Christine McVie talks Glastonbury, rock 'n' roll and retirement

Christine McVie: inside the world of Fleetwood Mac, then and now

As the band prepares for its UK return in June, Christine McVie talks Glastonbury, rock 'n' roll and retirement

By Ella Alexander | Harpers Bazaar
Mar 21, 2019

June 2019 will be a big month for music fans for two reasons – an under-the-radar, little-known festival called Glastonbury and the return of Fleetwood Mac, the band’s first UK dates in six years. Sadly, this year at least, the two aren’t linked, but lead vocalist and songwriter Christine McVie says any decision to perform at Glastonbury isn’t down to the band itself.

“It isn’t up to me, it’s up to the management,” said McVie. “It’s their decision and down to logistics. I can’t say yes or no to Glastonbury, but I’d like to – so long as I don’t have to wear wellington boots on stage. Or maybe I’d just have to roll with it – wellie boots with mud.”

For now, fans will have to make do with two UK gigs at Wembley (the first time that McVie has performed in the UK with the group since officially rejoining), one of which sold out so fast that the band added a further date. Over 50 years after the band were first formed, appetite for Fleetwood Mac shows no signs of waning.

“Maybe people are just wondering when the first one of us is going to pop off because we’re not youngsters anymore,” laughs McVie. “Maybe people want to see us because they think it’s the last chance. We’re a young band at heart; you’d never think we are the age we are. We’re never static. It’s going to be fantastic.”

Fleetwood Mac's North American Tour On Track to Sell 1 Million Tickets

by Dave Brooks | Billboard

The absence of Lindsey Buckingham has not hurt the band's latest tour, which has at least 10 shows with grosses over $2 million.

Fleetwood Mac is on track to gross more than $100 million on the North American leg of their 2018/2019 tour with venues across the country reporting grosses between $1.5 to $2 million per show powered by a new generation of fans who have embraced the legendary group and its deep catalog of No. 1 hits.

Couple their success in North America with a fall international run for the band in the U.K., Germany, Australia and New Zealand, and the Mac's 75-plus date tour is shaping up to be one of the top tours on Billboard's year-end Boxscore chart. Not bad for a group that is touring without key member Lindsey Buckingham, who left the band (he told Rolling Stone he was "fired") last year over disagreements about its touring plans -- Buckingham reportedly wanted to spend most of 2019 on a solo tour, while the band wanted to get back on the road together sooner).

After a brief impasse, the group announced they were going on tour without Buckingham, but with Mike Campbell of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers and Crowded House‘s Neil Finn standing in for the guitarist and singer.

"When Lindsey left the band, none of us had any expectations good or bad -- it was more about continuing Fleetwood Mac," the group's co-manager Carl Stubner tells Billboard. "We had about a month to put the tour together and get it on sale, without any assets or pictures of the new lineup. Thankfully, it started doing well from the beginning."

Positive press from the band's first show on the tour at the BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma followed by a monster show at the United Center in Chicago that grossed more than $2.2 million, giving the tour the momentum it needed. More than ten dates on the tour have passed the $2 million mark in ticket sales, including the band's Dallas show at American Airlines Center (Feb. 7) and their Tacoma Dome (Nov. 17) concert, which each grossed $2.34 million in sales in front of 18,828 fans in Washington and 14,357 fans in Dallas.

The band's tour stops at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas (Nov. 30), Capitol One Arena in Washington (March 5), Amalie Arena in Tampa (Feb 18) and Golden 1 Center in Sacramento (Nov. 23) all grossed more than $2 million in ticket sales, as did shows in Toronto, Nashville and Charlotte.

"The tour is playing to sold out arenas every night and I love walking thru the crowds, seeing generations of longtime fans dancing and singing along to their favorite songs," the band's co-manager Sheryl Louis told Billboard in a statement. "What I’ve noticed on this tour specifically is so many younger fans, who are equally as enthusiastic, seeing the band live for the first time and loving it," adding that Campbell and Finn's work in the band has "brought tremendous energy to the shows that both the band and the audience can feel. In the long history of Fleetwood Mac, these are honestly some of their best shows yet."

Most of the acrimony between the two sides has been settled, Stubner said, and the band wished Buckingham a speedy recovery following heart surgery in February.

