Saturday, April 20, 2013

Amid The Chaos - Fleetwood Mac Pack TD Garden

Photo by: Sara Vroman
FLEETWOOD MAC PACKS THEM IN - BOSTON 4/18/13
Amid all the chaos that's been plaguing Boston this week, it's a wonder anyone felt like celebrating Fleetwood Mac's return to the Boston area.  But they did, fans packed the TD Garden last night turning out in droves for a 2 1/2 hour respite.

The show began with Fleetwood Mac displaying the "Hearts For Boston" solidarity drawing designed by local Boston artist Dan Blakeslee on the jumbo back drop behind the band on stage and ended with "Boston Stong" blazed across the screen during the encores.  In between these two gestures of support for the people of Boston, Fleetwood Mac's 23 song unchanged setlist didn't disappoint with multiple words of encouragement from the band including Stevie's dedication of "Landslide" to the city and Mick acknowledging that the city is going through a rough time and to 'don't stop' thinking about tomorrow' prior to launching into the song. The show ended with Stevie telling everyone to keep their chin up, cause you are "Boston Strong" and you will make it! (Video below)


"Hearts for Boston" designed by Dan Blakeslee - More information here



































By: Bill Brotherton
Boston Herald

Fleetwood Mac did Boston proud! There was certainly a lot of love for the city and its people radiating from the TD Garden stage Thursday night. After the electric opening one-two punch of “Second Hand News” and “The Chain,” vocalist Stevie Nicks addressed the near-capacity crowd. “When I was young and I was sad or blue because of hard times, my mama told me to sing, that it would make me feel better. And that’s what we’re going to do for two-and-a-half hours. We’re going to sing the blues right out of Boston.” Later, Nicks dedicated ‘Landslide” to a soldier, Vincent, she met at Walter Reed hospital, and his Boston family. “They are Boston strong,” she said. 

Drummer Mick Fleetwood introduced “Don’t Stop” thusly: 

“Boston. What a city. Goodness, we know what you’re going through. Remember the message of the song, ‘Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow. It’ll be better than before. Yesterday’s gone. Yesterday’s gone.” 

The audience joined in on the chorus, turning it into an empowering cathartic experience. That song, of course, was written by retired member Christine McVie. The band certainly has a different dynamic in concert without her. Not better, not worse, just different. Fleetwood Mac these days has evolved into the Lindsey Buckingham/Stevie Nicks Show with founding members Fleetwood and bassist John McVie relegated to backing-band status. If Nicks is the caring, new agey earth mother, guitarist Buckingham is the mad genius who orchestrates everything. He stayed on stage for the entire show, delivering one spine-tingling guitar solo after another. He is a bit show-offy, but the guy ranks with the all-time great guitarists and I dare say his 10-minute blast through “I’m So Afraid” will likely be the best shredding a Boston audience will see this year. This is the riff that launched 1,001 air guitar solos in front of bedroom mirrors all across America in the mid-‘70s and it remains totally awesome. And Buckingham does it all on an undersized guitar that’s not much bigger than a ukelele. This is the Mac’s first tour in three years and the band was firing on all cylinders. So many great songs, all delivered with gusto: “Rhiannnon,” “Gold Dust Woman,” “Gypsy” and the solo hit “Stand Back” from husky-voiced, whirling dervish Nicks; “Go Your Own Way,” a solo acoustic “Never Going Back Again” and “Tusk” from Buckingham. More than half of the 23 songs performed came from those three masterful 1970s albums “Fleetwood Mac,” the 35-year-old “Rumours” and the indulgent, underappreciated “Tusk.” Although the crowd came to hear the hits, this is no mere nostalgia act. A new song, “Sad Angel,” from an upcoming EP, rocked with abandon and featured the familiar, glorious Nicks/Buckingham harmonies. It was also endearing to see the two former lovers walk on stage holding hands. Fleetwood Mac will return to Massachusetts on June 21, at Mansfield’s Comcast Center. By then, the heavy hearts of the band and its Boston Strong fans should be less dark. Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow, indeed.

Fleetwood Mac offers rock, respite from unnerving week
By Marc Hirsh
Boston Globe

Two songs into Thursday’s Fleetwood Mac concert, Stevie Nicks related a conversation she once had with her mother. What could she do to help, Nicks asked, in hard times? Her mother’s response: Sing. A simplistic solution, perhaps, but mere days after the Marathon bombing (and hours before the chaotic manhunt for the suspects would shut the city down), 2½ hours of music seemed to serve the near-sellout TD Garden crowd just fine.

In that time, Fleetwood Mac (who swing back around to the Comcast Center on June 21) covered quite a bit of ground: hits, a told-you-so segment focused on the once-misunderstood/now-cultishly-adored “Tusk,” a song that so predated Nicks’s and Lindsey Buckingham’s Mac days that they’d forgotten about it until stumbling across the demo on YouTube and a new song. And more hits. So many hits.

And only one of them — the optimistic “Don’t Stop,” inevitable even before the week’s events — by Christine McVie, who hamstrung the set list by having annoyingly left the band 15 years ago. But it was hard to know what would have been cut to make room for her. Buckingham spat through the clamorous new wave garage rock of “Not That Funny” with vigor and rode out the pained, lumbering “I’m So Afraid” with an increasingly intense guitar solo. “Sara” found Nicks singing to Buckingham, then taking his microphone before peeling off into a small but sweet dance with him.

