Monday, September 30, 2013

Reviews: Fleetwood Mac Live in Birmingham "Big personalities and classic songs give fans an evening of pure energy"

Fleetwood Mac Live in Birmingham
Sunday, September 29, 2013 - LG Arena
by Enda Mullen
Birmingham Post

Big personalities and classic songs give fans an evening of pure energy

Fleetwood Mac might be middle of the road musically speaking but the soap opera that’s the story of the band is about as rock ‘n’ roll as it gets.

It’s a saga characterised by battles and broken relationships and the kind of hard living that would put even the most notorious rock star to shame.

The hell-raising might be no more but the love/hate relationship of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham lives on in many of the songs.

And what songs they are too, with the band producing a soundtrack for a whole generation.

This was a concert of epic proportions, 23 songs in total and not far short of three hours from start to finish, with the band on fire as they plundered the riches of their amazing back catalogue.

There was room for a new song in the shape of Sad Angel, which sounded good but didn’t really get the crowd to their feet in the way The Chain, Rhiannon, Tusk and Landslide did.

Given the big personalities and talents of Nicks and Buckingham it would be easy to overlook founder members Mick Fleetwood and John McVie who give the band its beating heart and clearly still relish playing live.

Other musical highlights included Sara, Big Love, Gypsy, Gold Dust Woman and Don’t Stop, although Say Goodbye, while an appropriate song to end on, didn’t offer the kind of rousing finale the show deserved.

After an evening of pure energy and exemplary musicianship that would put many bands half their age to shame Fleetwood Mac signed off with a lingering farewell that made one wonder whether it may be the last time they take to the stage.

Fleetwood Mac, at LG Arena, Birmingham
By Steve Adams 

Rocks greatest soap opera goes on and on...

Forget Downton Abbey, if you wanted Sunday night drama then the LG Arena was the place to be this weekend, as Fleetwood Mac offered another episode in rock’s longest-running soap opera.

The Anglo-US act will forever be remembered for Rumours, one of the greatest and biggest-selling albums of all time, which was inspired by the band members’ dissolving relationships - and for some reason they feel compelled to milk the melodrama at every opportunity.

Singer Stevie Nicks and guitarist-singer Lindsey Buckingham – whose break-up provided by many of the songs on that album - arrived on stage holding hands, turned to face each other during several poignant numbers and even shared a hug during Sara.

It was frankly overkill – as were some of the extended introductions – and detracted from an otherwise excellent show. 

Sara itself was a highlight, and while Nicks can no longer hit the high notes on tunes such as Rhiannon (Buckingham largely did that for her), she remains a captivating performer with a great set of pipes, gloriously exemplified on Landslide, Silver Springs and new – but old – song Without You.

That said, Buckingham was the undoubted star of the show, and while he remains a frustratingly pompous figure – he’s as aware of his talent as we are – there’s no escaping the brilliance of his guitar playing, notably during an extraordinary acoustic rendering of Big Love and electric wig-outs on I’m So Afraid and Go Your Own Way.

The band did just that on this gig – there was no room for a Christine McVie guest slot, as at the London shows – and with material as strong as Tusk, Second Hand News, The Chain and Don’t Stop, come the end no one in the packed house was quite ready for them to Say Goodbye.

Above Photos by Della Wilson (Thanks Della!)








DON'T STOP

GOLD DUST WOMAN

WORLD TURNING (Micks Drum Solo)

Review: Fleetwood Mac Live in London Sept 27 - Uncut

Fleetwood Mac Live in London
September 27, 2013 - The O2 Arena
by Michael Bonner

“Life is good,” reflects Mick Fleetwood. We are over two hours into Fleetwood Mac’s third and final show at the O2, and it has fallen to Fleetwood to introduce his fellow bandmates on stage.

While Fleetwood was talking for the most part about the enduring friendships that exist between the various members of Fleetwood Mac, he could just as easily be surveying the last, remarkable 12 months in the band’s career. This sprawling world tour has been a tremendous success – “We’re doing the best business we’ve done in 20 years,” Lindsey Buckingham recently told Rolling Stone. The 35th anniversary of Rumours earlier this year provided a useful reminder of the band's most successful and notorious period, while the Extended Play EP showcased a clutch of new songs that seem redolent of the Rumours-era sound. Elsewhere, there are the broader cultural threads that have pillowed Fleetwood Mac’s 2013 – the revival of the soft rock aesthetic, and the kind of West Coast vibes evoked on Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories and Haim’s Days Are Gone.

