NICKS FIX

Nicks fix
Winnipeg postie would walk through hail, sleet and snow to heed Stevie's siren song
By: David Sanderson

Winnipeg Free Press

Two hours before Fleetwood Mac was scheduled to play Calgary's Pengrowth Saddledome on May 12, the concert was cancelled due to an unspecified illness within the band. Among the thousands of disappointed ticket holders that evening was Tim Magas, a Winnipeg postal carrier who collects anything/everything associated with Fleetwood Mac's ethereal vocalist, Stevie Nicks.

Magas's goal is to see Nicks perform live -- either solo or with "the Mac" -- 20 times. The Calgary gig and a May 13 show in Edmonton that was also postponed would have been Nos. 19 and 20.

"I am heartbroken," Magas said after returning to Winnipeg later that week. "Despite the cost of three flights, two hotels, meals and using vacation time to go, I am saddest about missing out on the experience of seeing Stevie two more times. That for me is priceless."

What's also priceless is the vast array of memorabilia -- let's call them Nicks-knacks -- Magas has amassed during the last three decades. Magas, who toasts the singer's birthday every May 26 with cake, candles and a chorus or two of Rhiannon, traces his fixation to a junior high school party, circa 1979.

"The party sucked but they had Rumours on," he says, referring to the group's bazillion-selling release. "I'd heard the songs on the radio before but I'd never really paid attention."

Two years later, Magas picked up Bella Donna, Nicks' first solo project. "That was when I just became totally enchanted -- head over heels, really -- with the voice, the songs, the look, the whole package."

Magas now has a wing in his basement reserved for his ticket stubs, posters, bumper stickers (?), DVDs and records. "What I'm mostly looking for now is older T-shirts," he says, noting that the 30 or so already in his closet aren't nearly enough. "There's one from her (1983) Wild Heart tour that just sold for $250. That's a bit much but..."

Naturally, Magas (favourite song: Gypsy) will be in the crowd when Fleetwood Mac appears this evening at the MTS Centre. And although the odds are remote, Magas prays that tonight will be the night when he replaces the biggest missing piece of his collectibles puzzle.

Twelve years ago, Magas flew to Las Vegas to watch Nicks perform four nights in a row at Caesar's Palace. After the final show, Magas was preparing to leave the theatre when he spotted a group of fans clutching backstage passes. He offered to buy one but nobody was selling.

Crestfallen, Magas headed back to the souvenir stand ("to get one last thing, as if I needed it...") when a woman tapped him on the shoulder. She told Magas she'd overheard him a minute earlier and asked if he wanted an extra pass she wasn't using -- free of charge.

"I was like, 'OK!!'"

The group was herded to a reception area opposite Nicks' dressing room. After about an hour, the chanteuse entered and proceeded to pose for pictures with everyone present, one at a time. "I was the last person in line and I was just standing there frozen, drenched in sweat," Magas says. "Stevie literally had to say, 'Come over here,' to get me to move.

"Then I blurted out the most clichéd, goofy thing I've ever said to anyone, anywhere, anytime. I said, 'Thank you for being the soundtrack to my life.' (Insert groans here.)

A photographer snapped a shot of the pair arm-in-arm. An assistant then instructed Magas to return at 10 a.m. the next morning to retrieve his memento. One problem: Magas's flight home was at seven, so Magas asked the lady who'd given him the pass if she'd mind picking it up and mailing it to him.

"I never did get it," Magas says, drawing a deep breath. "All I can think is that she lost the piece of paper I'd written my phone number and address on.

"So if you're asking me if there's anything out there I still want, the answer is yes. I want to meet Miss Stevie again... and I want that picture."

USO First Come First Serve

USO has first come, first serve tickets for tomorrow night's 6/10, Fleetwood Mac concert in Baltimore. One ticket per person. Call 410-305-0660. (via @Meadetv)

FLEETWOOD MAC PUT STORMY PAST BEHIND THEM

Baltimore Sun

By Chris Kaltenbach

Fleetwood Mac was famous in the 1970s for putting its members' personal bitterness on vinyl, but now, says vocalist Stevie Nicks (second from left), "We're having a blast."

Few rock 'n' roll bands openly displayed their internal fissures like Fleetwood Mac - or rode them to greater success.

But the hurt feelings and emotional turmoil that were poured onto vinyl for 1977's mega-platinum Rumours, still one of the best-selling records of all-time, are decades behind them now. When the band shows up at 1st Mariner Arena June 10, for one of the last stops in the "Greatest Hits Unleashed" North American tour, don't expect those kinds of sparks to fly. These days, everyone seems to be getting along swimmingly.

Being together off and on for more than three decades can do that to a band.

"We've been down this road, a long, long road, together," songwriter-guitarist Lindsay Buckingham said while promoting the tour. "In some ways, we know each other better than we know anybody else. We share things with each other that we've never shared with other people. I think we all want to dignify the road we've been down."

Adds drummer Mick Fleetwood, a wide-eyed giant of a man whose pounding drums have been a staple with the band since day one, "It's something that has not always been easy. But change and surviving that change ... is somewhat of a miracle, to tell you the truth."