Save for the riff setting up the coda of “The Chain,” bassist John McVie did all he could to avoid calling attention to himself. Mick Fleetwood took a drum solo during “World Turning,” but he hardly needed it; the off-kilter thumps pushing each song forward and the fervor with which he attacked them were spotlight enough. He seemed to know it, too, capping a ferocious “Tusk” — its glowering paranoia writ arena-sized — by leaping to his feet and throwing his arms into the air.

But songs like that one, “Big Love,” and “Gold Dust Woman” notwithstanding, Fleetwood Mac wasn’t just about tension. Buckingham and Nicks harmonized ebulliently on the chorus of the fine, upbeat new “Sad Angel,” while the rolling drums gave “Eyes of the World” a headlong drive. And the elegiac “Silver Springs” helped draw the show to a close with its slow rise and reset, and slow rise again. As Fleetwood Mac knows quite well, singing together can get people through plenty of difficulty.


Iconic rock group buoys Boston fans in midst of chaos
BY LAUREN CARTER
THE SUN CHRONICLE

BOSTON - Boston has been a city on edge, but Fleetwood Mac helped to take the edge off with a dazzling 2 1/2-hour show at the TD Garden on Thursday night.

While officers in a regional response team stood ready with assault rifles outside the venue in the wake of the Boston Marathon explosions, the legendary pop/rock group charmed a packed house of fans - mostly of the middle-aged variety - inside the Garden.

The group's 23-song show mixed classic hits with lesser-known material and two new songs off a forthcoming EP.
There were the time-tested Mac standards, including "Don't Stop," "Dreams" and the title track off of "Tusk," the 1979 album that subverted the formula of its wildly successful predecessor "Rumours," which has sold more than 45 million copies worldwide.

And there were the less typical live numbers, including "Not That Funny," a gorgeous "Sara" and the dark, moody "Sisters of the Moon."

This is the group's first tour in three years (they're set to return to the area on June 21 at the Comcast Center, and tickets are still available), but their sound remains crisp and their chemistry electric.

Fleetwood is the dependable yet zany drummer, and his solo during "World Turning" put the 65-year-old's youthful spirit on display. John McVie remains stoic on bass, taking the spotlight during rare but key moments, such as the sinewy interlude during "The Chain."

Lindsey Buckingham is the group's glue - Fleetwood called him "our mentor, our inspiration."

The singer/songwriter and guitarist performed masterfully throughout the night, especially on the acoustic stunner "Big Love" and a powerful "I'm So Afraid," which drew a standing ovation. He seemed almost as excited as the crowd at the end of songs, shouting and fist-pumping like he'd just won a competition, gray hair the only sign of his age.

Stevie Nicks remains the group's mystical chanteuse, taking center stage on classics like "Rhiannon," "Gold Dust Woman," "Silver Springs," "Landslide" and solo hit "Stand Back," bedecked with all the familiar accessories: a microphone draped in beads and scarves, a tambourine decorated with ribbons, layered black dresses, platform boots, shawls giving way to more shawls. Her voice was in fine form - the best she's sounded since 1997's "The Dance."

After the second encore, just before leaving the stage, Nicks called Boston "one of the strongest cities in the world."

"You're tough," she said. "You'll get through this, and next year your fantastic race will be run, like always."

PARTING WORDS FROM STEVIE:
LANDSLIDE:
GOLD DUST WOMAN:
THE CHAIN:
SISTERS OF THE MOON:
Unfortunately, the audio is a bit distored, visually it looks great and Stevie rocks on this... Check out more from this youtuber DGB519 here

BIG LOVE:

59 Photos by tbuddha1 - View Gallery


























Thursday, April 18, 2013

REVIEW: Stevie Nicks 'In Your Dreams' "this isn't a portrait of the artist, it’s a diary of the art"

Movie review: In Your Dreams
by Jay Stone
O.Canada.com

In Your Dreams
2½ stars out of 5
Starring: Stevie Nicks, Dave Stewart
Directed by: Dave Stewart and Stevie Nicks
Running time: 100 minutes
Parental guidance: No problems

Fans of the singer Stevie Nicks — none of whom could possibly be bigger fans than Stevie Nicks herself, it appears — will be in heaven with In Your Dreams, a documentary about the yearlong project to record her 2011 solo album. It’s all there: the inspirations, the moments of musical serendipity, the day Reese Witherspoon dropped by and gave her a title for one of the tunes, the many, many scenes of Nicks writing or singing or talking or just hanging out in her lush California home, being artistic.

Other, lesser fans will have to make do with serendipitous moments of our own: the voice-over when Nicks
expresses the wish that In Your Dreams will inspire younger audiences “to go back to the old ways and start over. This is our prayer.” Or the magical moment when, after writing the lyrics to Italian Summer at a hotel in Italy, she gives the hand-written manuscript to the front desk clerk and tells him, “Some day this is going to be very important.”

In fact, Italian Summer is a good song, one of many we get to enjoy in excerpts from the music videos that also festoon this vanity project. The film, like the album, is produced by Nicks and Dave Stewart, the Eurythmics guitarist, who joins Nicks and several other top-notch musicians. These include Mick Fleetwood and Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac, the alma mater for Nicks, plus her longtime backup singers, in whom, she speculates, the public finds “comfort in that love that we have as three very strong women.”

And maybe they do. In Your Dreams features endorsements from members of the public, including an American sailor whose life was altered by Soldier’s Angel. Nicks wrote that song after touring Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and seeing the wounded warriors, one of a few genuine moments of emotion in the film. In Your Dreams would be impossible if it wasn’t for the fact that Nicks — whose throaty growl hasn’t lost much of its power — is a talented rock singer and Stewart is, as she informs us, “one of the greatest and grandest guitar players.”

