Photos | Video: Fleetwood Mac Live in Rosemont, IL - Feb 14, 2015

 Fleetwood Mac Live in Rosemont, IL - February 14, 2015

Below Photos by Erin Brown

Great captures of the band from Lindsey's side of the stage

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THE CHAIN
YOU MAKE LOVING FUN

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Review | Photos | Video: Fleetwood Mac Live in Milwaukee February 12, 2015

Moments of strength, and flatness, for Fleetwood Mac at BMO Harris Bradley Center
by Piet Levy
JSonline.com

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With Christine McVie back in Fleetwood Mac after more than 16 years, singer and guitarist Lindsey
Buckingham told a near-capacity BMO Harris Bradley Center Thursday "we begin a profound, poetic and I think a prolific new chapter."

Can't say Thursday's show was always profound, and it's highly doubtful Mac — which dropped its self-titled album, the first with game-changing additions Buckingham and singer Stevie Nicks, four decades ago this year — is going to be all that prolific going forward.

But it did seem that Buckingham and most of the band believed the words he was saying. And that conviction, coupled with enduring talent and classic rock songs, was enough to make Thursday's two-and-a-half-hour show, the 54th on its current tour, a nice little footnote for Milwaukee fans.

McVie, however, seemed to live by very different words she uttered: "I'm not as strong as I used to be," as sung during "Say You Love Me." Her appearance was welcome for sentimental reasons, evident by the warm response when she took lead vocals for the first time in the night, for "You Make Loving Fun."

But there were moments of vocal flatness — most obvious at concert's end for her signature "Songbird," alone on piano with Buckingham on electric guitar — and McVie lacked the charisma of her now more-seasoned singing bandmates. Even drummer Mick Fleetwood — perched behind his decked-out kit with chimes and gong — had more pizzazz, albeit perhaps too much when he disguised a lengthy and ultimately none too impressive drum solo during "World Turning" with hollow, hype-fanning pseudo scat-speak.

There were other moments of self-indulgence. "Go Your Own Way," one of several enduring singles from the band's mega-blockbuster "Rumours," ends on the album with a sudden, anti-climactic fade, but Thursday's drawn-out, jam-session finale wasn't much of an improvement.

And Buckingham, like Fleetwood, was a ham, yelping like a cowboy between some songs, cackling like a pirate at the start of a still-rollicking "Tusk," and stomping about like a toddler throwing a tantrum once the song was over. His voice, while emotionally charged, also was a touch raw compared with the heavenly harmonies of Mac's '70s heyday. But his guitar playing, from the bluesy build on concert-opener "The Chain" to the bittersweet beauty of his acoustic guitar on "Landslide," was consistently exquisite.

Nicks acknowledged before "Landslide" — performed with just Buckingham by her side — that the pair had performed the song hundreds of times. But in dedicating it to her late father — it was his favorite song, she said — she still conveyed the same quiet majesty she brought to the first recording 40 years ago.

Nicks' alluring voice and mystical charisma led the band through anthemic yet intimate soft rock charmers like "Dreams," "Rhiannon" and "Gold Dust Woman" — a set list of hits so great that the band can be excused if that "prolific new chapter" never comes. After all, Fleetwood Mac already created a story for the ages.

THE TAKEAWAYS

■ The best part of the concert was a more stripped-down five-song set that included a few fond recollections about the origins of "Big Love" and "Gypsy." If Mac is really seeking a profound new chapter, it should consider a storytellers-oriented tour in smaller venues.

■ One reason the harmonies sounded so great Thursday was because there were up to five backing singers (two of them also supporting instrumentalists). Fleetwood let those musicians take a bow — but not once did he acknowledge a second drummer who played hidden behind the speaker stacks. For most of the night, the drummer was helping Fleetwood fill out the sound, but Fleetwood himself did handle his drum solo actually solo.

■ Notable banter: "On a personal note, let me quickly say how grateful I am and how fantastic it is to be standing here on this stage with these amazing musicians who are my musical family." — Christine McVie.

