Thursday, October 22, 2015

Reviews: Fleetwood Mac Sydney, Australia October 22nd

Fleetwood Mac fans cheer, laugh, cry and show love for the band on their Australian tour
by Kathy McCabe
The Daily Telegraph



IF you could harness all the energy devoted to singing Fleetwood Mac songs in loungerooms, cars and bars over the past 40 years, it would create a mighty bang.

The audience at the opening Australian concert by the legendary band at Sydney’s Allphones Arena brought an energy powered by all those moments, whether a solo karaoke of their favourite song, perhaps Go Your Own Way, or the more universally sung-to-the-rafters Don’t Stop.

Their myth is rooted in the reality of their drug-fuelled romantic entanglements and bust-ups as documented so honestly and historically on the greatest breakup album of all time Rumours.

Full Review and photos at The Daily Telegraph

Fleetwood Mac review: too long, sometimes listless, but hey, Christine McVie
by Bernard Zuel
The Sydney Morning Herald
Allphones Arena, October 22

The executive summary would be accurate but also not ever enough: too long and inconsistent of energy; some good sections and a virtual Classic Hits radio playlist; another "seriously, what the ... ?" moment with a drum solo and Christine McVie. Yes folks, it's worth an exclamation mark, Christine McVie!

The return, after 16 years, of the longest songwriting contributor in the band was always going to be more than just another body to accommodate onstage and a few more songs to add to the setlist. McVie's songs, from You Make Loving Fun - appearing two songs in, between Lindsey Buckingham's The Chain and Stevie Nick's Dreams, in the democratic/pragmatic structure long necessary in this complex band - to the show's closer, Songbird, with her at piano and only Buckingham on guitar accompanying her, are not just standards.

They, and she, are also the temperamental, lyrical and melodic balancing point between the very yin and definitely yang of the band's dominant forces, Nicks and Buckingham. That fractious pair these days make a deliberate, almost ostentatious, point of acknowledging each other, even singing to each other. But the more comfortable and frequent interactions are between Nicks and McVie, and Buckingham and McVie.

Full Review at Sydney Morning Herald


Drummer Mick Fleetwood opens up about Fleetwood Mac's longevity


Back Stage With Fleetwood Mac

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Mick Fleetwood Interview: This may be John McVie's final tour

Fleetwood Mac’s John McVie: This might be my final tour
By Annette Sharp
The Daily Telegraph



TWO years after pulling the pin on their 2013 Australian tour following bass player John McVie’s cancer diagnosis, Fleetwood Mac’s most famous and most successful line-up landed in Sydney this week ahead of what McVie has indicated might be his last tour with the band that bears his name.

Founding member Mick Fleetwood, 68, was respectful when he spoke of McVie’s recent health crisis during a sound check at Allphones Arena yesterday.

“I raised a toast the other night with Christine (McVie). He’s well as well, absolutely (in) tip top health and that’s pivotal. And outside of it, it’s great to be here and playing.

“It’s a revisitation,” Fleetwood enthused of his 69-year-old creative partner with whom he founded the band in 1963.

“John’s very practical. He didn’t get into it (cancer talk) one way or the other. I’m an old drama queen but John just said, ‘OK, let’s get it fixed’ and that was that. Never heard any more about it and it was fixed, and we’ve been on the road ever since.”

In May, McVie said his playing days would soon be at an end: “How much longer can the Mac be a working band? Not much longer, for me anyway. It’s not the music. It’s the peripherals, the travelling. Mick will go on until they put him up against a wall and shoot him.”

The return to the line-up of McVie’s ex-wife, singer and keyboardist Christine, 72, who parted ways with Fleetwood Mac in 1998 and was retired from the music business, has been described by guitarist Lindsey Buckingham as “really beautiful”. Buckingham also quit the band for 16 years from 1987 to 2003.

“(Christine) just sort of woke up and said, ‘I’m not done. I want to be more alive’,” Fleetwood said.

