FLEETWOOD MAC GROSS 146.2 MILLION THIS DECADE

Pollstar has compiled its year-end research from 2000 to 2009 and come up with the highest-grossing touring artists of North America for the decade.

According to POLLSTAR Fleetwood Mac placed #33 in the Top 50 grossing 146.2 million between 2000 & 2009 with 1.7 million tickets sold. Not bad for only two world tours this decade.

FLEETWOOD MAC WILL DEPART WELLINGTON FOR NEW PLYMOUTH TODAY

Band plans to duck fans
Taranaki Daily News

Supergroup Fleetwood Mac will attempt a sneaky entrance in to New Plymouth today to avoid mobs that have greeted them during their world tour.

They are playing two sold-out concerts at the TSB Bowl of Brooklands this weekend and are understood to have declined Mayor Peter Tennent's offer of a Maori powhiri, or any type of welcome, when they arrive sometime between 3pm and 5.30pm today.

That is unless band member Stevie Nicks can convince her fellow members to accept the powhiri.

New Plymouth Mayor Peter Tennent said Ms Nicks enjoyed the traditional Maori welcome to Taranaki when she was here in 2006.

"She just loved it, but if they don't want it this time and just want to get in the zone to prepare for their concert, I can understand that and fully support it."

The promoter was still trying to convince the band to accept the welcome and experience the difference between New Zealand and the rest of the world, he said.

The decision to slip quietly into the city is apparently to avoid problems similar to those encountered in other countries, where the sheer number of fans turned their arrival into chaos.

If they do not change their minds, they will be visible to their devoted followers for just a few seconds before the concert – as they leave their chartered plane to get into the cars waiting for them on the tarmac.

But just when that glimpse can be had is a closely-guarded secret.

"I won't know when they are due to arrive until just before they take off from Wellington," New Plymouth Airport manager Kevin Hill said yesterday.

Though most flights are registered weeks and months before, there is no obligation for chartered flights to do the same.

"Basically, all I know is a plane is coming and that it will fit at one of our gates. They pay us landing fees and that is it," said Mr Hill.

Whatever the former notoriously hard-living band decide, they have already had their dressing room requirements filled by venue caterers Eurest.

Though they were tight-lipped about just what those requests were. Bowl manager Adrienne Kensington was allowed to say they were quite ordinary.

"Nothing really odd at all. We've had some weird ones before, but this time we didn't have to go out of the country to get everything they wanted."

The two New Plymouth concerts are the last in the band's 10-month Unleashed tour.

More than 17,000 fans are expected each night at the outdoor venue and New Plymouth is bracing itself for 20,000 visitors from outside the region.

FLEETWOOD MAC IN NEW ZEALAND TODAY AND TOMORROW

Making life easy for Fleetwood Mac concertgoers

Tips for thousands of out-of-towners descending on New Plymouth for the Fleetwood Mac concerts tonight and tomorrow have been issued by the New Plymouth District Council.

It suggests several ways to get to the concerts at the TSB Bowl of Brooklands.

Full Article

Hospitality industry set to keep visitors happy

New Plymouth's hospitality industry is gearing up to showcase the city to visitors this weekend.

Thousands of guests are expected to flood New Plymouth for two concerts in the Fleetwood Mac Unleashed Tour at the TSB Bowl of Brooklands tonight and tomorrow night.

Full Article

VIDEO: Fleetwood Mac "Storms" with intro... Sydney, AU December 7, 2009

Nice quality....

PHOTOS: Fleetwood Mac Live in Brisbane December 16, 2009

FLEETWOOD MAC - BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA

ENTERTAINMENT CENTRE

DECEMBER 16, 2009

Photos by: Gerry Rocks

Gallery 

Well done!!

STEVIE NICKS TARANAKI DAILY NEWS PHOTO

Great shot of Stevie Nicks on pg.3 of the Taranaki Daily News December 17th. Looks to be a shot from 2006 - possibly from the last time she was in New Zealand touring solo.

