Christine McVie helps Fleetwood Mac stage a jubilant return to Columbus

By Martin Lopez
The Lantern

It’s a marvel that Fleetwood Mac were even on stage to perform last night.

It is a band that has gone through a great deal of emotional turmoil, and more recently, physical stress, as bassist John McVie was diagnosed with cancer roughly one year ago. Two other members have died within the last three years, one to suicide and the other to a haemorrhage.

They have four members who have gone through two failed relationships (one divorce) and have had several key members come and go. They even bared their emotional and romantic troubles out on their 1977 20-time platinum album “Rumours.” And when the band finally gained some stability during their 1990s reunion, singer and keyboard player Christine McVie left due to a fear of flying on tour.

And so it was immensely gratifying to see her make a triumphant return to the group at Nationwide Arena Sunday night — both for the audience, and clearly for the band. The band was firing on all cylinders with the original three-part harmonies that McVie brought back to their sound, Stevie Nicks sounding as gorgeous as ever, and lead guitarist and songwriter Lindsey Buckingham transcending with his stunning guitar solos.

The group opened up with “The Chain,” one of their most poignant and visceral songs off of “Rumours,” so they got into the soul-bearing business right away. And Buckingham immediately reminded me of why I consider him to be one of my favorite guitar players, a guitarist who, as George Harrison might put it, can make his guitar weep. His unusual finger picking, remarkable songwriting abilities, and brilliant lyrical guitar lines proved to be a constant highlight throughout the night.

Continue to the full review

THE CHAIN

RHIANNON - Stevie is wearing a cape that was hand made by Celeste Meyeres which Stevie chose as the winner in the Talent House "Design a show-stopping shawl for Stevie Nicks" Contest. You can read more about Celeste here and see Stevie's note to Celeste at the Talent House website.

Photo by vangoghtravels

Review: Fleetwood Mac Live in Columbus, OH Oct 19, 2014

Christine McVie makes singing fun

By Rob Harvilla
The Columbus Dispatch
Photos: Kristen Zeis

In sports, one player, no matter how transcendent, can’t single-handedly win a title: Just ask LeBron James. On the crowded classic-rock-nostalgia circuit, even two towering superstars might not cut it: Ask Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.

So please welcome back Fleetwood Mac’s not-so-secret weapon, Christine McVie. As evidenced by last night’s transformative show in Nationwide Arena, her adoring fans missed her, but not half as much as the rest of her band.

Sure, the ’70s-chart-smashing pop juggernaut could subsist on the arena-touring circuit for decades hence off the poisonous fruit of the infamously doomed Buckingham-Nicks romance alone, but what fun is that?

McVie, a far sweeter and gentler singer and songwriter, had quit the band in 1998 (she hated flying) and vowed never to return. Thank God she relented this year. The crowd’s huge swell of adoration was palpable from the first few notes of You Make Loving Fun. Exquisitely mushy cloudbursts like Everywhere and Say You Love Me — a typical line of hers is “I'm over my head / But it sure feels nice” — were crucial counterpoints to Nicks’ siren songs and Buckingham’s wiry, pantherlike aggressiveness.

A shadowy back line of five singers and multi-instrumentalists quietly added any muscle the core quintet, rounded out by rock-solid bassist John McVie and incurably hammy drummer Mick Fleetwood, had lost over the years. (Nice gong, Mick.)

Nicks in particular deftly dodged the high notes on Dreams and Rhiannon, though her cuddly-goth charisma helped close the deficit: Nobody on Earth gets more applause just for twirling in a circle.

Still, Landslide, her colossally gentle acoustic duet with Buckingham, can always induce open weeping, and her entrancing Gypsy may be the band’s single most rapturous pure-pop moment. (The lost high notes on that one particularly hurt last night, though she did twirl a lot.)

Buckingham, meanwhile, is the mad virtuoso: His howling, classical-guitar-shredding, one-man version of Big Love (off 1987’s crazy-underrated Tango in the Night) is an awesome, terrifying thing, and his prowling, snarling, opera-length solo on the uncharacteristically heavy deep cut I’m So Afraid nearly knocked the audience unconscious.

Ultimately, though, it was Christine’s night: The show peaked with the Tango-era soft-rock classic Little Lies — featuring the night’s best harmonies by a long shot — and she closed out with the delicately strident solo-piano gem Songbird. Her bandmates appeared to consider carrying her offstage like a Super Bowl-winning quarterback. It’s not a bad idea.

SAY YOU LOVE ME