But in many respects Fleetwood Mac are actually a more interesting proposition away from the Rumours material. The reissue a few months ago of the band’s 1969 album, Then Play On was a terrific reminder of the magical guitar interplay between Peter Green and Danny Kirwan. Indeed, while it’s nice enough to watch Christine McVie join her old band for “Don’t Stop”, it would have been more remarkable if Green had strolled on stage to play “The Green Manalishi (With The Two-Prong Crown)”. Tonight, the band’s decision to foreground songs from Tusk is sort-of brave – a great chunk of the audience seem bewildered by this – while the weird tensions between Buckingham's songs and Nicks' is actually quite compelling. To some extent, Buckingham and Nicks might as well be in different bands. Buckingham (who, I should point out, plays without a plectrum) seems to think he’s in some early 80s New Wave band for great chunks of the set, throwing punk rock shapes or shredding; at one point, during the extended coda for "I'm So Afraid", he seems to think he's in the middle of some wonderful, digressive Crazy Horse jam. His introduction to the Tusk section of the show involves a lecture in the merits of art against commerce; he clearly still has an almost neurotic attachment to that particular material, as his need to explain – or, perhaps, defend – it suggests. Later, his acoustic treatment of “Big Love” displays his extraordinary fretwork skills (incidentally, those solo albums are amazing). He and Nicks are gracious with each other – if, say, she’s singing a song, she’ll step back a little from the mic to let him play a solo – it’s slightly formal, a little awkward, you might say. Nicks, meanwhile, doesn’t entirely seem comfortable during the faster Buckingham numbers – she totters visibly during “Not That Funny”. Sounding a little like Edie Falco in The Sopranos when she speaks, and dressed as if she’s going for dinner with Big Edie and Little Edie at Grey Gardens, she seems clearly more comfortable with the soft focus Laurel Canyon Goth of “Rhiannon” and “Gypsy” than Buckingham’s angrier compositions. Her attempt to explain the provenance of the Extended Play track “Without You”, originally written by Nicks in the early Seventies, lasts longer than the song itself.

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Fleetwood Mac Review: Stevie Nicks has, gratifyingly, lost none of her hippy charm, she’s all drippy scarves, butterfly gestures

Fleetwood Mac joined by Christine McVie 02 Arena, final night
by: festivals, food, over forties

One of my earliest music memories is Peter Green singing Need Your Love so Bad, and his composition Green Manalishi (with the two prong crown), which to my pre-teen brain sounded bewilderingly mystical. Strange to now see Fleetwood Mac, in its present form, live in 2013, over 30 years later.
own

Mick Fleetwood and John McVie command the audience’s attention as the band opens with Second Hand News. This position is swiftly usurped by flamboyant performers Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. Nicks and Buckingham: the two former lovers hold the audience’s attention throughout the performance, their body language indicating that drama, tension and chemistry are alive and well. We can only watch and make of it what we will. Lindsey periodically moves to the front of the stage, crouching down with his guitar, to the obvious delight of the fans clustered at his feet.

Stevie Nicks has, gratifyingly, lost none of her hippy charm, she’s all drippy scarves, butterfly gestures and long hair (at 65 – yes, it still looks great). A tanned Lindsey Buckingham looks as if he’s been whisked straight from a California health spa.

Continue to the full review with some great photos

UK and Ireland Send Fleetwood Mac Albums Back Up The Charts

Ireland - September 26, 2013

The after effects of Fleetwood Mac's two shows in Dublin September 20th and 21st are being felt on the Top 100 Albums Chart in Ireland.  Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" moves up the chart this week to No.27 from No.87. "Greatest Hits" moves down to No.83 from No.76 last week and surprisingly "The Dance" re-enters the chart at No.94 in only it's 8th week on the chart.