Fleetwood acknowledges relations within the band, which includes three
ex- couples — Buckingham, 66, and singer/songwriter Stevie Nicks, 67, the McVies and Fleetwood and Nicks — are still fiery 40 years after the most famous Mac five first collaborated in 1975.

“I don’t think Lindsey and Stevie will ever not be able to suppress various emotive buttons that exist. One lives in hope, as I think they do,” he said of the former lovers, who started working together at 16.

“Having Chris back is hugely amazing. I think Stevie’s loving it and Chris is, too.

Touring the world was “sort of” easier today, added Fleetwood, whose battle with cocaine addiction is the stuff of rock legend. (He once estimated that, laid end to end, the cocaine he consumed during his life would stretch seven miles).

‘‘Those, looking back on it, were sort of a bit harder. Harder to juggle feeling good and being professional. Those days are long gone.’’

Fleetwood says this time there will be only just the occasional “little jug” of wine during this tour.

The band plays Allphones Arena on October 22, 24 and 25.

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

WIN THE ULTIMATE FLEETWOOD MAC EXPERIENCE

Fleetwood Mac is due to hit New Zealand this November and THE BREEZE wants to send you to their sold-out Auckland show on Saturday, November 21!

Simply tell them the names of the five members of Fleetwood Mac and you could be into win:

  • Concert tickets for you and a friend to see Fleetwood Mac LIVE in concert on Saturday.
  • November 21 at Mt Smart Stadium.
  • Return flights to Auckland for two (from a major NZ domestic airport).
  • Luxury accommodation.
  • A rock 'n' roll dinner at SkyCity prior to the concert.

Fleetwood Mac  - On With The Show Tour - Australia & New Zealand 2015. All five classic band members back together!

Tour dates & locations:
  • Forsyth Barr Stadium, Dunedin - Wednesday November 18 (ticketdirect.co.nz)
  • Mt Smart Stadium, Auckland - Saturday November 21 (sold out show)
  • Mt Smart Stadium, Auckland - Sunday November 22 (ticketmaster.co.nz)

LIMITED TICKETS TO THEIR ONLY DUNEDIN CONCERT AND SECOND AUCKLAND CONCERT AVAILABLE NOW

The legendary FLEETWOOD MAC are bringing their On With The Show World Tour to New Zealand next month!

Touring as a five-piece for the first time since 1998, one of music’s most enduring groups of all time, Fleetwood Mac, will play three stadium shows in November.

All five classic band members are back together, with Christine McVie rejoining band mates Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks after a 16-year absence.

The On With The Show Tour will see Fleetwood Mac on stage for close to two and a half hours, showcasing hits and classic songs from their career that spans more than four decades and global album sales in excess of 100 million, including songs such as: “The Chain”, “Dreams”, “Second Hand News”, “Rhiannon”, “Sara”, “Gold Dust Woman”, “Tusk”, “Looking Out for Love”, “Don’t Stop”, “Go Your Own Way”…and the list goes on and on.

This is a tour not be missed and tickets are selling fast so put it in the diary and get your tickets quick!

The first Auckland show Saturday, November 21 is already sold out but you can still get your tickets for the second Auckland show which is on Sunday, November 22.

ENTER CONTEST (Open to New Zealand Residence Only)

Saturday, October 10, 2015

Fleetwood Mac Reunited But Going Their Own Way

Reunited for a mammoth tour, Fleetwood Mac are now planning an album. But for all their attempts to put on a show, they are still driven by backstage tensions, writes Dan Cairns

I’M DRAWN TO THESE FOUR PEOPLE. HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE MICK? HE’S BOLD, ECCENTRIC ... WARM AND SWEET. LINDSEY IS ANOTHER TYPE OF CHARACTER ALTOGETHER
CHRISTINE McVIE

CANVAS - Couriermail.com.au - October 10, 2015

Forty years after the line-up that conquered the world with Rumours first came together, Fleetwood Mac are still having problems agreeing on anything much. The return to the fold 20 months ago of Christine McVie after an absence of 16 years is one development they all speak positively about, with none of the usual caveats and festering agendas.