PHOTOS: Fleetwood Mac Live in London October 31, 2009 at Wembley Arena

FLEETWOOD MAC - LONDON

WEMBLEY ARENA 10/31/09 (Night 2)

Photos By: ms muffet

Gallery  (View Gallery)

Wonderful shots!

(REVIEW) ROCK LEGENDS FLEETWOOD MAC SWEPT INTO PERTH

FLEETWOOD MAC @ Members Equity Stadium, Perth (12/12/09)
Review by: OneGiantLeap

It’s not often you see an arena jam-packed with both Baby Boomers and Gen Y kids pumping their fists in the air in adoration of a shared rock idol – but that’s exactly what happened last weekend when seventies rock legends Fleetwood Mac swept into Perth on their Unleashed tour and dazzled legions of fans at Members Equity Stadium.

A curious melange of punters poured into the stadium as the sun began to set: middle-aged hippies, parents and their kids, raucous bogans and hip twenty-somethings.

Once night fell, the speakers crackled to life with a crescendoing electric fuzz – it sounded like a locust plague was about to descend on the stadium – before the stage exploded with light and a chugging guitar riff launched proceedings with the band’s 1975 hit, Monday Morning.

The crowd was in almost silent awe as their idols appeared before them in the flesh. Guitarist Lindsay Buckingham bounced around in a black leather jacket while singer Stevie Nicks graced the stage whirling around in a black chiffon gown and hammering her tambourine with her black leather gloves. Drummer and namesake Mick Fleetwood resembled an old sea captain, complete with glorious white beard and red kerchief – all he lacked was a wooden pipe – while bassist John McVie kept a low profile even during a sleek, early bass solo.

The band ripped through electrifying performances of Monday Morning and The Chain, apparently impervious to the audience’s incessant screams of, “I love you, Stevie!”

After the second song of the night, Nicks welcomed the audience with an enthusiastic cry of “Welcome, Perth, Australia!” delighting the crowd.

“It’s taken a long time to get back here,” Nicks confessed in her disarming American drawl, “so let’s just get this party started!” she bellowed, before charging into one of the band’s most recognisable hits, Dreams.

Buckingham took the mic after Dreams, and the crowd fell silent to hear his address.

“Every time we get together, we say, – œLet’s just go out there and have fun!’ ... and that’s something we’ve always done. We’re just gonna do all the songs we really love and hopefully they’re the ones you love, too.”

It certainly set the mood for the first half of the concert. Promoted as a Greatest Hits tour (the band hasn’t released a studio album since 2003’s Say You Will), the band relished the opportunity to revisit their classic hits, introducing most songs with a monologue or anecdote about how the song came into being, which gave the entire performance an intimate feel: the band members were speaking directly – and candidly – to their fans.

Nicks introduced Gypsy by reminiscing about the glorious era of West Coast music in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and recounting the tale of how she and Buckingham first met and then came to join Fleetwood Mac. The namedropping came thick and fast as she recalled the band opening for late legends Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, much to fans’ delight.

The reflective mood persisted as the band tore through amped-up versions of Go Insane and Rhiannon. Buckingham was brutally honest as he touched on the past turmoil of the band, which has seen more volatile clashes and line-up changes than perhaps any rock band in history.

The most recent of these changes – the departure of singer and keyboardist Christine McVie – was particularly noticeable on tracks like Don’t Stop and Say You Love Me, where Nicks and Buckingham were forced to cover for her absence. The songs still got the audience to their feet, but there was definitely the sense that someone was missing.

Toward the latter half of the two and a half hour set, something changed. The pensive, chilled-out vibe that the band had evoked began to bubble and boil into something hotter.

It started with Tusk, the experimental marching-band tune that had the audience bouncing and screaming like maniacs for the first time all night as Buckingham pogoed around on stage like a man half – or even a third – his age; he turned sixty this year.

The Mac began to rock out after that. An acoustic version of Big Love proved that Buckingham has fingers of steel and a gravelly throat that even Dave Grohl would envy, while a metallic rendition of early tune Oh Well had fists pumping across the stadium, the band’s unique brand of folk-metal sounding clear and razor-sharp in the oft-maligned acoustics of Members Equity Stadium.

