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Friday, March 20, 2009
Mick Fleetwood makes an appearance at Barnes & Noble
TODAY - 12 NOON - NEW YORK CITY
Rock legend Mick Fleetwood makes an appearance at Barnes & Noble on Fifth Ave. Probably best known for his contributions to the band, Fleetwood Mac, this time the rocker appears solo to promote his newest album “Blue Again.” The album was released on March 17 and features several collaborations. 12 Noon; free admission. 555 Fifth Ave. (212-697-3048).
Thursday, March 19, 2009
REVIEW: Monday Morning Launched The Show - Fleetwood Mac Live in Toronto
FLEETWOOD MAC
AIR CANADA CENTRE
TORONTO, CANADA - March 17, 2009
Monday Morning launched the show off followed by The Chain and Dreams. Lindsey showed his strong presence early here in the show… his unique vocals and of course his guitar mastery. I wasn’t expecting to hear “Gypsy” and it was real cool to experience as it totally brought me back to the early 80’s. Think about how many times you heard that tune on the radio back then?
BUCKINGHAM NICKS STILL HAVE TENSION, LOVE
Exerpts from a CNN Interview....
Full Interview Here
Video segment
Video segment
LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Most musicians don't like doing interviews at their homes. It's much too private. Stevie Nicks, however, has no problem inviting journalists to her big colonial house in Pacific Palisades, half a mile above the California coastline.
"It's just easier," she confides.
Perhaps that's true. But after three decades in the public eye, she really has nothing to hide. Fans know all about her fabled history with Fleetwood Mac -- in particular, her tumultuous relationship with the band's prodigal guitarist, Lindsey Buckingham.
Even hovering around age 60, they are yin and yang. Buckingham is spirited and hot -- in sharp contrast to Nicks' eternal cool. The tension that fueled such songs as "The Chain," "Dreams" and "Go Your Own Way" in the late '70s is still palpable -- and they seem to return to it instinctively, like muscle memory.
But these days, there's also a certain acceptance and understanding.
Along with bandmates Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, Buckingham and Nicks are back on the road with Fleetwood Mac for their first tour in five years. It's a celebration of their greatest hits, as well as 30 years together as a group. During our interview, Buckingham and Nicks reminisced about how their rocky relationship became immortalized in their music -- while Buckingham's wife Kristen snapped photos six feet away.
CNN: This is the first Fleetwood Mac tour in five years.
Stevie Nicks: We don't like comebacks. We don't make comebacks. We're not making a comeback. We never went away.
Lindsey Buckingham: Every time we get together, it's like a whole new group of people.
CNN: People have always been fascinated by the dynamic between the members of Fleetwood Mac. You guys lived together, worked together, wrote songs about each other and dated each other.
Buckingham: I think if the media (paparazzi) had existed in 1977 when we were going through break-ups within the band and still moving forward on a professional level, the tabloidism that exists today would have probably eaten us alive.
Nicks: Let's use Britney Spears as an example, poor little thing. In our day, I think that the audiences revered their rock stars -- and I say that with all respect -- that our audiences cared about us, and took care of us and would never have put us under that kind of danger. I would have been a very unpleasant star if people treated me the way people treat the kids that are out there now. If I had to feel that somebody was waiting for me every time I came out, I would never leave the house. I hardly leave the house, as it is!
CNN: What do you think about, Stevie, when you are out there on stage and you hear "Go Your Own Way?" Does it bring back memories of what you were going through at the time -- because that song was about you, wasn't it?
Nicks: I think.
CNN: Lindsey?
Buckingham: Indeed, it was. Yeah, completely autobiographical. You know, the funny thing was I don't think we were aware we were writing songs specifically to each other. It was really only when our audience picked up on it that it became obvious we were dealing with a completely transparent, autobiographical piece of work.
Nicks: If Lindsey and I had been happy, happy, happy, there would have been no "Go Your Own Way." It would have just been, "Here we are -- happy, happy." And the audience would have been like, "OK, well -- next couple."
So you know, we played off of it. We had fun with it. We could actually walk on stage and have our own little almost-love affair, and have the audience go, "Oh my God! They're getting back together!" And we'd be like, "They're falling for it!" You know, we would totally play it, and we did, and we do, and we always will.