“There’s Stevie on one side of the spectrum,” says Lindsey Buckingham, the band’s coiled, restless, 65-year-old musical director and – what seems like a lifetime ago – Stevie Nicks’s boyfriend. “And me, kind of, on the other, in terms of sensibilities. Christine sort of bridges that gap.”

Where Buckingham talks in the clinical manner of a scientist, Nicks dives right in.

“Christine’s coming back was like the return of my best friend after years away,’’ she says. “It’s much more fun now. We were always a force to be reckoned with, and that’s happened again.”

For McVie, 71, having emerged from what she describes as years of isolation in a remote Kent farmhouse – years of “mud and grey days, where your life is dark, your heart is dark, your brain is dark” – rejoining the band “feels like a resurrection’’.

“I feel confident again, self-assured, I know I can put my fingers on a piano and play. I can write again. I can sing,” McVie says.

And Mick Fleetwood, aged 67, gentle giant, drummer, court jester, and the band’s unofficial manager and cajoler-in-chief, is characteristically gung-ho.

“It’s been an enormous benefit,’’ he says. “I turn around every night during the shows, when Stevie’s doing her Gypsy intro, which sometimes goes on a little long, and there’s John and Christine chatting away, sitting on an amp.

“And I sit there and think, ‘How cool is that?’ I’ve asked them, ‘What are you talking about?’ and they say, ‘Oh, you know, we’re just catching up on stuff’. It’s the sweetest thing.”

The band began a European tour in May. This followed an 81-date run around North America.

In October they head Down Under with the On With The Show Tour, marking Fleetwood Mac’s first series of concert dates in Australia and New Zealand since 2009’s sold-out Unleashed Tour. The band were scheduled to tour in November 2013, but cancelled the tour after bass player John McVie was diagnosed with colon cancer. It will be Fleetwood Mac’s first Australian tour as a five-piece for the first since 1998.

Before the US tour was over, however, there were already signs of wear and tear.

Holding court at various locations in Santa Monica in the US, the Mac – save for Christine McVie’s ex-husband, the bass player John McVie, 69, who is in remission from cancer and rarely grants an interview at the best of times – accentuate the positives but can’t quite eliminate the negatives.

This is the latest stage in a journey, or saga, for a band that has always been as riveting for its offstage shenanigans as it has been for the music that has soundtracked the lives of successive generations.

Nicks, sitting in her vast apartment, its wraparound, floor-to-ceiling windows making you feel as though you’re suspended above the ocean, seems the most conflicted and ambivalent. Buckingham, by telephone, exudes a serenity you sense is hard won and, by all accounts, paper-thin. McVie talks like a lovable, slightly dotty aunt, words tumbling over themselves, candour suddenly rearing up and slapping you in the face.

Then there’s Fleetwood – resplendent in various shades of aquamarine, charms, chains and bangles rattling from wrist and neck – who goes back down memory lane to early 1960s Notting Hill in London, hanging out as a teen in coffee bars and flirting with the girl who would become his first wife. He later fights tears while talking about the recent death of his mother, and of his plans to walk Hadrian’s Wall in her memory.

“I was telling Lindsey about that the other day,” Fleetwood says. “And he went, ‘Oh, you and your rose-tinted spectacles’. I said, ‘Well, look where they’ve got all of us. You should try wearing them yourself some time’.”

If the two McVies are now friends again, and Fleetwood is still adept at playing the role of peacemaker, the relationship between Buckingham and Nicks seems as dysfunctional as ever. Most bands with a tour raking it in and a new album in the planning stages would, you’d think, have a fairly clear idea of how the near future was going to pan out.

Yet that mooted album – their first in the classic line-up since Tango in the Night in 1987; Buckingham and Christine McVie have collaborated on seven songs – already sounds fraught with some of the same old problems.

“Chris’s return has been a huge help for some of the things that Stevie and Lindsey continue to go through,” says Fleetwood, with a hint of exasperation. “In terms of ... well, it’s a form of button-pushing, about which Christine would say, ‘This should long since have been over’.”