The film only touches on her childhood and early career: this isn’t a portrait of the artist, it’s a diary of the art, including the volumes of her writings that she gave to Stewart as possible lyrics (at one point she compares herself to Bob Dylan). There’s a touching reminiscence surrounding the song New Orleans, written six days after Hurricane Katrina and inspired by TV clips of a young boy who looks at the camera and — with shocking and moving frankness — says, “We just need some help sent here. And it’s just pitiful.”

The Witherspoon song comes when the actress tells Stewart he can stay at her condo in Nashville. “It’s cheaper than free,” she says, and the next thing you know, Stewart and Nicks have turned that idea into a love song. Another factoid: Lady From the Mountain was inspired by the Twilight movie New Moon, in particular the part where Bella is abandoned by the love of her life, which also happened to Nicks. Hopefully, she says, someone will hear that song and think, “The same thing happened to Stevie Nicks and she’s still alive.”

In your dreams. OK, OK. But she started it.

In Toronto on April 15th at The Toronto International Film Festival Lightbox Theatre Screening - Stevie screened the film and appeared after each screening for a live discussion and Q&A.  Here's one of those sessions captured and generously shared by Tmakworld.com Thanks for filming the Q&A!

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Candid Shots of Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood in Toronto



Well this is pretty cool!
Fleetwood Mac touches down in Toronto

Autograph seeker / collector Bryan of The Signature Library seeked and succeeded in acquiring Fleetwood Mac signatures to add to his collection.  He met up with 3 members of the band while they were in Toronto this week.  Read about his experience on his The Signature Library blog   

REVIEWS X 4: Fleetwood Mac Live in Toronto + 5 Things You Missed

Five things you missed at the Fleetwood Mac concert
Photo by Jack Boland - See more at Toronto Sun

Fleetwood Mac, Air Canada Centre, April 16
  1. Four of rock’s biggest and most iconic personalities Or, at least, three of rock’s most iconic personalities and John McVie. The band’s exceedingly low-key bassist kept very much to himself for the balance of this two-and-a-half-hour marathon, only being thrown into the spotlight during the famously groovy outro of “The Chain.” Otherwise, he let his bandmates do all the heavy lifting, which was easy: Fleetwood Mac’s alluringly combustible blend of personalities is a large part of where the band gets their mystique. While the crowd basked in the warm glow of Stevie Nicks, drummer Mick Fleetwood also kept a relatively low profile, spending the balance of the show coolly turning out his trademark airy drum fills behind his massive kit. The running of the show was left to the leather-jacketed Lindsey Buckingham, who reeled off sprightly guitar lines and belted the band’s hits with McCartney-level stamina.
Check out No. 2 - 5 at The Grid

Cancelled: Fleetwood Mac Live in Helsinki, Finland - October 25, 2013



















CANCELED CONCERT:

Fleetwood Mac Live 2013
Friday 25.10.2013 Hartwall Areena, Helsinki


Due to production and logistical reasons Fleetwood Mac's concert in Helsinki at Hartwall Arena on the 25th of October is now cancelled. There is no replacement date for the concert. The tickets can be returned to the outlet where the tickets were purchased.

Live Nation apologizes for the inconvenience.

Ticket refund 
The tickets bought from Lippupiste for the concert should be returned to the same Lippupiste outlet where the tickets were purchased from. Tickets purchased from the Lippupiste web store or R-kioski should be sent to the following address: Lippupiste Oy, Kalevantie 2, B-talo, 33100 Tampere. Enclose the tickets with bank account information and contact information where the money should be returned to. Electronic tickets purchased from the Lippupiste web store can be returned to lippupiste@lippu.fi address. Enclose the tickets with bank and contact information where the money should be returned to.

Fleetwoodmac.com


Fleetwood Mac Reprises Soundtrack of Separation - Ottawa Citizen

 Ottawa Citizen Newspaper - April 17, 2013 
24 Hours Toronto - April 17, 2013

REVIEW | PHOTOS: Angst Yields to hits for Fleetwood Mac - Live in Chicago April 13th


The Mac is back with a bang as "Rumours" turn to harmonies
Fleetwood Mac - United Center

Chicago, IL - April 13, 2013
Story and Photos By Andy Argyrakis


During its first tour in four years, Fleetwood Mac didn't have a new studio album to unveil, but the legendary classic rockers still had a product to plug. Though it's hard to believe 35 years have passed since the band's landmark album "Rumours" was released, a newly remastered edition just hit stores to honor the occasion, rounded out by a slew of bonus tracks and even some rare DVD footage (exclusive to the super deluxe edition).

As a result, it was no surprise to see much of that masterpiece on display at a sold out United Center, and even though the decade that's passed since the Mac's last original album is inexcusable, no one could deny the past's ability to once again connect in 2013. Come the opening cries of "Second Hand News," the defiant rocker "The Chain" and the always enchanting "Dreams," it was evident the time in between recordings or tours hasn't deteriorated the unbreakable chemistry shared between founders Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, alongside longtime collaborators Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.