SECOND HAND NEWS
DREAMS

Fleetwood Mac Add 2nd Los Angeles Show - April 14th at The Forum Tix on sale Feb 17th

Fleetwood Mac Adds Another Los Angeles Show

Fleetwood Mac, who have been performing to sold-out shows throughout North America, have confirmed they will add one more date to their critically-acclaimed “On with the Show” tour.

The new date is April 14 at The Forum in Inglewood, Calif.

American Express card members can purchase tickets before the general public beginning Tuesday, Feb. 17 at 10 a.m. through Sunday, Feb. 22 at 10 p.m.

Tickets go on sale to the general public on Monday, Feb. 23 at 10 a.m. through the Live Nation mobile app and at Ticketmaster. For further information and on sale dates, please go to www.fleetwoodmac.com.

Fleetwood Mac is currently performing with their five star lineup including the returning songbird Christine McVie who rejoined the band following a 16 year absence.

Fleetwood Mac Review: Stevie Nicks dedicates Landslide to the river of monks - Des Moines, IA

Fleetwood Mac Live
Wells Fargo Arena - Des Moines, IA - February 11, 2015

A songbird returns, Fleetwood Mac thrills Wells Fargo Arena
by Joe Lawler
dmjuice.com

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It’s a time-honored tradition that touring musicians will mangle the pronunciation of “Des Moines.” Those Ses throw everyone off. Wednesday night at Wells Fargo Arena it was Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie who got tripped up. To be fair, she had a good excuse.

“It’s been many a year since I’ve been in the city,” McVie said after making a small error she was probably unaware of. While Fleetwood Mac last played Des Moines less than two years ago, McVie hasn’t been a regular part of the band in 17 years.

The crowd got a heaping helping of McVie during the show. After starting the show with the group effort “The Chain,” McVie launched into “You Make Loving Fun,” a song long absent from Fleetwood Mac sets.

“Tonight’s our 54th show,” singer Stevie Nicks said of the current tour. “In the beginning of our 54 shows, at this point in the show I would say ‘Welcome Des Moines’ and ‘Welcome Back, Christine.’ Now that we’re on our 54th show, we can just proceed with ‘She’s back!’ Let’s get this party started!”

Fleetwood Mac stuck closely to its classic material, following the first two songs with two more from “Rumours,” “Dreams” and “Second Hand News,” which gave Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham a shot at lead vocals. From there the band went back a little further, to 1975’s self-titled album with Nicks singing “Rhiannon.”

Video: Fleetwood Mac Live in Newark, NJ Feb 8, 2015

Fleetwood Mac Live
Prudential Center - Newark, NJ - February 8, 2015

DREAMS
YOU MAKE LOVING FUN
RHIANNON

Available Now: Rockabye Baby "Lullaby Renditions of Fleetwood Mac"

Released February 10, 2015 -- A cool way for all you young mothers expecting out there... or maybe you are a friend or future Grand Parent and looking for something to give a new Mom...

Introduce the little one to some Fleetwood Mac via Rockabye Baby Music's first release of 2015 "Lullaby Renditions of Fleetwood Mac". The album is available now.

Tracklist

1. Go Your Own Way
2. Don't Stop
3. Everywhere
4. Say You Love Me
5. Rhiannon
6. Little Lies
7. The Chain
8. Gold Dust Woman
9. You Make Loving Fun
10. Never Going Back Again
11. Dreams
12. Gypsy
13. Landslide

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Personal assistant for Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood donates VIP tickets to Cleveland Show

Falls native and band assistant donates VIP tickets to Fleetwood Mac concert to help local charity; raffle raises $10,000 for anti-drug effort
By Stephanie Warsmith
Beacon Journal staff writer
Ohio.com

Cuyahoga Falls native Robert Heeman isn’t a rock star, but he lives like one.

As the personal assistant for Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood, he stays in five-star hotels, rides on private jets and recently bought a million-dollar house in Maui not far from where his boss lives.

