REVEIW: Fleetwood Mac Live in St. Louis May 5, 2009

Fleetwood Mac hit show hits all the right notes

By Scott Kiefer - For BND

Fleetwood Mac's show Tuesday night at Scottrade Center in St. Louis was billed as "Fleetwood Mac: The Unleashed Tour 2009 - The Hits.” That’s exactly what it was.

At first, it was exciting when the band hit the stage with “Monday Morning,” followed by “Chains” and “Dreams.” Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks took turns introducing most of the songs after that, and it wasn’t clear how that format was going to work — because as their music doesn’t really need to be introduced.

However, that format it added to the atmosphere of the evening, and proved to be very informative, if not inspiring and surprising. The introductions from the duo shed a new light on what some of their songs meant, or refreshed a memory or two and added to the nostalgia of the evening.

It was very hard to ignore the special magic that still exists between Nicks and Buckingham — it was as evident as daylight. With a storied past such as theirs, it was only understandable how the duo, along with founders Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, have to seriously contemplate if, when and how the group can come together for another tour.

Nicks herself told me in an interview last year that it’s not an easy undertaking.

“We have four different, creative personalities and talents,” Nicks said, “along with four strong passions. When you collectively put all those things together you’re asking for the most wonderful and yet a most emotional experience of your life.

"It’s like a marriage that has it’s extreme ups and downs. We’re all a little older and more settled now, so we’ll see what that brings.”

What it brings together is a family that, through it all, relies on each other and feeds off of each other to make things work. That said, it was a little sad not to see Christine McVie on this tour, but it was no surprise that she would be absent.

With a longtime reluctancy to tour, Nicks announced last year that Christine would not be joining her cohorts onstage for this tour. In fact, she has not performed publicly with the group since The Dance tour in 1997.

But Nicks and Buckingham did quite well on her featured hit as part of the group, “Say That You Love Me.” Other than the obvious hits the highlight of the evening would have to be “Storms”and the second encore of “Silver Springs.”

Buckingham alluded to a possible new album from the group, but we’ll see. In the meantime, this was a perfect reminder of the band's impact and hold on us.