Showing posts with label Fleetwood Mac Unleashed Tour Review - Sydney. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fleetwood Mac Unleashed Tour Review - Sydney. Show all posts

Friday, December 11, 2009

VIDEO: Stevie Nicks retools "Gold Dust Woman" Sydney, AU December 8, 2009

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA AND THE GOLD DUST WOMAN
DECEMBER 8, 2009




By far the most fluid song in the set... It keeps changing with almost every show, either in the way Lindsey and Mick are playing on it, or in Stevie's delivery. Check out the ending of the video... Stevie's ad libs are different yet again...I love it!  Great capture and sound from whomever filmed this.

To the shadow...
Through the shadow...
Lost her in the shadow
Let her go into the shadow
Dropped her in the shadow
Didn't care about the shadows
She's gone into the shadow
Runnin' to the shadow
Lost her in the shadow
In the shadow
She's gone into the shadow
She's gone into the shadow




Wednesday, December 09, 2009

REVIEW: Fleetwood Mac Sydney, Australia December 8th

Loyal fans ignore the cracks in heritage rock
By: Bernard Zuel

Fleetwood Mac
Acer Arena, December 8

THIS is not meant to be a story about change. Things don't change in a hurry, if at all, in what the Americans call heritage rock. As in, solid as a rock. As in, preserved just as it was when we first saw it rock.

This of course is hardly going to cause complaints in an audience who have come for the security and comfort of the familiar: if they wanted new songs, they would buy a new album by some new artist. And what's an MP3 anyway?


The structure of this tour is much the same as five years ago: the songs - the hits, naturally, with one song each from a Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks solo album; the solo spots (Buckingham alone for Big Love; Buckingham and Nicks duet for the excellent Landslide); and the solos (Buckingham, as often as possible; John McVie briefly and Mick Fleetwood once).


There were also the absences. Without Christine McVie's songs this show is diminished and let's not get started on the wiped-from-history pre-1975 versions of Fleetwood Mac. And the additions (the multiple extra voices and instruments augmenting the remaining parts of the ''classic'' line-up).

But there were some changes worth noting and not just the fact that Mick Fleetwood's banal drum solo, complete with gibbering, was kept to less than 10 minutes (oh hallelujah!). Or that apart from occasional great moments such as Second Hand News and the set-closing Go Your Own Way, tempos and energy levels were frustratingly half a pace off, deadening songs such as Storms.

First, while Nicks's voice is in even poorer state than five years ago - the top range is long gone, the middle range is wobbly and songs such as Rhiannon can never recover - and her movements more stiff and limited, she seemed much more engaged with the songs, the audience and her bandmates this time.

On the other hand, a self-satisfied Buckingham was even more over the top, balancing his evident status as the healthiest and most capable musician in the band with a tendency to mug furiously and ridiculously. Perhaps unwittingly his voice was considerably louder than anyone else's in the mix so that when he and Nicks sang together her voice disappeared.

Not that the audience, wildly applauding anything and everything and offering standing ovations freely, minded. That's another thing which never changes.

Monday, December 07, 2009

(REVIEW) Fleetwood Mac rock Sydney at Acer Arena

By Kathy McCabe, Music Editor

MUSIC is always at its most powerful when it pushes your memory buttons and Fleetwood Mac carressed and pummelled all those sweet spots at Acer Arena last night.

The veteran band who ushered in the west-coast sound has lost none of its fire but gained the self-awareness afforded by survival in the music business, using their legendary tensions, relationship breakdowns and drug problems to introduce so many great songs from Rumours and beyond.

Stevie Nicks may shirk just a few high notes now and then but her rendition of the soaring Sara was enough to bring tears to your eyes.

Lindsey Buckingham was in extraordinary form with his guitar solos and vocals but a little too in-your-face during those grunting moments.

The men holding it all together were chalk and cheese _ bassist John McVie the understated engine room while the delicious craziness and astonishing energy levels of Mick Fleetwood were enough to keep you gasping.

Hit after hit after hit, the setlist would represent the Holy Grail to any band who has only a couple of records under their belt.

Almost the entirety of Rumours _ Go Your Own Way, Don't Stop, Dreams, Second hand News, Silver Springs, Never Going Back Again, Gold Dust Woman, The Chain _ plus Rhiannon, Tusk, Big Big Love and the beautiful Sara gave the devoted fans exactly what they wanted.

Fleetwood Mac perform at Acer Arena again tonight.

UNLEASHED IN SYDNEY