LANKY STICKS MAN BEHIND FLEETWOOD MAC

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

Montreal Mirror

It’s not often you get a chance to talk to a legend, and the rather lanky sticks man behind Fleetwood Mac, Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Famer Mick Fleetwood, is indeed a card-carrying member in the legendary set, having cut his teeth during the British blues explosion of the mid-’60s with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and then of course recording one of the biggest selling records of all time in 1977, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours.

Now in his sixties, Fleetwood is feeling a little bit nostalgic these days, having managed to get Fleetwood Mac’s most famous line-up back on the road (well, almost—keyboardist Christine McVie chose to tend to her garden instead). Fleetwood’s on the cusp of seeing the Rumours deluxe edition re-released, and releasing the Mick Fleetwood Blues Band’s Blue Again!, which revisits all the original Fleetwood Mac blues classics.

“I really have nothing but amazing joy when I think of those days,” says Fleetwood. “We had such an amazing journey in such a short space of time, it blows my mind. I still consider myself more of a bluesman than a pop star and I think that the music we made back then still really holds up.”

CONTINUE

PHOTOS: Fleetwood Mac - June 11, 12009 - New York City

Debra L Rothenberg Photos

Mick Fleetwood makes an appearance at Barnes & Noble

TODAY - 12 NOON - NEW YORK CITY

Rock legend Mick Fleetwood makes an appearance at Barnes & Noble on Fifth Ave. Probably best known for his contributions to the band, Fleetwood Mac, this time the rocker appears solo to promote his newest album “Blue Again.” The album was released on March 17 and features several collaborations. 12 Noon; free admission. 555 Fifth Ave. (212-697-3048).

REVIEW: Monday Morning Launched The Show - Fleetwood Mac Live in Toronto

FLEETWOOD MAC

AIR CANADA CENTRE

TORONTO, CANADA - March 17, 2009

REVIEWED BY:CONCERTAHOLICS.COM

Monday Morning launched the show off followed by The Chain and Dreams. Lindsey showed his strong presence early here in the show… his unique vocals and of course his guitar mastery. I wasn’t expecting to hear “Gypsy” and it was real cool to experience as it totally brought me back to the early 80’s. Think about how many times you heard that tune on the radio back then?

FULL REVIEW

FLICKR PICS

BUCKINGHAM NICKS STILL HAVE TENSION, LOVE

Exerpts from a CNN Interview....

Mac's Buckingham, Nicks still have tension, love

Full Interview Here
Video segment

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Most musicians don't like doing interviews at their homes. It's much too private. Stevie Nicks, however, has no problem inviting journalists to her big colonial house in Pacific Palisades, half a mile above the California coastline.

"It's just easier," she confides.

Perhaps that's true. But after three decades in the public eye, she really has nothing to hide. Fans know all about her fabled history with Fleetwood Mac -- in particular, her tumultuous relationship with the band's prodigal guitarist, Lindsey Buckingham.

Even hovering around age 60, they are yin and yang. Buckingham is spirited and hot -- in sharp contrast to Nicks' eternal cool. The tension that fueled such songs as "The Chain," "Dreams" and "Go Your Own Way" in the late '70s is still palpable -- and they seem to return to it instinctively, like muscle memory.

But these days, there's also a certain acceptance and understanding.

Along with bandmates Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, Buckingham and Nicks are back on the road with Fleetwood Mac for their first tour in five years. It's a celebration of their greatest hits, as well as 30 years together as a group. During our interview, Buckingham and Nicks reminisced about how their rocky relationship became immortalized in their music -- while Buckingham's wife Kristen snapped photos six feet away.

CNN: This is the first Fleetwood Mac tour in five years.

Stevie Nicks: We don't like comebacks. We don't make comebacks. We're not making a comeback. We never went away.

Lindsey Buckingham: Every time we get together, it's like a whole new group of people.

CNN: People have always been fascinated by the dynamic between the members of Fleetwood Mac. You guys lived together, worked together, wrote songs about each other and dated each other.

Buckingham: I think if the media (paparazzi) had existed in 1977 when we were going through break-ups within the band and still moving forward on a professional level, the tabloidism that exists today would have probably eaten us alive.

Nicks: Let's use Britney Spears as an example, poor little thing. In our day, I think that the audiences revered their rock stars -- and I say that with all respect -- that our audiences cared about us, and took care of us and would never have put us under that kind of danger. I would have been a very unpleasant star if people treated me the way people treat the kids that are out there now. If I had to feel that somebody was waiting for me every time I came out, I would never leave the house. I hardly leave the house, as it is!