Heeman, though, has always wanted to give back to his hometown. He saw an opportunity with Fleetwood Mac’s show Feb. 18 in Cleveland and reached out to Falls Mayor Don Walters, with whom he grew up, to offer VIP concert passes.

Walters jumped at the offer and turned it into an opportunity to raise money for the city’s Not Me, I’m Drug Free program. The city teamed up with I-ROK, which is taking over the concert series in the Falls this summer, and sold $10 raffle tickets for a chance to win one of three pairs of tickets. The raffle raised about $3,000.

Heeman talked Fleetwood Mac into buying any remaining tickets, which will mean a $10,000 donation to the anti-drug program.

Video: Fleetwood Mac Live in Uncasville, CT - February 7, 2015

Fleetwood Mac Live
Uncasville, CT - Mohegan Sun Arena
Saturday, February 7, 2015

Photos: Mohegan Sun Arena

THE CHAIN
YOU MAKE LOVING FUN
EVERYWHERE
SEVEN WONDERS

Review | Photos | Video: Fleetwood Mac Live in Montreal - February 5, 2015

No weak links in Fleetwood Mac's chain
by Jordan Zivitz
Montreal Gazette

Photo: John Kenney
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For a band that was once famously defined by personal drama and rancour, Fleetwood Mac’s members were almost as generous toward one another as they were to the nearly 12,400 fans who spent 2 1/2 hours in their company at the Bell Centre Thursday night.

The narrative of this tour is the return of keyboardist Christine McVie, which completes the group’s most popular lineup for the first time since 1998. She certainly received her due welcome from the audience and from her bandmates, but the quintet shared the glory, both between its members and as an ensemble.

And what glory. There’s no new album to promote (although one is in the works), and the most recent numbers in Thursday’s show were from the 1987 disc Tango in the Night, with more than half of the set list drawn from the 1975 self-titled release and 1977’s world-conquering Rumours. But this didn’t feel like a nostalgic evening. The performance was absolutely contemporary and, with McVie back, there was an air both of taking care of unfinished business and setting up a new venture.

The crackling energy was there from the walk-on to The Chain, while drummer Mick Fleetwood’s clockwork timekeeping, John McVie’s strapping bass and Lindsey Buckingham’s swampy guitar telegraphed that the band’s locked-in interplay hadn’t diminished. (About the only wrong note of the night was a breakdown in the Bell Centre welcome staff’s usual military efficiency, with security checks causing a chaotic logjam at the entrance.)

Speaking of precision, Stevie Nicks made an early note that this was the 51st show of the tour. “In the beginning, I would have said: a) ‘Welcome, Montreal,’ and second, ‘Welcome, Chris.’ … Today I think we can say, with caution abandoned, ‘She’s ba-ack!’ ”

Charismatic even when she was rooted in place, Nicks went on to lose herself inside Dreams before Buckingham — the only member to routinely venture to the lip of the stage — led a bracing Second Hand News as if the 38-year-old cut was being shared for the first time. Although Christine McVie’s upper-register vocals were a touch strained in Everywhere (but appealingly earthy everywhere else), that sunny delight was also rejuvenated, and stripped of its ’80s gloss.

Buckingham offered his own welcome to McVie when he spoke of “beginning a profound and prolific new chapter.” It may not have been a coincidence that Fleetwood Mac’s most forward-thinking member said this before a mini-block from 1979’s Tusk, the band’s messy masterpiece of art over commercialism.

The title track’s marching-band strangeness remained delightfully odd — and not just by this group’s classicist standards — with Christine McVie on accordion, Buckingham playing the madman card to the hilt, and three auxiliary players contributing more than the almost imperceptible shading offered elsewhere. Nicks’s carefully possessed lead in Sisters of the Moon was supplemented by haunted harmonies from an understated trio of backup singers.