Full Review with Photos at Concertlivewire.com

Photos below by Alicia Bailey - check out her gallery on Facebook


Tuesday, April 16, 2013

REVIEW | PHOTOS: Fleetwood Mac Live in Toronto at Air Canada Centre April 16, 2013

FLEETWOOD MAC LIVE
Toronto, Ontario Canada
Air Canada Centre
April 16, 2013
Photo by Tim Fraser


Fleetwood Mac's legendary ex-lovers carry the drama at ACC
Brad Wheeler
The Globe and Mail

Fleetwood Mac takes its name from the rhythm section of the band, the wild-eyed drummer Mick Fleetwood and the avuncular bassist John McVie. But those two fellows were reduced to mere bystander status at the Air Canada Centre, where the drama was carried out by the pair of legendarily ex-lovers in front. “You’ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you,” Stevie Nicks sang and Lindsey Buckingham listened. “I’ll follow you down til the sound of my voice will haunt you.”

The song was the country-ish ballad Silver Springs, a condemnation and incantation attached to a broken relationship. Nicks’s voice was lower than when she first warbled the words on 1977’s blockbuster album Rumours, making the parting vow even heavier. And when Nicks sang that “time casts a spell on you, but you won’t forget me,” the sold-out crowd could only agree and join in on the enchantment.

It was some evening, with the Mac, a still-spirited band with no new album but no reliance on nostalgia. The high material presented as era-less – memories attached to the breezy melodies, bluesy or bouncy rock and poignant acoustic-guitar moments were identified seat by seat, person by person. Earlier, Nicks, with only the finger-picking accompaniment of Buckingham at her side, offered the gentle Landslide. Could she handle the seasons of her life? Could we? The crowd’s ovation said something.

The live ballad of Nicks-Buckingham reminded me of other rock-relationship moments. When The Who’s Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend’s signed off a show at the same venue with the affective reconciliation of Tea and Theatre: “We did it all, didn’t we, jumped every wall.” And when the Guess Who’s Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings at Molson Amphitheatre closed with “no time for a summer friend, no time for the love you send – seasons change and so did I.”

The strong night had begun with Second Hand News , a pow-pow-pow rocker about breakup sex. At 63, Buckingham is lean, bronzed and every inch a 110-per-cent player. His hairline has receded, but nothing else about him has.

Buckingham was firm and urgent on the plod and stomp of Chains, with harmony from Nicks, the stiletto-wearing songstress who intoned that chains would “keep us together.”

Couldn’t help but notice that Nicks announced “this party starts now” when it came to her turn to take the spotlight, as if Buckingham’s moments were something introductory. The springy Dreams involved wandering: “You say you want your freedom, well who am I to keep you down.” The scarf-loving Nicks rounded down her vocal lines; it was a reasonable concession to the passage of time.

Sad Angel, Buckingham (a chatter) explained, was a new tune to be released at some point as part of a newly recorded EP. It’s an angular, tightly coiled number straight out of the 1980s – something to which Billy Idol could dance, possibly with himself.

Couldn’t help but notice that Buckingham hung back by his amplifier during the tired version of Rhiannon, as if he wanted no part of it. The crowd cheered anyway.

Buckingham described Big Love as “particularly significant,” in that the one-time meditation on alienation was now recast as a rumination on the power and importance of change. It was done solo, and involved two hands working as four on one of his many custom-made guitars.

He used the same acoustic on the night-closing Say Goodbye, a gentle departure. A fan behind me cracked “great, he’s gone Gordon Lightfoot on us.” I would have said Glen Campbell, but Lightfoot will do in regard to a mellow send-off that had Nicks and Buckingham in wistful, harmonic agreement: “That was so long ago, still I often think of you.” But then, we knew that already.

Fleetwood Mac plays Ottawa’s Scotiabank Place, April 23; Winnipeg’s MTS Centre, May 12; Saskatoon’s Credit Union Centre, May 14; Edmonton’s Rexall Centre, May 15; Calgary’s Scotiabank Saddledome, May 17; Vancouver’s Rogers Arena, May 19.

Veteran rockers Fleetwood Mac show off chops at ACC
BY JANE STEVENSON

TORONTO - Well   hasn’t been broken yet.
In fact, it looks stronger than ever.

Veteran rockers Fleetwood Mac, touring again for the first time in over three years in support of the 35th anniversary of their juggernaut album, 1977’s Rumours - 45 million albums sold and counting - came to the Air Canada Centre on Tuesday night for a sold-out show in front of 17,000 fans.

And thanks to the consistent, but friendly, game of musical one-up-manship going on between former lovers and current bandmates Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham on stage for two and a half hours, it turned out to be a really good thing.

Full Review at Toronto Sun including Photos by Jack Boland


Photo by Jack Boland
Fleetwood Mac at ACC: Band puts on spirited, energetic show
Good to know that Fleetwood Mac is not taking the burden of still being Fleetwood Mac in 2013 lightly.
By: Ben Rayner

Old dogs don’t tend to have a lot of new tricks left in ’em.

They’ll leap up at your throat from time to time, though, just to keep your mind on your business and to let
you know that they’re still there, lurking beneath the porch. So, hi, Fleetwood Mac. Good to know you’re not taking the burden of still being Fleetwood Mac in 2013 lightly.

Fleetwood Mac easily could, we know. Until Michael Jackson’s Thriller came along, the California combo had bragging rights to the biggest-selling album of all time in the form of 1977’s Rumours, and that album was evidently the lingering, epicentrical source of most of the adulation thrust stageward when Fleetwood Mac as it exists today — drummer Mick Fleetwood, bassist John McVie, singer/guitarist Lindsay Buckingham, inimitable frontwoman Stevie Nicks, three supporting players and two background vocalists — took on a sold-out Toronto crowd at the Air Canada Centre on Tuesday night.