CNN: What do you think about, Stevie, when you are out there on stage and you hear "Go Your Own Way?" Does it bring back memories of what you were going through at the time -- because that song was about you, wasn't it?

Nicks: I think.

CNN: Lindsey?

Buckingham: Indeed, it was. Yeah, completely autobiographical. You know, the funny thing was I don't think we were aware we were writing songs specifically to each other. It was really only when our audience picked up on it that it became obvious we were dealing with a completely transparent, autobiographical piece of work.

Nicks: If Lindsey and I had been happy, happy, happy, there would have been no "Go Your Own Way." It would have just been, "Here we are -- happy, happy." And the audience would have been like, "OK, well -- next couple."

So you know, we played off of it. We had fun with it. We could actually walk on stage and have our own little almost-love affair, and have the audience go, "Oh my God! They're getting back together!" And we'd be like, "They're falling for it!" You know, we would totally play it, and we did, and we do, and we always will.

CNN: You both recently completed solo projects. Lindsey, you have your solo album, "Gift of Screws," and Stevie, there's an upcoming CD and DVD ("The Soundstage Sessions" and "Live in Chicago," respectively).

Nicks: We've been lucky. You do Fleetwood Mac, and then you work on your own stuff, and then you do Fleetwood Mac and then you work on your own stuff. As much as I love my solo work, I'm a little bored with it, so I can put that away in its magical box and I can go straight into working with three of my favorite people in the whole world.

Fleetwood Mac is bigger than anything Lindsey and I solo-wise will ever do. I never rented a 737 jet for my solo tour. So now we get to be grand, and at the end of the tour, it's kisses for everybody and goodbye. Go do your own thing, and we'll meet up again in two or three years.

"CRASH" AND "SOUNDSTAGE SESSIONS"

Stevie Nicks' "Crash" single is now available on itunes (Canada)

The Soundstage Sessions CD is available for pre-order  with the two track bonus of "Gold Dust Woman" and "Edge of Seventeen".

REVIEW: Fleetwood Mac Live in Toronto - Hit Makers Delivered a Crisp Concert

FLEETWOOD MAC: AIR CANADA CENTRE IN TORONTO

When Fleetwood Mac began preparing for its current greatest-hits tour, the idea was to use Sheryl Crow as a lean, tan stand-in for former singer-pianist Christine McVie. But, either because of scheduling problems or because of Crow's unfrivolous concern that she would be required to sleep with at least one current band member, the All I Wanna Do singer passed. So it was Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, and band namesakes John McVie and Mick Fleetwood who arrived at Toronto's Air Canada Centre for the first of seven Canadian dates. Brad Wheeler scores the four

BRAD WHEELER

GLOBE AND MAIL

March 19, 2009

LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM

Monday Morning, the singer-guitarist's 1975 song of romantic indecision, came early - too early for the soundman, who hadn't turned on Buckingham's microphone yet. His singing, a bit scratchy to begin, improved as the 23-song show went along. Buckingham, a fit 59, dazzled as a guitarist, whether on the shimmering delta-blues intro to The Chain, the genteel finger-picking of Never Going Back Again, the iconic solo of Second Hand News or the superhuman arena-rocking shredding of I'm So Afraid. The same magic fingers that plucked those strings also, as the band walked onstage, clasped the hands of the golden-haired diva to his right.

STEVIE NICKS

"Now, I think we should get this party started," the woman in the flowing black gown said, audaciously, given that the concert was already a pair of songs in. But Dreams, third on the set list, was her first moment. Nicks, at 60, is no longer a sultry waif. Her voice is lamb-like; on Don't Stop, I wished that she would, because she was not suited for Christine McVie's parts. She was wonderful on signature pieces Sara and Rhiannon, though, and was positively jaunty with her black top hat on the buoyant singalong Go Your Own Way. Nice shawls, naturally, and her tambourine and mike stand had scarves attached.

JOHN McVIE

Commenting on the chaos of the time and giving name to the band's landmark album of 1977, McVie observed that the songs sounded like gossip or rumours. Possibly, the hang-dog bassist hasn't opened his mouth since. With his newsboy cap, the 63-year-old Englishman appeared as a country gentleman, hanging back near the drum stand. But his playing, melodic in counterpoint to Buckingham's often percussive style, was noticeable. On the Who-intensity blues-rock of Oh Well, he was vigorous like John Entwistle, and the considerable bounce of Dreams came from his Fender-made instrument.