The quick-change pacing of the show’s first hour or so turned far more casual in the back half, starting with an intimate acoustic section that could have taken place in a club setting. Buckingham made conversation before his solo performance of Big Love, once “a contemplation on alienation and now a meditation on the power and importance of change.” True to his words, the solemn but flashy fingerpicking was a revelation, and far removed from the slick original. Nicks joined Buckingham for Landslide, stunning in its stillness, before the duo added a note of darkness to Never Going Back Again.

Over My Head saw the return of the full band, the introduction of Fleetwood’s front-of-stage “cocktail kit” and a reminiscence from Christine McVie about the time spent “sort of floundering, looking for a new guitarist” before Buckingham joined for the eponymous 1975 album. Setting up Gypsy, Nicks offered a history lesson of her own, a touching recollection of window shopping at San Francisco’s Velvet Underground rock-star clothing boutique before she was a star herself. The songs-and-stories format may have helped slow the show’s momentum, but they also helped make one of the top-selling bands in the world seem approachable.

The home stretch included a number of extended showcases: Gold Dust Woman climaxed with Nicks swaying across the stage in a glittering shawl; Buckingham enjoyed a caustic centrepiece in I’m So Afraid; Fleetwood had the stage to himself for a crazy-eyed shamanic routine in the middle of World Turning.

But of course, Go Your Own Way and Don’t Stop were the real climactic crowd-pleasers. The quintet’s camaraderie was at its strongest in the former, with the tireless Buckingham speeding around Nicks, who had donned a bejewelled top hat, and careering into John McVie.

Fleetwood’s splashy introductions of his colleagues in the encore were brimming with affection: Buckingham with his “beady eye on the future,” Nicks the “eternal romantic,” John McVie “always on my right-hand side,” Christine McVie “making all of this so complete — our songbird has returned.”

Nice tee-up, as McVie returned for a second encore of Songbird, delivering her most tender vocal of the night accompanied only by Buckingham. It was a poignant final word, given an equally poignant afterword when Nicks made an endearingly rambling speech. In all her cosmic wisdom, she credited the audience for willing McVie back into the band. Her gratitude for the circle being unbroken tied into Buckingham’s earlier prediction of a “profound and prolific new chapter.” We’ll see about prolific. In light of the rewards from Thursday’s concert, profound is a fait accompli.

Fleetwood Mac au Centre Bell en PHOTOS
Le Huffington Post Québec

Le groupe Fleetwood Mac était de passage au Centre Bell jeudi 5 février. Amorçant son spectacle avec des pièces de son célèbre album Rumours, le groupe a su ravir les 12 000 spectacteurs qui occupaient l'amphithéatre.

Voici la prestation en photos:

by David Kirouac

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Fleetwood Mac à Montréal: ce n'est qu'un au revoir
by Ismaël Houdassine
Photo Ben Pelosse
fr.canoe.ca

MONTRÉAL - C'était soirée nostalgie jeudi soir au Centre Bell pour l'ultime tournée du groupe mythique Fleetwood Mac. Baby-boomers et amateurs de folk rock atmosphérique 1970 se sont donné rendez-vous dans une ambiance où le quintette a enchaîné les succès.

Sans perdre de temps, les cinq membres du groupe britano-américain dont les vétérans Mick Fleetwood et John McVie (qui ont donné leur nom à la formation), pour la première fois réunis à Montréal, ont amorcé le spectacle en interprétant coup sur coup The Chain, You Make Loving Fun et le superbe Dreams, tous tirés de Rumours, leur légendaire album, vendu à 40 millions d'exemplaires.

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Photo: Ben Pelosse

Fleetwood Mac Au Centre Bell
La totale définitivement totale
by Sylvain Cormier
Le Devoir

Photo: Annik MH De Carufel

Mais comment donc avais-je pu sortir si pleinement satisfait la dernière fois, en 2009 ? Alors qu’elle n’était pas là ? Alors qu’il manquait tant de chansons à la liste des essentielles ? « Toutes jouées, toutes bien jouées », avais-je titré. Toutes ? Sans You Make Loving Fun, Over My Head, Say You Love Me, Little Lies ? Sans la ballade piano des ballades piano, exquise Songbird ? Comment avais-je pu me contenter d’un Fleetwood Mac sans Christine McVie ?