Rumours is it. So even though there was a lot of water under the Fleetwood Mac bridge before that record came along 11 albums in to its recording career and even more has passed beneath during the 25 years since — the group is currently operating without classic-era fixture Christine McVie and has witnessed the deaths of former members Bob Weston, Bob Brunning and Bob Welch since 2011 — the band diligently hit all the expected Rumours marks in its 2.5-hour ACC set, along with appropriate bookend selections from 1975’s Fleetwood Mac and 1979’s weirdo-reactionary Tusk, without ever really coming across as totally jaded and done-with-it-all.

One new song, an easily digestible and familiar-feeling ditty called “Sad Angel” from an EP — and perhaps a new album featuring, Buckingham claimed, “the best stuff we’ve done in a long time” — appeared near the top of the set. The rest of the time, though, Fleetwood Mac did a more energetic and invested job than most of its contemporaries on the nostalgia circuit doing the same-old, same-old night after night. It even appeared, heaven forbid, to be enjoying itself while it went through considerably more than the anticipated motions.

Rumours standards “The Chain,” “Dreams,” “Never Going Back Again” and an impressively churnin’-’n’-burnin’“Gold Dust Woman” that properly let the witchy, whirling Stevie “mystique” out to breathe burst forth as far more enthusiastic than programmatic, even though Buckingham took pains during the run-up to such comparatively neglected Tusk selections as “Not That Funny,” “Tusk,” “Sisters of the Moon” and “Sara” to point out that that record remains the “line drawn in the sand” that better satisfies Fleetwood Mac’s ambitions towards art over music-industry commerce.

An acoustic interlude featuring a solo Buckingham version of Tango in the Night’s “Big Love,” a tingly reading of Nicks’s golden “Landslide” dedicated to her two 11-year-old Toronto “fairy goddaughters” in the room and a “lost” 1974 tune from the former couple’s Buckingham/Nicks days entitled “Without You” was presented with a generosity of spirit lacking in the syrupy ickiness that typically bedevils arena shows when they go “unplugged.” Buckingham, meanwhile, pulled off the kind of extended, screeching guitar burnout at the end of “I’m So Afraid” — and Mick Fleetwood his own galvanizing, shouty solo sojourn behind the drum kit a few minutes later — that reminded you why everyone let the so-called “excesses” of ’70s rock embodied by Fleetwood Mac run as wild as they did in the first place.

This wasn’t a particularly wild night on the whole, of course, although a late-set “Go Your Own Way” finally did propel the supportive-but-staid crowd of Boomers and wine-slurping young ladies in Stevie drag onto its feet toward an encore that predictably exploded with “Don’t Stop.” It was far from the sleepwalk through the past it could have been, however, and a performance that lent some credence to Buckingham’s claims that there are “still chapters to be written” in the Fleetwood Mac story.

Photos below: George Pimentel




SECOND HAND NEWS
THE CHAIN | DREAMS
SAD ANGEL (New song included on upcoming EP)
SILVER SPRINGS


Video: STEVIE NICKS Has Some Words Of Wisdom For Justin Bieber

STEVIE NICKS
"In Your Dreams" Canadian Premiere
On the TIFF Red Carpet in Toronto April 15, 2013
Interviewed by Damnit Maurie of KiSS 92.5

Dave Stewart "I hope it brought you a little closer to Stevie's heart," Stevie Nicks Documentary Closing

Stevie Nicks 'In Your Dreams': Fleetwood Mac Singer's Doc Almost Foiled Due to Vanity

by Sarah Kurchak
Spinner.ca

Toward the end of "In Your Dreams," Stevie Nicks and Dave Stewart's documentary about the making of their album of the same name which opened at Toronto's TIFF Bell Lightbox last night, Stewart muses about the magic that he experienced in that year of writing and recording with the rock 'n' roll legend and his hopes that a piece of that comes across in the film.

"I hope it brought you a little closer to Stevie's heart," he says in his closing narration.

The film certainly lives up to Stewart's expectations. The result of the producer and former Eurythmics member's almost obsessive need to film and document everything in his life, "In Your Dreams" takes viewers deep into the year-long creative process behind Nicks's 2011 album -- her first solo release in over a decade -- and just as deep into the heart of its co-writer and co-director.

With his omnipresent camera essentially becoming part of the gang, Stewart documents almost every detail of what happened from the time that Nicks asked him to produce her new album to the assembly of her band and crew (including superstar producer Glen Ballard and her Fleetwood Mac bandmates Mick Fleetwood and Lindsey Buckingham) to the videos the crew made to accompany each song on the disc.

Obviously comfortable with her creative partner, Nicks opens up about almost everything. Her family, her early music history, her sometimes rocky history with Buckingham, and her current inspirations are all covered. She even waxes poetically on her love of the "Twilight" films, which were the inspiration for the song "Moonlight (A Vampire's Dream).

"I was taken with this movie because what happened to Bella absolutely happened to me," she says about Bella's post-Edward heartbreak in "New Moon."

The result of this intimate and open atmosphere is a documentary that actually does make you feel like you're part of the action, as cliched as that phrase may be. And, as it turns out, the film was only really the opening act for people who attended one of the two screenings and Stevie Nicks Q&As last night. In the flesh, the rock star was even more personable and charming.

Clad in one of her trademark flowing outfits, Nicks amiably sauntered on stage after the screening, settled into her seat and started regaling the sold out crowd with a story about the genesis of the "In Your Dreams" film, and how her own personal insecurities almost destroyed the project before it even began.