Buckingham sounds wary when the album comes up.

“We had planned on reconvening at the start of next year but, again, there’s the politics. Stevie has not involved herself in it and has not committed to involving herself in it either, so that’s something we’re working on.” Nicks, 67, doesn’t even try to hide her fatigue. “Tomorrow will be show 79, and then we start the European tour, and then we go to Australia,’’ she says. “Three solid years of Fleetwood Mac. When that’s done, I’m done. I’m done. I’m taking a long vacation.

“I’ve bought a little house on the other side of Malibu, I’ve owned it since March last year and I have three chairs in the living room, and that’s it. I’ve spent five days there in a year. People keep saying, ‘How’s the new house?’ I don’t know, I haven’t been there. I need a break. Maybe I shouldn’t be saying this in an interview, but I don’t really care.

“I have done my best every single night to go out there and be my best and not be upset about the fact that we are doing 80 shows instead of 60, and then going straight to Europe and doing 27 shows instead of 17.”

Isn’t she keen, though, to have her own material represented on the new album?

“I don’t know how I feel about that,’’ Nicks says. “I’m not in a good place right now to make decisions. We are on the road, and in my opinion, we should not be thinking past that. We’re a strange band of bandits and gypsies, travelling as part of this huge machine. This tour would never have happened if Chris hadn’t come back.”

Christine McVie admits to some bemusement about the continuing discord between the band’s Californian contingent. She describes the appeal of returning to the band as one of “chemistry, simple chemistry’’.

“I’m drawn to these four people,’’ McVie says. “How can you not love Mick? He’s bold, eccentric, arrogant, pompous, vulnerable, warm and sweet. Lindsey is another type of character altogether. He has the darkest, most caustic sense of humour ever. He really makes me laugh, but he can also be so twitchy and edgy; you know, ‘Keep away’. He’s always crossing his arms, his legs. And you just think, ‘Relax’. He and Stevie don’t get on. On stage, they act. Privately, no.

“John and I genuinely have a friendship. I love Mick and I love both of them. But it’s like putting a wet hand in a plug socket. It’s an electric shock every time. Who knows how long it will last? The idea is to try to finish the album, and then tour it. But Stevie says, ‘You’ve just had 16 years off. Now it’s my turn’.’’

For McVie, her return was worth it, no matter the bickering that continues to coexist with some sublime live performances (for all that, the one I watched in Los Angeles was a bit flat). Anything is better than that Kent vastness, she says.

“I was living in this sprawling wasteland in the middle of 50 acres of farmland. It’s a lovely place, but it’s too isolated, and I think that’s what drove me into this slow decline; the dogs and the wellington boots and the Land Rover, the idea that you’re going to bake cookies in the Aga. “And you don’t. You just get depressed. I tried writing songs again, and nothing came, nothing. I was there in the middle of acres of greenery and sheep and totally alone.”

Nicks, clearly ready for that (long) vacation, says she still finds herself having to talk about the band’s 1970s heyday, the busted relationships, the drink and the drugs, the wounds that, in some cases, never quite seemed to heal.

“And I don’t enjoy going back to that time because it’s not who I wish I had been. I wish that I’d been less f---ed-up and less drugged-out. Done a little bit less coke, drunk a little less, smoked a little less pot. I don’t feel romantic about it at all. People like hearing about it, but it wasn’t their journey, it was mine. I was young and beautiful and just so super-unattractive.”

Of the Buckingham-Nicks relationship, Fleetwood speculates: “On some level, they must be addicted to it, to something – to love, probably. It’s strange when you’re a friend to both parties, and I do sometimes get drawn in, but you don’t want to be like the messenger in El Cid, bringing in the head. I want them to be sitting on an amp, like John and Chris. I don’t think it will ever happen, but I don’t know that for sure.” He pauses to relocate a more positive thread. “Look, this is one hell of a thing. Not all of it is ever going to be 100 per cent happy, but it’s one hell of a weird, wonderful thing. And if it were a book, you’d want it to end like this.” Fleetwood Mac play Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Boondall, November 10 and 12, 8pm, $101.85-$402.70, ticketek.com.au

Saturday, October 03, 2015

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM !! Born on this day in 1949

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM
Born on this day... October 3, 1949

Wishing you a very Happy Birthday Lindsey... You're the man!!