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DREAMS

Review | Video: Fleetwood Mac Return to Toronto - February 3, 2015

Fleetwood Mac Live in Toronto
February 3, 2015 - Air Canada Centre

by Jane Stevenson
Toronto Sun

The return of The Mac proved to be just as sweet the second time around.

British-American ’70s folk-rockers Fleetwood Mac, boasting their most successful lineup of singers Stevie Nicks, keyboardist Christine McVie and guitarist Lindsey Buckingham (Nicks’ ex-boyfriend), bassist John McVie (Christine’s ex-husband) and drummer Mick Fleetwood, returned to the Air Canada Centre Tuesday night after performing at the same venue on the same tour with the same set list back in mid-October. No matter. Torontonians — another 17,000 or so of them — liked a double serving of The Mac particularly since this tour features the return of the 71-year-old Christine McVie who stayed off the road for 16 years.

With everyone else in the group in their mid to late 60s, there was no time like the present for this reunion.

Thankfully, the Fleetwood Mac back catalogue has held up so well with special mention to the songs from their beloved 1977 discs Rumours that’s sold 45 million albums and counting.

Not surprsingly, the group kicked off the night with The Chain from that album before McVie took over on lead vocals for You Make Loving Fun, also from Rumours.

“Welcome back, Toronto.” said Nicks in her usual black flowing outfit, black suede boots and various shawls throughout the night.

“Tonight is our 47th show and I think we can safely say, ‘She’s back!,’ ” added Nicks, referring to McVie. “So that being said, let’s get this party started!”

McVie told the crowd later: “I love you very much!”

What followed was a nostalgic but mostly riveting evening of music as the group, propelled by the guitar maniac that is still the fastfooted, lightning-fingered Buckingham, made their way through such crowd pleasers as the Nicks-sung Dreams and Rhiannon — with some twirling from her on that latter one — the McVieled Everywhere and the Buckingham-sung I Know I’m Not Wrong in the first third of the show.

Five other musicians and an impressively large video screen and smaller video strips certainly helped to fill out the group’s sounds and sights.

“Well, we were here not too long ago — I guess a few more people wanted to see us,” Buckingham said with a chuckle. “So we came back.... I think it’s safe to say we’ve seen our share of ups and downs and I think that kind of makes us what we are. In this particular moment, with the return of the beautiful Christine, she is a beautiful soul, and I think her return now signals the beginning of a poetic, profound and I think prolific new chapter of this band — Fleetwood Mac!”

The next two thirds of the main set saw such highlights as Tusk, with McVie breaking out the accordion, but the marching band appeared only on the big screen and not as a live accompanmient, sadly; Buckingham’s incredible guitar display and gutteral shrieks on Big Love, his quieter vocals but no less stellar playing on Never Going Back Again and plugging in big time for I’m So Afraid; and Nicks’ ’60s San Franreminiscent Gypsy and Gold Dust Woman (complete with gold shawl) with yet more twirling from her on both.

But the emotional centre of the show proved to be the pretty and delicate Landslide, with just Nicks and Buckingham on stage with the former couple holding hands toward the end of the song and again at its conclusion.

Otherwise, the tunes that made me sleepy last time did it to me again, Nicks’ Sisters of the Moon and Seven Wonders but these are small quibbles.

The mighty Mac is back and they don’t appear to be going away again anytime soon.

Fleetwood Mac Live in Toronto
T-MAK WORLD also reviewed the Toronto show and took the below shot of some fancy new footwear that I've never seen Stevie wear before... Check out the review and what Stevie had to say about her boots, along with more photos from the show, here.

Photo by T-MAK WORLD

Gypsy
Gold Dust Woman
Introductions
Don't Stop

Review | Videos: Fleetwood Mac Live in Buffalo, NY - January 31, 2015

Fleetwood Mac bewitches crowd at First Niagara Center
By Jeff Miers
Buffalonews.com

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There needs to come a point when you believe in the band. Otherwise, you’re watching a classic rock jukebox.