Stewart, she explained, original brought up the idea of filming the whole process when he first agreed to produce the album for her. Nicks wasn't big on the idea, as it stood in the way of all of dreams of recording and home and dressing as a complete slob.

"That means serious hair, makeup and clothes," she said, in mock horror.

In the end, though, it was "Running Down a Dream," the 2007 Tom Petty documentary, that convinced her to give the camera a shot.

"I remember the footage from Tom Petty's very, very long four-hour documentary, which I personally loved, every minute of it," she said. "But there was a part on the Traveling Wilburys that was so brilliant and it really showed the five of those guys like they were in the James Gang or something. And we got to see them for a half-hour really be who they were and just looking so handsome and playing this amazing music and then, within minutes, it seemed, two of them died. And if they hadn't have done that, what a shame that would have been."

Video: Stevie Nicks talks "In Your Dreams" at #Toronto Premiere ahead of Fleetwood Mac gig

Singer Stevie Nicks walked the red carpet in Toronto on Monday for the Canadian premiere of her new documentary In Your Dreams.
CBC Arts and Entertainment

With Fleetwood Mac bandmates Mick Fleetwood and John McVie in the audience in advance of a concert by the band Tuesday, Nicks answered questions about making the documentary.

She produced and co-directed In Your Dreams with Dave Stewart (of Eurythmics fame), welcoming cameras into her California home for nearly a year while they wrote and recorded the 2011 album of the same name.

She told CBC News having creative control over the documentary allowed her the freedom to relax, despite the constant presence of cameras.

“The camera was this close and you wouldn’t care because it was Dave, because you know he promised you that he would never use anything unless you liked it,” she said.

A rock ‘n roll survivor, she describes Fleetwood Mac’s rise to fame and its off-on history since the 1970s. But the bulk of film is devoted to the creative process, as she and Stewart work on new songs and hash out how to shape the sound.

The cameras captured “the writing of seven of the songs. Nobody ever gets that,” Nicks said in an interview with CBC’s Zulekha Nathoo.

She toured for two years in support of the solo album, but Nicks said she sold only 300,000 copies, a disappointment after the stardom she enjoyed with Fleetwood Mac's 1977 album Rumours.

" It's awesome if you're an unknown artist and you have a hit single but it's not really that awesome if you're Stevie Nicks," she said.

"It's such a different age now."

Nicks also mentioned an idea Stewart has been trying to get her to embrace – a one-woman stage show along the lines of Barbra Streisand’s My Name is Barbra.

"He wants me to have video screens, like a big room of video screens where it's all my whole life (up there). And I (said): 'Dave, I'm not Barbra Streisand'," Nicks said. "But maybe. Maybe someday."

Fleetwood Mac plays Tuesday at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto as part of a 34-city tour. In Your Dreams screens until April 18 in Toronto.

CBC Interview

Stevie Nicks is becoming more personable. 
The lead singer of Fleetwood Mac has just released a new documenatry “In Your Dreams” that tells the story of Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks’ inner life. Nicks walked the red carpet at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto on Monday night. She said this documentary is a little different.  Stevie was also asked about the Boston explosions.

Headlines: Stevie Nicks debuts new doc with an intimate Q&A

By: Paul Aguirre-Livingston
TheGridTO

The scene: A screening of Stevie Nicks’ documentary film, In Your Dreams, followed by an intimate Q&A with the chanteuse. Fangirls and boys—in eager, nervous numbers—sell out two consecutive screenings to be among the first to see the footage and interact with Nicks.

The story: Nicks teamed up with pal Dave Stewart, of Eurythmics fame, to chronicle the recording of her seventh studio album. The duo holed up in Nicks’ empty mansion with a group of musicians, including producer Glenn Ballard, throughout much of 2010 to record the album. The doc offers both insight into the songwriting process and the stories behind each track, which serve as neat divisions in the film’s narrative. There’s also a retrospective of Stevie’s childhood and career, focusing on her rise to fame, the important relationships with bandmates and family that shaped her, as well as glimpses into her intense emotions regarding current events, from 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina.

The takeaway: Nicks, who turns 65 on May 26, feels as young and alive as ever, invigorated by the people in her life and the music she is making. She does it because she wants to “defy” the music business to remind the audience “why [she] loved it back in the day.” In Your Dreams isn’t without its quirks: odd, staged performances of the album’s tracks that feel like one part music video, one part accidental LSD trip. Stevie leading a horse, singing. Stevie holding an owl, singing. Visiting an army hospital. In a ball gown, down the stairs, singing. A vampire playing a piano. Yes, it’s all beautiful and bizarre, yet so wonderfully in tune with her musical majesty.

So what do we learn about Nicks from her self-portrait?

We learn the track “Moonlight (A Vampire’s Dream)” was inspired by Twilight: New Moon, which Nicks saw in Australia and immediately related to Bella so deeply that she “just started to cry from the deepest part of [her] heart.” We learn Reese Witherspoon would play her in a movie and inspired/named the song “Cheaper Than Free,” one of Nicks’ all-time favourites. We learned that Stevie doesn’t “like to be told what to do.” Naturally. Nicks’ Q&A, then, is the epilogue to In Your Dreams, as both a film and an album, as she discusses her ambitious promotional schedule—because the “record company won’t help”—and about her desire to introduce loyal audiences to new material. Her responses are heavy-handed, with details so crisp and clear, spoken like a true poet. Nicks articulates exactly what she wants you to feel, and illustrates the internal journeys that bring her to her realizations. She speaks her brand of carefully-crafted wisdom.