Top 100 Albums Chart

# 27 (87)  Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
# 83 (76)  Fleetwood Mac - Greatest Hits
# 94 (R/E) Fleetwood Mac - The Dance

UK - October 5, 2013
With 3 shows last week in London leading up to today's UK Chart Update (dated October 5th), Fleetwood Mac have three albums within the Top 100 - two of these are re-entries.

Fleetwood Mac's 4CD Box Set "25 Years - The Chain" re-enters the chart this week at No.22.  "Rumours" moves up to No.53 from No.74 and "The Very Best Of" re-enters the chart at No.87.  On the Digital Top 40 Albums Chart "Rumours" moves up to No.31 from No.78 last week.  On the Catalogue Albums Chart "Rumours" is top 5 sitting at No.5

Top 100 Albums Chart
# 22 (R/E) Fleetwood Mac - 25 Years The Chain [box set]
# 53 (74)   Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
# 87 (R/E) Fleetwood Mac - The Very Best Of

Top 40 Digital Albums Chart
# 31 (78) Fleetwood Mac - Rumours

Top 40 Catalogue Albums Chart
# 5 Fleetwood Mac - Rumours

Scotland  - Oct 5, 2013
In Scotland, "25 Years - The Chain" is back in the Top 40 at No.16 this week while "The Dance" continues to be popular in it's 31st week on the chart moving down to No.18 from No.14 last week.

Top 40 Albums Chart
# 16 (R/E) Fleetwood Mac - 25 Years The Chain [box set]
# 18 (14)   Fleetwood Mac - The Dance

U.S.A. - October 5, 2013
Fleetwood Mac's Starbucks exclusive Opus Collection in it's 3rd week on the US Top 200 moves down to No.125 from No.79 last week. On the Top 200 Current albums chart which are new releases, the album is sitting at No.119.

Top 200 Albums Chart
# 125 (79) Fleetwood Mac - Opus Collection
# 184 (145) Fleetwood Mac - Rumours

Top 200 Current Albums Chart
# 119 (79) Fleetwood Mac - Opus Collection

Australia - September 30, 2013
Top 100 Albums Chart
# 14 (7)     Fleetwood Mac - 25 Years The Chain [box set]
# 78 (71)   Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
# 85 (R/E) Fleetwood Mac - The Very Best Of

Top 50 Catalogue Albums Chart
#  1 (1)  Fleetwood Mac - 25 Years The Chain [box set]
# 19 (11) Fleetwood Mac - Greatest Hits
# 20 (26) Fleetwood Mac - The Very Best Of
# 36 (34) Fleetwood Mac - Rumours

Top 50 Digital Albums Chart
# 33 (22) Fleetwood Mac - Greatest Hits

Top 40 DVD Chart
# 7 (7) Fleetwood Mac - The Dance

New Zealand - Sept 30, 2013
Top 40 Albums Chart
# 5 (5) Fleetwood Mac - 25 Years The Chain

Fleetwood Mac: "If We Were 20 Yrs Old, We'd Wanna Join Our Band!"

This week's NME Digital edition is available... In it Mick Fleetwood and Stevie Nicks speak about Christine's return.

This link at NME has the interview video that provided the text version of the article... If you've seen the video, you've read the article... Nothing new.  If you want the digital version of the mag.. Check out NME


Review: "Old Mac Magic Weaved So Well"... Fleetwood Mac Live in London


Fleetwood Mac – review Sept 24th O2, London

The Guardian
by Kitty Empire
3/5 Stars

They were back – and talking to each other as well. But despite the hits, fine musicianship and Stevie Nicks's array of shawls, there was still one thing missing.

You're looking at your watch, consulting the set list from a recent Fleetwood Mac gig in Dublin and thinking: it has to happen soon. We're running out of songs.

But we're 20-odd tunes into the first of the band's three-night London run and the icing on the cake made of soap has not materialised. We've endured Mick Fleetwood's mammoth drum solo on World Turning, one that has lasted eight minutes at previous stops on this world tour. Tonight it clocks in at four. We've had Don't Stop, one of this outlandishly successful band's most galumphing hits, the song where you assumed It Would Happen. But no. The Mac have gone off, and come back, and Stevie Nicks is trilling Silver Springs, and there is no sign of the return of the second of Fleetwood Mac's two Macs. That Mac is not back.