For Fleetwood Mac, the road extends as far back as 1967, when some veterans of Britain's legendary John Mayall's Bluesbreakers decided to form their own group. Named for drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie, Fleetwood Mac saw several members come and go before solidifying in the mid-1970s. Only Fleetwood and McVie remained from the original lineup, which now included vocalists Buckingham, his girlfriend, Stevie Nicks, and McVie's wife, Christine, who also played keyboards.

That lineup was responsible for a trio of landmark albums, including 1975's Fleetwood Mac, which established the blend of pop and blues-influenced rock that would briefly make them one of the hottest bands on Earth, and 1979's Tusk, a hodgepodge of musical styles and Buckingham's doodlings that stands as one of the decade's most daring musical experiments.

Between those albums came Rumours, made while the McVies' marriage was dissolving and Buckingham and Nicks were undergoing a not-so-amicable break-up. The result, filled with anger, yearning and some of the greatest hooks of the rock era, had sold some 40 million copies worldwide at last count.

Fleetwood Mac's lineup would continue to shuffle, with Buckingham, Nicks and Christine McVie all leaving and rejoining the group at various times. But it's the Rumours-era group that will be in Baltimore tomorrow (minus Christine McVie, who quit touring for good in 1998). This is the group's first tour since 2004, and the first without a new album to promote.

"We've been apart for four years, now we're back together and we're having a blast," says Nicks, who celebrated her 61st birthday last month. "Had we been working every single year for the last four years and we were going out to do yet another tour this year, we would all be going, like, 'Uh, OK.' So this makes it very, very different and we're all excited."

That excitement even extends to the idea of not having any new music to offer, of playing only their greatest hits. The band members say they're excited by the challenge of playing to audiences whose loyalties have stood the test of time. Even more, they say, they're looking forward to playing with and for one another.

"It frees you up to kind of enjoy each other a little bit more as people," Buckingham says. "The mantra is really more 'Let's just have a good time,' and value the friendships and the history that really underpins this whole experience that we've had over these years."

(VIDEO) KATHY GRIFFIN AND BETTE MIDLER CALL STEVIE

My Life On The D-List.

Kathy Griffin and Bette Midler give Stevie a call from Bette's suite at Caesars....

Kathy trying to get Grammy votes.

(REVIEW) FLEETOOD MAC IN MILWAUKEE JUNE 8TH

Fleetwood Mac keeps the classics freshMaterial might be familiar, but time hasn't hurt well-loved tunes
By Dave Tianen of the Journal Sentinel
June. 9, 2009

The classic Fleetwood Mac lineup has released exactly one album of new material in the last 21 years.

Monday night in concert at the Bradley Center, they totally ignored that one album, "Say You Will."

I seriously doubt anyone cared. The Big Mac is on the road to milk the catalog, and that is surely what the fans want. Of the 23 songs in the current set, 14 are from the two classic mid-'70s albums, "Fleetwood Mac" and "Rumours." Those are two of the classic pop rock albums of the '70s, or any other decade for that matter. It's a set list loaded with hits and classics, including "Rhiannon," "Dreams," "Gold Dust Woman," "The Chain," "Landslide," "Monday Morning," "Go Your Own Way" and "Don't Stop."

When a huge band decides to take the oldies route and work the old hits, some questions are logical. First of all, do they seem bored or just going through the motions? The answer to that would seem to be an emphatic no. If Lindsey Buckingham was bored Monday night, it was the most frenetic display of tedium I have ever seen in my life. There is also a slight freshening effect because the old Christine McVie hits have now been parceled out between Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.

Second, has the passage of time and the weight of the years compromised their ability to deliver the goods? That's a logical question. Buckingham will turn 60 on Oct. 3, and he's the youngest person in the band. Again, Buckingham is a dynamo physically. He may be the only 59-year-old guitarist on the planet who bounces when he plays.

If Buckingham is the engine and musical master behind Fleetwood Mac, Nicks was always the visual and theatrical center. That still holds true in slightly muted form. Although she still dresses in shawls and loves to strike theatrical poses on stage, Nicks isn't quite the wood sprite sex kitten of yore. We got exactly one of the old spinning moves with the arms outspread. At 60, Nicks is a little less Tinker Bell, a little more the well-preserved Witch of Eastwick.

One of the smart things they're doing on this tour, since there aren't any new songs: They're giving us something new about the old songs. In introducing "Gypsy," Nicks reminisced about the first band she shared with Buckingham and their days of opening for Santana and Janis Joplin in San Francisco. Buckingham spoke at some length about how "Big Love" became the template for the solo songs he wrote later in his career. This is a band with history, and I think it's wise to share it with the audience.

And as Buckingham acknowledged, they also have a "complex" emotional history. Those old storms seem to have quieted with the years, and at least on stage Buckingham and Nicks seemed to have reached a state of genuine warmth and affection.

One other thing came through. I'm not sure Buckingham has ever quite gotten the credit he deserves as a guitarist. For several tunes, in the second half of the set, it was just Buckingham playing behind his own voice and Nicks, and the sound never seemed withered or small.

WINNIPEG PHOTOS OF FLEETWOOD MAC

Photos by: Dan Harper photo
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