Friday, September 25, 2015

STEVIE NICKS featured on DON HENLEY'S new album CASS COUNTY

Don Henley released "Cass County" today (Sept 25th), his first solo album in 15 years. The album is available at all music retailers in various versions. For more details check out Don's website.  The one you may want to buy though, is the Target exclusive version as it includes 2 bonus tracks one of which features Stevie Nicks on “It Don’t Matter To The Sun”.

It's a beautiful song!

Target exclusive version track list below:

1. Bramble Rose (f/ Mick Jagger)
2. The Cost Of Living (f/ Merle Haggard)
3. No, Thank You
4. Waiting Tables
5. Take A Picture Of This
6. Too Far Gone
7. That Old Flame (f/ Martina McBride)
8. The Brand New Tennessee Waltz
9. Words Can Break Your Heart
10. When I Stop Dreaming (f/ Dolly Parton)
11. Praying For Rain
12. Too Much Pride
13. She Sang Hymns Out Of Tune
14. Train In The Distance
15. A Younger Man
16. Where I Am Now
17. It Doesn't Matter To The Sun
18. Here Comes Those Tears Again

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Fleetwood Mac's Christine McVie puts her 19-acre Kent home on the market

She's going to go her own way: Fleetwood Mac's Christine McVie puts her 19-acre Grade II listed Kent home on the market for £3.5million

  • Christine McVie, 72, has been spending an increasing amount of time in London since rejoining Fleetwood Mac
  • So now, she has decided to put stunning Grade II-listed country home in Kent village of Wickhambreaux on sale
  • She is selling the mansion - where she wrote some solo material following band's disintegration - for £3.5million
  • It boasts six bedrooms, four reception rooms, a three-bedroom outhouse, two cottages and sprawling gardens

By SOPHIE JANE EVANS
Daily Mail

She has been spending an increasing amount of time in London since rejoining her rock band for a global tour.

So now, Fleetwood Mac singer Christine McVie has decided to put her sprawling Grade II-listed country home in Kent on the market.

The 72-year-old, who penned some of the group's biggest hits including Don't Stop and Little Lies, is selling the mansion for a whopping £3.5million.

She is planning to 'upsize' in the capital - where she has been spending a lot of time with her bandmates - and 'downsize' in the country.

Full story with full size images at Daily Mail

Strutt and Parker Realtor Listing (includes floor plans, property layout and many more photos)


Friday, September 18, 2015

Ultimate Music Guide: Fleetwood Mac by @uncutmagazine on sale now - UK

Uncut Magazine

122 page magazine
Don’t Stop! Uncut’s newest Ultimate Music Guide tells the incredible story of Fleetwood Mac – an infinite series of surprise plot twists, where radical upheavals arrive with every new album. “We’ve never done what was expected of Fleetwood Mac,” says the band’s first leader, Peter Green, “we’ve always done the opposite.”

Fleetwood Mac: The Ultimate Music Guide collects revealing features, unseen for decades, from the archives of Uncut, NME and Melody Maker They document the rise and fall of Green’s band, the emergence of Christine McVie, the transitional lineups of the early ’70s, the dramatic arrival of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, and the glory and devastation that soon followed. “Being in Fleetwood Mac is more like being in group therapy,” noted the mostly redoubtable Mick Fleetwood in 1977, as he contemplated the seismic impact of Rumours and laid bare – not for the last time – the private lives of its key players.

Our Ultimate Music Guide, though, focuses on Fleetwood Mac’s extraordinary music as much as their intimate affairs. To that end, we’ve commissioned new, in-depth reviews of every single one of their albums, from lost gems to some of the biggest-selling releases of all time. Like everything about Fleetwood Mac, it makes for an uncommonly long and complicated story, but one that is never less than compelling. “Looking back, it’s like listening to war stories,” says Fleetwood. “There’s blood and guts and disagreements still to this day. But that’s what makes it mean a shit.”