MICK FLEETWOOD

The overly tall, 61-year-old drummer is grey and bald - his pate shone like the gong behind him (which he never struck). His presence (and his lunatic grin) showed more often as the evening progressed: The jungle-tastic energy during World Turning made his drum solo the most bearable one I've ever had the pleasure to witness.

DON'T STOP THINKING ABOUT TOMORROW

All in all, the historic hit-makers (augmented by three backup singers and a pair of sidemen) delivered a crisp concert - if anything, the longer it went, the better it got. "We plan to have fun on this tour, because there's no album - yet," Buckingham suggestively quipped at one point. Hmmm, just think what tomorrow will do.

Fleetwood Mac plays Ottawa, March 23; Montreal, March 25; Toronto, March 26; Calgary, May 12; Edmonton, May 13; Vancouver, May 15.

GOLD DUST WOMAN

Gold Dust Woman
Richard Burnett
hour.ca

My favourite rock stars have always been women - Tina Turner, Chaka Khan and Stevie Nicks - because their narratives, in life, love and song, speak to me, whereas the lyrics and life experiences of most straight men rarely do.

I've seen Tina perform live 27 times - notably in 1984 at the Spectrum where she found out backstage that What's Love Got to Do With It was number 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart - as well as Chaka Khan, whom I interviewed in this column in 2007.

"When I've been in need, when things weren't going well, the gay community always bailed me out," Chaka told me. "They're my most loyal friends and following and they have a special place in my heart."

But the one woman rock star I've never interviewed is Stevie Nicks. Lord knows I've tried. Former Warner Records USA president Howie Klein, who occasionally lectures at McGill University, is a friend of Stevie's and some years ago he introduced me to Warner PR powerhouse Liz Rosenberg who handles all publicity for Madonna.

Rosenberg set me up a Nicks phoner but that and a rescheduled Nicks interview were both cancelled at the last minute when Fleetwood Mac went into rehearsals for their 2003 Say You Will Tour.

I've been flailing in the wind ever since. That is until Fleetwood Mac announced their current Unleashed Tour that brings the band to Montreal next week.

This time I got band leader and drummer Mick Fleetwood on a press conference call with 30 other journalists from across Canada.

So I asked Mick - whose side project The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band has just released a terrific new live album, Blue Again - what the band dynamics are like now for Stevie since the only other woman in the band, Christine McVie, quit 12 years ago.

"Stevie's had a very successful solo career, so she brings that ability [to front a band] back to Fleetwood Mac," Mick replies. "She also puts on a new coat and becomes a band member. For many years she called all of her own shots, but in Fleetwood Mac she lets that [guard] down and pays respect to the other band members."

Nicks, with her then-partner Lindsey Buckingham, got her start with manager David Forest whom she met at Stanford University in 1966. Forest - who went on to work for Bill Graham at the Fillmore, then headed up the contemporary music division at CMA with David Geffen in 1970, before becoming a super-agent in Hollywood's multi-billion-dollar porn biz - managed Nicks and Buckingham's first band, Fritz, before they joined Fleetwood Mac.

"I knew Stevie would be a star the night Fritz opened for Janis Joplin and Big Brother at the Fillmore," David told me in 2007. "After her band members left I told Stevie, 'Stay and meet Janis.' Stevie looked at Janis and she saw herself in her."

Over the next 35 years Nicks would write and record a string of classic hits, many of which Fleetwood Mac will perform in Montreal: Rhiannon, Landslide, Gypsy, Dreams, Sara, Gold Dust Woman, and (my personal favourite) Storms, which Fleetwood Mac has never before performed on tour. The setlist also includes one of Stevie's monster solo hits, Stand Back.

So, I ask, how did Fleetwood Mac negotiate the setlist?

"We've always done Stand Back because people love to hear the song and Stevie loves doing it," Mick explains. "It's a ballbuster and gets her up there doing her thing. But we can't play eight Stevie [solo] songs or we'd have a riot in the ranks!"

Fleetwood continues, "A lot of bands play great music and don't get on. It's a business arrangement. With us business is involved but we're pretty damned happy with each other. Stevie and Lindsey still see [music] in different ways, but I would be an idiot as band leader if I didn't make sure the front line wasn't happy. You don't have a band if you can't co-exist."