CNN: You both recently completed solo projects. Lindsey, you have your solo album, "Gift of Screws," and Stevie, there's an upcoming CD and DVD ("The Soundstage Sessions" and "Live in Chicago," respectively).
Nicks: We've been lucky. You do Fleetwood Mac, and then you work on your own stuff, and then you do Fleetwood Mac and then you work on your own stuff. As much as I love my solo work, I'm a little bored with it, so I can put that away in its magical box and I can go straight into working with three of my favorite people in the whole world.
Fleetwood Mac is bigger than anything Lindsey and I solo-wise will ever do. I never rented a 737 jet for my solo tour. So now we get to be grand, and at the end of the tour, it's kisses for everybody and goodbye. Go do your own thing, and we'll meet up again in two or three years.
"CRASH" AND "SOUNDSTAGE SESSIONS"
REVIEW: Fleetwood Mac Live in Toronto - Hit Makers Delivered a Crisp Concert
FLEETWOOD MAC: AIR CANADA CENTRE IN TORONTO
When Fleetwood Mac began preparing for its current greatest-hits tour, the idea was to use Sheryl Crow as a lean, tan stand-in for former singer-pianist Christine McVie. But, either because of scheduling problems or because of Crow's unfrivolous concern that she would be required to sleep with at least one current band member, the All I Wanna Do singer passed. So it was Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, and band namesakes John McVie and Mick Fleetwood who arrived at Toronto's Air Canada Centre for the first of seven Canadian dates. Brad Wheeler scores the four
BRAD WHEELER
LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM
Monday Morning, the singer-guitarist's 1975 song of romantic indecision, came early - too early for the soundman, who hadn't turned on Buckingham's microphone yet. His singing, a bit scratchy to begin, improved as the 23-song show went along. Buckingham, a fit 59, dazzled as a guitarist, whether on the shimmering delta-blues intro to The Chain, the genteel finger-picking of Never Going Back Again, the iconic solo of Second Hand News or the superhuman arena-rocking shredding of I'm So Afraid. The same magic fingers that plucked those strings also, as the band walked onstage, clasped the hands of the golden-haired diva to his right.
STEVIE NICKS
"Now, I think we should get this party started," the woman in the flowing black gown said, audaciously, given that the concert was already a pair of songs in. But Dreams, third on the set list, was her first moment. Nicks, at 60, is no longer a sultry waif. Her voice is lamb-like; on Don't Stop, I wished that she would, because she was not suited for Christine McVie's parts. She was wonderful on signature pieces Sara and Rhiannon, though, and was positively jaunty with her black top hat on the buoyant singalong Go Your Own Way. Nice shawls, naturally, and her tambourine and mike stand had scarves attached.
JOHN McVIE
Commenting on the chaos of the time and giving name to the band's landmark album of 1977, McVie observed that the songs sounded like gossip or rumours. Possibly, the hang-dog bassist hasn't opened his mouth since. With his newsboy cap, the 63-year-old Englishman appeared as a country gentleman, hanging back near the drum stand. But his playing, melodic in counterpoint to Buckingham's often percussive style, was noticeable. On the Who-intensity blues-rock of Oh Well, he was vigorous like John Entwistle, and the considerable bounce of Dreams came from his Fender-made instrument.
MICK FLEETWOOD
The overly tall, 61-year-old drummer is grey and bald - his pate shone like the gong behind him (which he never struck). His presence (and his lunatic grin) showed more often as the evening progressed: The jungle-tastic energy during World Turning made his drum solo the most bearable one I've ever had the pleasure to witness.
DON'T STOP THINKING ABOUT TOMORROW
All in all, the historic hit-makers (augmented by three backup singers and a pair of sidemen) delivered a crisp concert - if anything, the longer it went, the better it got. "We plan to have fun on this tour, because there's no album - yet," Buckingham suggestively quipped at one point. Hmmm, just think what tomorrow will do.
Fleetwood Mac plays Ottawa, March 23; Montreal, March 25; Toronto, March 26; Calgary, May 12; Edmonton, May 13; Vancouver, May 15.
