids were taken in her home and hotel rooms on tour. Nicks describes the collection: “Some people don’t sleep at night – I am one of those people. These pictures were taken long after everyone had gone to bed – I would begin after midnight and go until 4 or 5 in the morning. I stopped at sunrise – like a vampire… I never really thought anyone would ever see these pictures, they went into shoeboxes, where they remained. I did everything – I was the stylist, the makeup artist, the furniture mover, the lighting director. It was my joy – I was the model…”

Exhibition runs from Thursday, Dec. 4, until Friday, Dec. 5, Dream South Beach, 1111 Collins Ave.




STEVIE NICKS "24 KARAT GOLD - SONGS FROM THE VAULT"
Out Now! Order from Stevienicksofficial.com

Fleetwood Mac Add 5 NEW shows in the UK and Ireland


Fleetwood Mac have added a 6th show in London, a 3rd show in Birmingham and Glasgow Plus 2nd shows in Leeds and Dublin. 

Tickets for London, Birmingham, Leeds and Glasgow go on sale Thursday, December 4th and for Dublin on Monday, December 8th.  Tickets available via Ticketmaster or for the London shows you can use AXS.

27, June - London, UK
04, July - Birmingham, UK
05, July - Leeds, UK
08, July - Glasgow, SCO
10, July - Dublin, IE

Monday, December 01, 2014

Fleetwood Mac to Headline Isle of Wight Festival 2015

Fleetwood Mac will headline the Isle Of Wight Festival Sunday, June 14, 2015.
Tickets will be on sale Fri, December 5th via the Isle of Wright website.
 
Fleetwood Mac to headline Isle of Wight festival 2015
 
The band’s only festival performance of 2015 will see them reunited with keyboardist and songwriter Christine McVie
 
Fleetwood Mac have announced their only festival performance of 2015 – and it won’t be at Glastonbury. The band have signed up to play the Isle of Wight festival on Sunday 14 June, the band’s first – and only – UK festival appearance since Christine McVie returned to the band to complete the classic 1970s line-up.
 
A statement from the band said: “We’ve always wanted to come to the UK to play the Isle of Wight festival, and so we are delighted that in 2015 we are finally making it happen. So many fellow artists and friends have played at this historic event over the years, and we can’t wait to see all of our fans on the island next summer.”
 
The booking ends months of speculation that the group, who have a series of UK dates booked in June, would headline Glastonbury. Instead, they will play at a festival that has, in the past, hosted Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan and the Doors. More recent bookings have included the Stone Roses, Bruce Springsteen and Red Hot Chili Peppers.
 
Festival-goers will have the chance to see the band’s most famous lineup, responsible for their trio of classic 1970s albums Fleetwood Mac, Rumours and Tusk – as well as the 1987 smash Tango in the Night. Until this year, the band had been without their songwriter and keyboardist Christine McVie, who left the band in 1998. But following a brief guest spot at the O2 in London in September 2013, McVie revealed her desire to rejoin permanently and, in January 2014, Mick Fleetwood confirmed that the keyboardist was returning full time. McVie returned to the stage in September to play with the band at Minneapolis’s Target Centre.
 
Isle of Wight festival organiser John Giddings said that the band had been on his wishlist for some time: “I’m very pleased and extremely proud to have them headline next year’s event. With Christine now back in the band, too, it is going to be a momentous occasion, a moment in music history.”