We look for that moment when we forget about the baby sitter, the $200 or so spent on the ticket, the fact that we’ve heard these tunes more than a million times.

On Saturday, during Fleetwood Mac’s close-to-sold-out performance in First Niagara Center, that moment came early. Guitarist Lindsey Buckingham strode to the edge of the stage after the lights had been dimmed, looked around, said a brief hello to the front rows, and then dug into the swampy and sultry deep blues riff that signifies the beginning of the Mac’s evergreen hit, “The Chain.”

Buckingham hunkered down, dug into it, and made it plain to all that he had come not merely to collect a paycheck, but to play.

From there on, it was smooth sailing.

Buckingham led the version of Fleetwood Mac that most of us know and love – the group responsible for “Rumours,” “Tusk,” and “Tango In the Night” – through a hits-heavy set that walked the tightrope between easygoing ’70s pop-rock and deep-cutting avant-garde pop.

Of course, Buckingham is not the most famous member of Fleetwood Mac. That would be Stevie Nicks, his ex, and forevermore his partner in pop. Nicks is an icon, but Buckingham is a musical genius. On Saturday, their sparring made for abundant entertainment.

Fleetwood Mac has made a habit of including Buffalo in its tours since re-forming in the late ’90s. But this particular tour stop boasted something more than simply a run-through of “Rumours” and associated hits. This was in fact the first time area audiences have seen keyboardist and vocalist Christine McVie perform with the band in more than 15 years. McVie’s tunes – her “You Make Loving Fun,” “Everywhere,” “Say You Love Me” and “Over My Head,” among others – offered soulful highlights. She seems to have lost nothing in the vocal department – she nailed every part she should have, and did so with soul.

This was a hits show, to be certain, but in Fleetwood Mac’s case, that needn’t be a negative. The group has scored platinum with some rather adventurous tunes, and a mid-set focus on the freak manifesto that is “Tusk” made this plain. Buckingham’s “I Know I’m Not Wrong” and “Tusk” led nicely into Nicks’ “Sisters of the Moon,” and earned the crowd’s respect, apparently. The place exploded.

Nicks doesn’t have the voice she once did, but then, who would? She’s in her later 60s now, and if she couldn’t hit the high notes during “Rhiannon” and “Dreams,” she wisely chose the low road, while three backing vocalists, joined by Buckingham and McVie, fleshed out the harmonies. None of it felt fake or forced – this was a band that seemed grateful to be playing for an appreciative audience.

Nicks told a particularly cool story that involved her trademark top hat, an accessory she was rarely seen without during Mac’s “Rumours” heyday. The singer told the assembled that it was during a tour stop in Buffalo – one assumes that it would have been the 1975 pre-”Rumours” stop that is recorded as having taken place at the old Century Theatre – that she purchased said hat. This brought a huge roar from the crowd, which was made up of a cross section of 50-, 40-, 30- and, surprisingly, 20-somethings.

Fleetwood Mac still has it, as Saturday’s show made plain. Everyone pulled their weight, especially the recently returned McVie, whose voice was pure gold.

But like every other Fleetwood Mac show since he joined the band in 1974, this one belonged to Lindsey Buckingham. He is one of the true pop geniuses to have emerged from the ’70s, and on Saturday, he proved it one more time.

Fleetwood Mac Live in Buffalo
T-MAK WORLD also reviewed the show... Check out their review here.

Gold Dust Woman
Silver Springs
< Don't Stop

Video: Fleetwood Mac Live in Washington, DC - January 30, 2015

Fleetwood Mac Live - Washington, DC
Verizon Center - January 30, 2015

Gypsy intro story.... Different angle from what you normally see.. Shot from the side of the stage showing Christine and John taking a break while Stevie tells her story.

Go Your Own way... Stevie let's a couple of people in the front row touch her tamborine as she passes by.

I Know I'm Not Wrong

Landslide... including the dedication