Meanwhile, former Warner head Howie Klein once told me over breakfast that Stevie also cherishes her gay fan base. In fact, on May 1, Hour Editor-in-Chief Jamie O'Meara and I are jetting to NYC to catch the 19th annual Night of a Thousand Stevies, the internationally famed drag-queen tribute to Nicks.

VIP guests over the years have included Debbie Harry (dressed as Stevie!), Boy George, Courtney Love and Cyndi Lauper, and this year Jamie and I will attend with Village Voice gossip columnist Michael Musto.

"Stevie is very aware of her gay fans and has donated personal items [that were] auctioned off [for charity] at Night of a Thousand Stevies, which we have encouraged her [to attend]," Howie told me.

So if you can't see the real Stevie at the Bell Centre next week, don't miss Night of a Thousand Stevies, which each year ends with a spectacular onstage Stevie Nicks drag-queen battle royal. Who knows, we may even get an audience with the real Stevie.

REVIEW: Fleetwood Mac at the Air Canada Centre, March 17, 2009

Iconic west-coast rockers stop thinking about tomorrow long enough to journey through the past

BY PAUL ISAACS
March 18, 2009
EDITORIAL RATING: 4/5

EYEWEEKLY.COM

"Unleashed" seems like a very odd title for a Fleetwood Mac tour. "Unleashed" is a word that suggests risk and danger — even the possibility of violence. That might be appropriate for an Yngwie Malmsteen concert, perhaps, or a Satanic Slaughter comeback tour, but Fleetwood Mac? Unleashed by who — and to do what? Shake their jewelry at us? A greatest-hits tour by a band who, decades after their heyday, remain one of the best-selling, most iconic and recognizable groups in the world — that's hardly a risk-filled proposition. (Unleashed by their accountants, perhaps.)

Still, it's great to have them back. And I suppose the concert was ferocious enough to just about deserve that "Unleashed" moniker. The band started, unfortunately, with the night's three worst performances, with Lindsay Buckingham faltering on the lyrics to the very first line of "Monday Morning," and the mix sounding abysmally echo-y and indistinct — as it would, with intermittent exceptions, for the entire evening. "The Chain," which followed, was just as stumblebum, with John McVie fluffing the cue to the bass riff at the start of Buckingham's guitar solo. (Don't worry, John, it's only the most important part of the song.) When Stevie Nicks then promised to finally "get this party started," only to respond with an off-key, pudding-paced "DREAMS," you felt the audience starting to brace for the worst.

Thankfully, things improved in drastic fashion with "I Know I'm Not Wrong," the first of several numbers from the Mac's seminal Tusk double album. When the band said this was a greatest-hits tour, they weren't kidding — save for "Gyspy" and "Big Love" (from Mirage and Tango in The Night, respectively), two numbers from Buckingham and Nicks's solo careers ("Go Insane" and "Stand Back"), and a cracking performance of Peter Green's "Oh Well (Part 1)," the band stuck entirely to the three records that made their name in the 1970s: their self-titled 1975 album, Tusk, and — of course — Rumours.

You would have thought that Nicks, with her drapes and scarves and bangles and glitter and multiple costume changes (I counted four, including a last-minute encore change into a pair of knee-high white pointy-heeled boots) would have dominated the concert, but in fact Buckingham provided most of the gig's most memorable moments: scissor kicking and primal-yelping with glee at the end of several songs, and indulging in a sublimely wanky, seven-minute (!) guitar odyssey during "I'm So Afraid," a solo that only appeared to end because he ran out of high notes to play on his fretboard.

Nicks, on the other hand, had to pace herself — not worrying about hitting the high notes on her first few songs, then going ballistic by the time the band reached "Sara" and "Gold Dust Woman" later in the set. Christine McVie, who last played with the band in 1998, opted once again out of performing this year, and while her absence was obvious on the group's last record, Say You Will — she's essentially the McCartney to Buckingham and Nicks's Lennon — she wasn't missed tonight, with Buckingham and Nicks providing creditable vocal turns on two of her songs, "Say You Love Me" and a predictable (if well-performed and received) encore of "Don't Stop."

"The 'Mac is back!" Mick Fleetwood yelled at the end of the show (dressed, for some reason, in red shoes and knickerbockers) — and they certainly were. Just for once during this financial crisis, let's raise a toast to accountants.