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LONDON: Their current world concert tour has taken Fleetwood Mac to Great Britain and Europe for the first time in five years, and will bring them to Japan and Australia for the first concert tour before this year is out. In their adopted homeland, American fans fiave been swarming to Fleetwood Mac shows. The June 29 and 30 gigs in New York’s Madison Square Garden were sold out more than a month in advance. While the current U.S. touring is an expected success, their return to the-continent is to re¬ introduce the group to a home country that had largely forgotten that Fleetwood Mac ever existed.
Promotional visits often seem to achieve little, for Fleetwood Mac the trip home paid big dividends. The year-old ‘Fleetwood Mac’ album which had till their return sold less than 10,000 copies, crept into the album charts. A few months later, the follow up album, ‘Rumours’, leapt straight into the top ten. The single “Go Your Own Way” even gave the group their first chart entry since “Green Manalishi” in 1970, when Peter Green was still with the group. And, a major hit single seems likely before the year is out if the critical and popular reaction to their sell-out tour is any¬ thing to judge by.
When the two recent recruits, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined two years ago, the English trio of Mick Fleetwood, John McVie and Christine McVie had already helped lay most of the foundations for today’s group (through albums like ‘Kiln House’, ‘Future Games’, and ‘Bare Trees'). What Buckingham and Nicks brought was a hitherto unachieved stability rather than any change of musical direction.
They also sealed the striking image of the group, and their “American” identity. For, while Fleetwood Mac’s visit was a homecoming, their first British dates in almost half a decade, it was less the return of triumphant Britishers than a first visit by California curios. Fleetwood Mac’s audience in Britain is the America lovers, the Los Angeles cult followers, not those who once championed the British blues band.
Mick Fleetwood was well aware of this, though he and the rest were surprisingly nervous and aware of the pressure on them at the first of three packed nights at London’s Rainbow Theatre. Earlier, Christine McVie had said she felt a sense of homecoming at Birmingham, her home town. But the most surprising reaction came from Stevie Nicks: “We obviously don’t need England from a financial point of view, but we need England, in that it's still home for John and Mick and Chris, and if it’s home for them it’s our proxy home.”
“I didn’t want to come,’ she added candidly. On that last promotional visit Stevie had ultimately had a bad time, because throughout a day of interviews journalists repeatedly knew nothing of the new band and had nothing to ask her. Even at the lavish reception held for the group,, they were upstaged by the arrival of former leader Peter Green.
But whereas Green has since entered a further tragic stage in his career, he’s been committed to an asylum for the second time in five years, the Fleetwood Mac soap opera has taken an upswing for the group that today carries its name.
Stevie, on this visit, was besotted with would-be interviewers. Her, and Lindsey Buckingham have also had the satisfaction of seeing their three year old ‘Buckingham Nicks’ album be released in Britain and meet with critical success. Lindsey even spoke of their possibly recording another album outside of Fleetwood Mac itself.
Today Fleetwood Mac needs no re-introduction to mother country fans. The only calls for “Albatross” and “Dust My Broom” are from a boozey minority. The triumphs and shouts are for new numbers like “Rhiannon” and “Go Your Own Way”. Their performances are as exhilarating as their music in cold wet London towne, for Fleetwood Mac returned home with their own brand of warm California easy listening rock.
—Mick Houghton
Circus Magazine July 21, 1977