Best outfit: A tie! Nicks, in all black, with fingerless leather gloves and a crescent moon necklace. Or her mini-me fan from the future, in a floral crown, peasant top, and flowing cotton skirt.

Number of times the audience howls and claps after Nicks answers a question: 4

Number of times an audience member screams “I love you”: 1

Number of audience members who cried on the mic: 1, after Nicks shares an intimate confession on the regret of not knowing enough about her mother’s life before she passed away at the end of 2011.

Number of chiffon blouses Nicks claims to own: “About 300”

On making In Your Dreams, the documentary: “If you would had asked us then if we were making a movie, we would have started giggling, ‘Are you crazy? We’re not making a movie.’ We were just filming because Dave [Stewart] likes to film.”

On recording In Your Dreams, the album: “It was like this amazing old English party every single day, and, on top of that, we were making amazing music.”

On being inspired by the four-hour-long documentary, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin’ Down a Dream, and vanity: “It seemed like within minutes [of Dream], two of the guys died. And if they hadn’t [made that movie], what a shame that would have been. So that’s what came into my head: What a shame would it be if you, Ms. Vanity, said no to this because you don’t want to spend half an hour doing makeup and picking a uniform.”

Her mom’s advice: “Don’t forget the journey. Don’t forget to appreciate that journey because many people don’t have a brilliant, brilliant journey like you have had. So don’t forget that.”

Her dad’s advice: “Stevie, go where the work is.”

On recording Rumours: “Well, it wasn’t really a pleasant experience. Lindsey and I had just broken up. None of the couples were happy. On one hand, this really lends to the creative process…it was not a lot of fun. But I would like to remind people, and myself, that it was a very, very romantic time. We were young and we were totally rich. Love was in the air, even if we weren’t particularly in love, it was still in the air. It was grand. Would you call it the happiest year of your life? No. But would you call it an extremely interesting, weird, passionate, crazy year? Yes.”

On selling records, then and now: “For a big act…like moi…I didn’t sell a lot of records [of In Your Dreams].

Worldwide, I probably only sold 300,000 records [estimates report 500,000]. It’s awesome if you’re an unknown artist and you have a hit single. But it’s not really awesome if you’re Stevie Nicks and [1981's solo debut] Bella Donna sold three million copies in the first month and went straight to number one on Billboard. It’s not awesome in that way, but you can’t look at it like that anymore. Records don’t sell like that. If we had done Rumours now, and then [the follow-up] Tusk, the double album, Warner Brothers would tell us to get out—and take your African tusks with you.” [Audience laughs] “Seriously.”

Comparing the vibe of her solo shows to those of Fleetwood Mac: “In my show, I talk a lot. In Fleetwood Mac, I don’t talk a lot because [that show] is much more sophisticated and grown-up. My show is just a big, like, slumber party in an auditorium.”

On Girl Power: “When I joined Fleetwood Mac, Christine [McVie] and had many talks. I said to her, “You and me together are a force of nature. We’re pretty tough by ourselves, but together we can’t be beat. I just want to let you know that I don’t ever want you and I to ever be treated like second class citizens. We will never be pushed aside in a group of British and American rock stars that are men. We will never be treated like that. And we weren’t. Had we not demanded it, we wouldn’t have gotten that kind of treatment.”

On her new life mantra: “I’m not going to worry about record sales anymore, I’m not going to worry about what people think. What really matters is what I think. If I’m thinking good, then what I do is going to turn around make you feel happy. I throw the dreams out there and you throw them back. That’s how this works. It happens because we’re a team. You’re my team.”

The experience in 140 characters or less: “I can die now. #stevienicksforever”

STEVIE NICKS at TIFF: Canadian Premiere of "In Your Dreams" (Reviews / Photos)

Stevie Nicks was in Toronto this week ahead of Fleetwood Mac’s show Tuesday night at the Air Canada Centre
by Erin Criger
Citynews


The singer was promoting her new documentary In Your Dreams. The movie, filmed with Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart, follows Nicks as she makes her 2011 album, also called In Your Dreams.

The Canadian premiere was held at the TIFF Bell Lightbox on Monday night.

“We got stuff that nobody ever gets. We got the actual writing of the songs – nobody ever gets that, because you usually don’t let anybody in while you’re doing it,” Nicks told CityNews at the Lightbox.

“Everybody got a camera. There were like 12 people there with a camera,” Nicks said.

Nicks said Stewart persuaded her to make the documentary and to film it in her house. At first, she said, they were only going to record the album at her home.

When he proposed the idea, she said, “Are you serious? Are you kidding? You mean I have to put makeup on every day?”

She said Stewart promised that if she didn’t like the footage, they wouldn’t use it.

“It was a promise made between the caterpillar and Alice. And I knew it was true,” Nicks said.

In Your Dreams will play at the Lightbox until April 18.

Stevie Nicks promotes ‘In Your Dreams’ documentary in Toronto

Words and Photos by Ryan Emberley - Check out more at CDaily
The doors of the TIFF Bell Lightbox open and in saunters the gypsy queen of rock & roll herself: Stevie Nicks.

Flanked by bodyguards, media pit at the ready-- it was a picture-perfect moment. Nicks, 64, still does Margi Kent proud; garbed in black, fingerless leather gloves, and killer platform boots.

It was a whirlwind tour of Toronto for Nicks, who was in town Monday evening for the Canadian premiere of her new documentary, Stevie Nicks: In Your Dreams, and later, the Toronto leg of Fleetwood Mac’s world tour. 