The biggest hit of the night was one from left field. Buckingham finished I’m So Afraid with a wailing guitar solo that just didn’t stop. Faces in the front rows melted as he stabbed desperately at the strings of his guitar with hands that, toward the end, were clearly burning – but the licks kept coming and the crowd kept roaring. It felt like there was a lot more at stake than there really was, and that is exactly why the entire show became so entrancing. Fleetwood Mac didn’t perform like a washed-up band rehashing their greatest hits for a quick buck: they performed as though every song, every harmony, every note was downright crucial – both artistically and personally. Nicks constantly stretched her throaty voice as high as she possibly could; Fleetwood hammered one breakdown after another on the drums; and Buckingham’s fingers were defiantly relentless. To see a band of sexagenarians at this point in their career trying this hard when they don’t even need to is something truly spectacular: the audience knew, definitively, that they were in the presence of legends.

When Buckingham’s guitar solo finished after more than five minutes, he was welcomed by a standing ovation – as was the band when they finished their set with an extended version of signature tune Go Your Own Way.

“We’ll see you next time!” Nicks promised, after the encore of Don’t Stop.

It was an enigmatic note for the 61-year-old to close on. Will Fleetwood Mac still be around for another tour in a few years’ time? Only time will tell, of course, but judging from the audience’s reaction, there’d be no complaints if these guys didn’t stop.

Fleetwood Mac Perth Setlist:

Monday Morning
The Chain
Dreams
I Know I’m Not Wrong
Gypsy
Go Insane
Rhiannon
Second-Hand News
Tusk
Sara
Big Love (acoustic)
Landslide (dedicated to Nicks’ goddaughters, Ruby and Tessa)
Never Going Back Again
Storms
Say You Love Me
Gold Dust Woman
Oh Well
I’m So Afraid
Stand Back
Go Your Own Way

Encore:
World Turning
Don’t Stop

2nd Encore:
Silver Springs

NEW PLYMOUTH POLICE NOT EXPECTING TROUBLE THIS WEEKEND

Taranaki Daily News
By MATT RILKOFF

New Plymouth's two Fleetwood Mac concerts this weekend will give police and the city a pair of Saturday nights.

But the boys in blue are not expecting any trouble from the 36,000 Fleetwood Mac fans in town for the Saturday and Sunday night concerts.

Senior Sergeant Robbie O'Keefe said police would be treating the Sunday night the same as a Saturday in terms of staff numbers to cope with the influx on fans.

As well as that 10 inner-city bars have applied for special licences to stay open until 2am on Monday morning, so Sunday's concertgoers can keep the good times rolling.

Usually the quietest night of the week, this Sunday will almost certainly see some of the 18,000 fans heading to town around 10pm. "Honestly, we aren't expecting any trouble from them," Mr O'Keefe said. "We'll be there to make sure everyone is having a good time and the CBD remains vibrant and safe for them to do that."

That vibrancy will be visible on the streets longer than usual with most bars extending their outdoor areas for the two nights and keeping them open longer.

Usually such outdoor spots have to move inside by 1am but on Sunday morning they will be allowed until 3am and Monday 2am.

Venture Taranaki's regional tourism man, Paul Stancliffe, said while many people would start arriving in the city today and tomorrow, most of the 20,000 non-Taranaki people expected would be travelling here on Saturday. "With both concerts sold out we can expect town to be saturated with people, hopefully not with rain," he said.

At this stage Saturday's weather is looking to be cloudy and with a small chance of rain. Sunday fares a little better with mostly clear skies.

The decades old supergroup finished the Australian leg of their Unleashed tour last night in Brisbane, with New Plymouth their next gigs.

Reviews of their concerts have been overwhelmingly enthusiastic.

Kathy McCabe, music editor of Sydney's The Daily Telegraph said of the concert "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."

The city's two sold-out shows are the group's last in their 10-month global tour but it seems unlikely they will stop playing together.

Rumours are already swirling about a possible US tour with The Eagles next year.