On sale in the UK on Thursday Sept 10, but available to order now online.

Sunday, August 30, 2015

Sausalito: Luxury destination still has hints of Fleetwood Mac magic

American Airlines "Celebrated Living" Magazine - Summer, 2015
If you look and listen closely, this luxury destination still has hints of magic left from when Fleetwood Mac came here to make the bands's greatest album.

Read the full emagazine at American Airlines



Sunday, August 23, 2015

Fleetwood Mac Live at Isle of Wight Fest Sept 1st on @Palladia

Palladia Outdoor Week 2015
MONDAY 8/21 to MONDAY 9/7 -- Palladia is celebrating the great outdoors with 8 full days of outdoor concerts and festivals from around the globe. Featuring 8 brand new palladia concert premieres every single night! Don't miss highlights from 2015 music festivals such as Radio 1's Big Weekend, Isle of Wight Festival, Download Festival, Hangout Music Fest, Glastonbury and more. This year's Outdoor Week premieres include a variety of big name artist such as Foo Fighters, Florence + The Machine, Fleetwood Mac, Muse, Kiss, Beck, Zac Brown Band, The Who, Kanye West, Jeff Lynne, Judas Priest, The Black Keys, Counting Crows, Blur, Foster The People, My Morning Jacket, Pharrell Williams, Hozier, James Bay, Mary J. Blige, Lionel Richie and many more!

Isle of Wight Festival 2015
TUESDAY, 9/1 at 9pm EST -- Highlights from the iconic 2015 Isle of Wight Festival from the UK. Features performances by Fleetwood Mac, The Black Keys, Counting Crows, Blur, Pharrell Williams, Kool and The Gang, Paolo Nutini, James Bay, Jessie Ware and more.

Thursday, August 13, 2015

FLEETWOOD MAC “WHITE ALBUM” 40TH ANNIVERSARY

Fleetwood Mac Pivot To Stardom On 1975 Album 
Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood Recall Fateful Union

Dallas, TX - August 11, 2015.  North American syndicated Rock radio show and website InTheStudio: The Stories Behind History’s Greatest Rock Bands takes a look at one of the most interesting personnel changes in Rock’n’Roll, setting off the musical tsunami of Fleetwood Mac’s third and most successful era with this self-titled album forty summers ago.

British ex-pats blues band Fleetwood Mac had established themselves over seven years (1968 - 1974) and ten albums as a respected musical outfit.  No stranger to personnel changes (15 different members over the band’s forty-eight year career), none was more impactful than the departure of American Bob Welch in 1974 and the serendipitous arrival of struggling singer/songwriter duo Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. That fateful union would forever change the music, and fortunes, of Fleetwood Mac.

The 1975 “White Album” would become Warner Bros. Records’ biggest-selling album to date and produce three hit singles, “Say You Love Me”, “Rhiannon”, and “Over My Head”.  InTheStudio host Redbeard spoke to Mick Fleetwood, Lindsey Buckingham, and Stevie Nicks about the transformative union, and just how quickly their personal and professional lives changed.

“Initially we were looking for a guitar player, but almost instantaneously upon inquiring about their (Lindsey & Stevie’s) situation, I found it to be they came very much as a package… As soon as we started playing together it became very evident, in terms of the spark, and realizing the chemistry that was definitely there.” - Mick Fleetwood

“It was like overnight, hugely successful. And it was hard for my little brain to accept that kind of fame, that fast ..You have to remember: Fleetwood Mac was NOT looking for another girl singer. They were looking for a guitar player, period. The fact that the guitar player they found happened to have this girlfriend, that they instantly knew he was not going to give up for them… I know Mick joked to many people, ‘Well if she doesn’t work out... off with her head!’”  (laughs) - Stevie Nicks

FLEETWOOD MAC /InTheStudio interview is available now to STREAM at: InTheStudio