One of the major draws of these gigs – their first in the UK since 2009 – has been the rumour that Christine McVie might appear as a special guest. The Birmingham melodicist retired from the band in 1998, technically for the second time, citing a fear of flying. Touring with her ex-husband, bassist John McVie, and weariness of the long-running dramas of her band might well have been contributing factors.

But the USP of this umpteenth Fleetwood Mac reunion is that everyone is getting along quite swimmingly. Indeed this Gordian sexual knot of a group have long since put their libidos and coke habits behind them, and tonight are even mining the residues of the chemistry for laughs (and sniffles). Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, the California duo who joined the blues-rock outfit in 1974 and turned it into gold dust, are holding hands, hugging at the end of Sara, and singing at one another. Mick Fleetwood – an increasingly jester-like figure, sitting worryingly near a gong – affectionately clasps hands with Nicks at the end of one song. Their affair in 1977 complicated an already star-crossed love polygon that has defined this band as much as their mellifluous soft rock.

Still, despite all the lovely closure, Christine does not show (although she does the following night). Anyone hoping to hear Little Lies, or the barbed You Make Loving Fun (written about Christine McVie's relationship with the band's lighting guy), or even Hold Me, the band's later-period US hit about another McVie conquest, Dennis Wilson, is going home a little disappointed tonight.

Probably not by much though. This nearly three-hour set is nothing if not generous value, packing in significant swaths of Rumours, the band's most famous album. It has sold something like 40m copies, a figure that, in all likelihood, no one album released in the 21st century will ever match. Its reissue entered the UK charts at No 3 last February. Of its vast riches, Go Your Own Way remains a sulky gem. It ends the band's first set with Buckingham mock-chasing Nicks around the stage and letting the front rows paw at his guitar.

It's salutary to be reminded what a fine player Lindsey Buckingham is. He's lithe and leather-jacketed, full of thoughtful song preambles. Hearing him playing Big Love solo – hollering the words, plucking at his hollow-bodied electric – is one of the unexpected highlights of a set that can sometimes feel like a rewrite of history.

It seems unthinkable now, but there was a time when not everyone thought Fleetwood Mac were cool, or survivors, or ripe for homage by Haim or Florence and the Machine. Indeed, if you were alive in the 1980s, Fleetwood Mac were the grown-ups' music, and as such as attractive as uncooked liver. Mac songs seemed pat, mid-tempo affairs with needless, false harmonies. (They all hated each other!) It wasn't just a question of age – the Rolling Stones were old – it was that Fleetwood Mac's music felt fluffy and smug. At least it did from the vehement hauteur of the spiky, directional 80s.

Now, though, 30 years on, one of their newer songs, Sad Angel, is pacier than you'd imagine. And there is widespread respect for Fleetwood Mac's awkward, angry Tusk album of 1979. Tonight the title track exudes bitterness, evil laughter and deranged keyboard horns: there is nothing pat about it.

Arguably it was Courtney Love who first rehabilitated Fleetwood Mac – or at least Stevie Nicks – thanking "Rhiannon the Welsh Witch" on the sleeve of Hole's Pretty on the Inside album (1991), and often declaring Nicks her hero. At the O2 Nicks recalls being Buckingham's "hippie girlfriend", accepted into the Mac package when Fleetwood hired Buckingham.

She is the sort of woman who paints angels, and wants to set Welsh epic The Mabinogion on the screen with the help of the Game of Thrones creator, but down to earth with it. Tonight her buddy Christine may not be here, but Nicks's throaty husk sounds masterful on Gold Dust Woman. And – living up to billing quite spectacularly – she has a different shawl for nearly every song.

Fleetwood Mac Sept 27th - London
Photos by Muzzy_
Full Gallery






LANDSLIDE:
Dedicated to Christine McVie

RHIANNON: Stevie changed up the ending of Rhiannon a bit during the last show... I thought Friday's performance was exceptionally strong and I really liked what she did with the ending.  

GOLD DUST WOMAN: is still really creepy and eerie at the end when Stevie's voice gets all echoee and she deeply growls into the mic... It's just an awesome song live and this extended version they are doing on this tour is really cool. Most of the video from the last show is posted below.