Bandmates Mick Fleetwood and John McVie also turned up for the premiere – arriving late and sneaking quietly into their seats.

The film, directed by Nicks and Dave Stewart, is a 112 minute song-by-song telling of the creative process behind the making of Nicks’ most recent album, also titled In Your Dreams.

It is, perhaps, mislabeled as a documentary. Verging on indulgent at times, the film is a great window into Nicks’ magical world for superfans, but perhaps a bit too long, and self-serving for the average film viewer expecting a classic documentary. 

That said, there’s a lot for the casual fan to love. Reese Witherspoon makes a cameo and helps Nicks pen a song.  And there’s a lot of humour – something not often seen from a rocktar of Nicks’ caliber. 

Nicks comes off as a motley cocktail of self-awareness – equally humble and vain. In one breath, she shows an awe-inspiring empathic ability to connect and relate. In another, she unabashedly trumpets her own rock & roll legacy.

“You wouldn’t say that to Dylan,” she says… more than once (usually when someone challenges a creative decision she’s made). For most, comparing one’s self to Bob Dylan would be a faux pas, but for Nicks… it’s just awesome.

Off screen, the gamut of Nicks’ personality was also on display as she indulged the crowd with a duo of post-screening Q&A sessions. Nicks chatted earnestly about her career, the future of the music business, and her creative process as a writer. 

What an opportunity it is, even for a fleeting hour or two, to enter the world of a woman who has danced across the stages of the world. She’s a feminist, she’s a lover, she’s an artist, and now, entering what might be the last stage of a storied career, she’s a mentor.

“Your journey is much more important than what you come out with,” says Nicks, tearing up as she relays advice she received just before her mother’s passing. “You’re just making memories. It’s all you’re doing.”
Photos and words by Ryan Emberley

Toronto Standard




Toronto Star
Photo by itsmarky5



Stevie Nicks: In Your Dreams – Canada Premiere Movie Review - Q&A VIDEO COMING SOON
by Terry Makedon
Tmakworld.com

Verdict 4 out or 5 – The ultimate voyeuristic trip into the world of a bonafide rock star. This is not a biography of Nicks that focuses on her epic stardom years but simply a window in one year of her life in her 60′s. The movie works for me as I am a Fleetwood Mac fan and thus by default a Stevie Nicks fan. I value having the opportunity to have insight into the life of rock icon and as far as rock star legacy goes Nicks is as good as it gets. Very compelling insight regardless of whether you are a die hard Nicks fan or not!

Continue to the full review with photos.  

Keep checking the website as the full video will be posted shortly at Tmakworld.com


Nicks chokes up talking about late mom at Toronto Q&A
Jane Stevenson
GETTY IMAGES/WireImage/George Pimentel
JAM ShowBiz!

Fleetwood Mac star Stevie Nicks says making her 2011 solo album In Your Dreams and the 2013 behind-the-scenes documentary of the same name was almost beside the point because the process was “so much fun.”

“I lost my mom a year and a half ago,” said the 64-year-old Nicks getting choked up during one of two Q&A’s following screenings of the documentary on Tuesday night at TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto.

“And every since I lost my mother I really realized how important what you do is, and your journeys are much, much more important than what you come out with. And I look back on this year now and I think it’s so true. That’s all we were doing was making memories. There was no harsh words. There was no arugments. There was no friction ever. …I knew that we would never forget this year.”

Nicks told a packed crowd, which had included Fleetwood Mac bandmates drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie before they exited pre Q&A, that documentary director and album co-producer-co-writer Dave Stewart (Eurythmics) talked her into filming on the second day of recording by reassuring her.

“Darling, if you don’t like it, we won’t use it, and that’s a promise,” Nicks said Stewart told her. “From that moment onward, I wasn’t worried anymore and the whole thing began with little flip cameras.”

The routine was that Stewart would come to Nicks home every day between 2:00 p.m to 8:30 p.m. (they moved his martini time from 4 p.m to 8;30 p.m.) and Nicks had to get up 4 hours earlier than usual to drink coffee in bed from 9 to noon, have a bath and do avocal lesson, and down a quick breakfast before Stewart arrived.

Naturally, filming meant a little bit more “girlie work’ for Nicks.

“I had this one blouse I liked and I just stuck with it,” explained Nicks. “‘Cause if I had to think about what I was wearing every day then that would really make the filming thing very uncomfortable for me. So i didn’t. So then I had to spend a half-hour putting on makeup and I had to blow out this really long hair 2 or 3 times a week instead of once a week. So it was more work definitely but after about the first two weeks I got used to it.”

The documentary had its Canadian debut in Toronto before moving its way across the country as Fleetwood Mac also makes Canadian stops at arenas. (In the case of Toronto at the Air Canada Centre on April 16.)

Nicks told media on the red carpet the current Fleetwood Mac show is “a big show. It’s different. I said to (guitarist) Lindsey (Buckingham), it’s disturbingly big. Because you’re in there putting on your shoes and then all of the sudden you’re out there on stage in front of 16,000 people. You have to kind of get used to that.”

Otherwise, she told the Q&A she was unaccustomed to holding a microphone as she took questions.

“Thirty-five, 40 years ago Lindsey said to me, ‘Oh, how very Las Vegas of you!’ And I never took the mic off the stand again. So when I hold the mic I feel like an idiot.”

Canadian Reviews of In Your Dreams - HERE and HERE

Check out inyourdreamsmovie.com for Canadian Dates to see the film "In Your Dreams"