"And it was a hard divorce and emotional because we love Lindsey, but we made the best out of a bad situation," Stubner tells Billboard. "The show has done well in the big markets and the smaller markets like Sacramento and Birmingham, Alabama. And not just selling tickets, but merchandise -- t-shirt sales have increased considerably from any other tour we've done."

Stubner said the uptick is being fueled by a younger demographic of fans, including teenagers attending the tour with their parents and older millennials enjoying a night out with friends. 

"They learned about the band from their parents, and then they dug a little deeper" Stubner says. "There's a hunger for bands with deep catalogs and I see a lot of young people coming to the shows in search of this music they've built a deep connection with. And maybe that's why we have been able to do so well without Lindsey, because it's really about the collective and the show itself. They're coming out for the band."

REVIEW Fleetwood Mac Live in Albany, NY March 20, 2019

Review: No Buckingham, no problem for Fleetwood Mac at Times Union Center
By Jim Shahen Jr. | Times Union
Photos: Lori Van Buren - Gallery

ALBANY –Typically, when a classic rock band has reformed and is in its twilight years, the members put aside their differences and egos for one or two last big money-earning tours. They certainly don't fire the person responsible for some of their most beloved and iconic fare. But that's exactly what Fleetwood Mac did last year when it fired singer and guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, replacing him with Crowded House frontman Neil Finn and Mike Campbell, lead guitarist from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

For those steeped in the band's tempestuous history, it seemed like another dramatic continuation of the oft-contentious relationship of Buckingham and his ex-flame, co-lead singer and tambourine player Stevie Nicks. But it also begged the question: how would Fleetwood Mac proceed without one of its essential voices?

REVIEW Fleetwood Mac Live in Newark, NJ March 13, 2019

Here’s how Fleetwood Mac survived without Lindsey Buckingham at N.J. concert: Review
By Bobby Olivier | NJ.com
Photos: Aristide Economopoulos

Quick, before the band switches lineups again, let’s cut right to the chase: Fleetwood Mac’s latest concert tour is significant not only because it’s loosely celebrating the band’s 50th anniversary but because it’s the first full roadshow without vocalist/guitarist/partial face of the band, Lindsey Buckingham, in 25 years.

Yes, the man who sings lead for the band’s smash hits “Go Your Own Way,” “Don’t Stop” and “Second Hand News” and has historically ripped the guitar solos for “The Chain,” “Little Lies” and many more was “fired” by the band in 2018, apparently over arguments surrounding exactly when and how to put on this “An Evening With Fleetwood Mac” tour.

Buckingham has been replaced — at least for the time being, Fleetwood Mac will always be a volatile, shape-shifting entity — with two venerable rock players in Mike Campbell (Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers) on guitar and former Crowded House and Split Enz singer Neil Finn to handle Buck’s mammoth choruses.

This new iteration landed in Newark Wednesday night before a sold-out crowd as the sprawling, 11-piece outfit — complete with an extra guitarist, keyboardist, percussionist and two background singers — worked hard to prove it could, in fact, soldier on without Buckingham and properly honor one of the greatest pop-rock catalogs ever penned.

REVIEW AND PHOTOS Fleetwood Mac Live in NYC March 11, 2019

Fleetwood Mac began NYC - area run at Madison Square Garden
By Brooklynvegan Staff | Photos by Toby Tenenbaum - View More Pics

Fleetwood Mac‘s tour hit NYC on Monday night for their first of two shows at Madison Square Garden since 2015. It’s a slightly different lineup than it was then, since the band ousted Lindsey Buckingham and replaced him with Crowded House’s Neil Finn and Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell. Like they’ve been doing on this tour, Monday’s MSG show opened with the trifecta of “The Chain” (with Finn taking Buckingham’s vocal part), “Little Lies” and “Dreams.”  Their set also included such Mac classics as “Rhiannon,” “Gypsy,” “Everywhere,” “Landslide,” “Gold Dust Woman,” “Go Your Own Way,” “Don’t Stop” and more.

REVIEW Fleetwood Mac New York City Night 1 March 11, 2019

Fleetwood Mac’s MSG concert needed Lindsey Buckingham
By Chuck Arnold | NEW YORK POST | Photo Madison Square Garden

The emotional highlight of Monday night’s sold-out Fleetwood Mac concert at Madison Square Garden — their first New York show of the post-Lindsey Buckingham era — wasn’t even a Fleetwood Mac song.

It was “Free Fallin’,” the 1989 Tommy Petty solo hit that Stevie Nicks led as the first song of the encore in tribute to her late friend and “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” collaborator. The cover was also a nod to Mike Campbell, the new Fleetwood Mac-ster and former guitarist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

Photos of Petty — some with Nicks — flashed on the video screen behind Fleetwood Mac as they all melted into one generation of rock royalty that came up together and became legends of the same era. At that moment, whatever drama that led Buckingham to be booted from Fleetwood in April 2018 didn’t seem to matter.

Another memorable moment came when Neil Finn — the former Crowded House frontman who joined Fleetwood, along with Campbell, to replace Buckingham — did CH’s ’80s hit “Don’t Dream It’s Over” with a little help from Nicks. As he strummed on acoustic guitar, Finn had the crowd singing along “Hey now, hey now.”

But there were other moments when Buckingham was clearly missed, such as when the band confronted his departure headfirst by opening with Finn leading “The Chain.” It just didn’t feel the same with Finn fronting “Go Your Own Way,” and he needed help from Christine McVie and Nicks to bring home “Don’t Stop” in the encore.

Fleetwod Mac missed more than Buckingham’s voice and presence alongside Nicks — the band missed his energy. Campbell did his best to play the role of resident guitar god though.

The band — which will bring its “An Evening with Fleetwood Mac” tour to Prudential Center on Wednesday and back to the Garden on March 18 — tried to make up for that by dipping into their pre-Buckingham catalog: Nicks even reclaimed “Black Magic Woman,” a tune that original member Peter Green wrote for Fleetwood Mac before it became a signature hit for Santana.

Indeed, the concert was even more about Nicks — ever the mystical enchantress — who inspired the bohemian looks of some women in the audience. She had to carry the show, and she knew it.

In fact, one of the biggest roars of the night came when Nicks — who will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist at Barclays Center on March 29, after already being enshrined with Fleetwood Mac — did one of her signature twirls at the end of “Gypsy.”

This gypsy remains magical.

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Love these! #Repost @kevinmazur ・・・ #FleetwoodMac at #MadisonSquareGarden brought back memories of the first time I snuck a camera in to shoot their show. Now look where I am lol . #NYC 3.11.19

A post shared by FLEETWOOD MAC NEWS (@fleetwoodmacnews) on Mar 12, 2019 at 10:31am PDT

LANDSLIDE
EVERTWHERE
BLACK MAGIC WOMAN
LITTLE LIES
SAY YOU LOVE ME
RHIANNON
GO YOUR OWN WAY
ALL OVER AGAIN

REVIEW Fleetwood Mac Live in Atlantic City, NJ March 9, 2019

Review: Revamped Fleetwood Mac in Atlantic City
Dan Deluca | Philly.com | Photos Elizabeth Robertson

ATLANTIC CITY — The Fleetwood Mac concert at Boardwalk Hall on Saturday night began with “The Chain.”

That entrancing vamp from 1977’s Rumours, which started the two-hour, sold-out show, is the only song written together by all five members of the band’s classic lineup: Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks, and Lindsey Buckingham.

Over the years, the song has become a signature of the enduring bond of the hit-making soft-rock act that’s been no stranger to drama, surviving multiple breakups of couples within the group and of the band itself, only to come back together to with a mantra of “never break the chain.”

This version of Fleetwood Mac, however, has one key link missing. That would be Buckingham, the guitarist, singer and arranger, who was tossed last year in a dispute that Nicks has said was simply about scheduling: The band was ready to begin rehearsals for a global tour last June, and Buckingham wanted to wait five months before getting started.

The solution was to replace, with not one but two guys, Buckingham, arguably the principal architect of the massive success the band achieved after he and Nicks joined on New Year’s Eve 1974. (It was founded in 1967 as a straightforward blues-rock band under the leadership of Peter Green.)

The substitutes in the already road-tested unit -- who have been touring since October and are scheduled to play the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia on March 22 and April 5 -- are Neil Finn, the New Zealand guitarist known for leading Split Enz and Crowded House, and Mike Campbell, longtime guitarist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.