GOLD DUST WOMAN
Gold Dust WomanRichard Burnett
hour.ca
My favourite rock stars have always been women - Tina Turner, Chaka Khan and Stevie Nicks - because their narratives, in life, love and song, speak to me, whereas the lyrics and life experiences of most straight men rarely do.
I've seen Tina perform live 27 times - notably in 1984 at the Spectrum where she found out backstage that What's Love Got to Do With It was number 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart - as well as Chaka Khan, whom I interviewed in this column in 2007.
"When I've been in need, when things weren't going well, the gay community always bailed me out," Chaka told me. "They're my most loyal friends and following and they have a special place in my heart."
But the one woman rock star I've never interviewed is Stevie Nicks. Lord knows I've tried. Former Warner Records USA president Howie Klein, who occasionally lectures at McGill University, is a friend of Stevie's and some years ago he introduced me to Warner PR powerhouse Liz Rosenberg who handles all publicity for Madonna.
Rosenberg set me up a Nicks phoner but that and a rescheduled Nicks interview were both cancelled at the last minute when Fleetwood Mac went into rehearsals for their 2003 Say You Will Tour.
I've been flailing in the wind ever since. That is until Fleetwood Mac announced their current Unleashed Tour that brings the band to Montreal next week.
This time I got band leader and drummer Mick Fleetwood on a press conference call with 30 other journalists from across Canada.
So I asked Mick - whose side project The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band has just released a terrific new live album, Blue Again - what the band dynamics are like now for Stevie since the only other woman in the band, Christine McVie, quit 12 years ago.
"Stevie's had a very successful solo career, so she brings that ability [to front a band] back to Fleetwood Mac," Mick replies. "She also puts on a new coat and becomes a band member. For many years she called all of her own shots, but in Fleetwood Mac she lets that [guard] down and pays respect to the other band members."
Nicks, with her then-partner Lindsey Buckingham, got her start with manager David Forest whom she met at Stanford University in 1966. Forest - who went on to work for Bill Graham at the Fillmore, then headed up the contemporary music division at CMA with David Geffen in 1970, before becoming a super-agent in Hollywood's multi-billion-dollar porn biz - managed Nicks and Buckingham's first band, Fritz, before they joined Fleetwood Mac.
"I knew Stevie would be a star the night Fritz opened for Janis Joplin and Big Brother at the Fillmore," David told me in 2007. "After her band members left I told Stevie, 'Stay and meet Janis.' Stevie looked at Janis and she saw herself in her."
Over the next 35 years Nicks would write and record a string of classic hits, many of which Fleetwood Mac will perform in Montreal: Rhiannon, Landslide, Gypsy, Dreams, Sara, Gold Dust Woman, and (my personal favourite) Storms, which Fleetwood Mac has never before performed on tour. The setlist also includes one of Stevie's monster solo hits, Stand Back.
So, I ask, how did Fleetwood Mac negotiate the setlist?
"We've always done Stand Back because people love to hear the song and Stevie loves doing it," Mick explains. "It's a ballbuster and gets her up there doing her thing. But we can't play eight Stevie [solo] songs or we'd have a riot in the ranks!"
Fleetwood continues, "A lot of bands play great music and don't get on. It's a business arrangement. With us business is involved but we're pretty damned happy with each other. Stevie and Lindsey still see [music] in different ways, but I would be an idiot as band leader if I didn't make sure the front line wasn't happy. You don't have a band if you can't co-exist."
Meanwhile, former Warner head Howie Klein once told me over breakfast that Stevie also cherishes her gay fan base. In fact, on May 1, Hour Editor-in-Chief Jamie O'Meara and I are jetting to NYC to catch the 19th annual Night of a Thousand Stevies, the internationally famed drag-queen tribute to Nicks.
VIP guests over the years have included Debbie Harry (dressed as Stevie!), Boy George, Courtney Love and Cyndi Lauper, and this year Jamie and I will attend with Village Voice gossip columnist Michael Musto.
"Stevie is very aware of her gay fans and has donated personal items [that were] auctioned off [for charity] at Night of a Thousand Stevies, which we have encouraged her [to attend]," Howie told me.
So if you can't see the real Stevie at the Bell Centre next week, don't miss Night of a Thousand Stevies, which each year ends with a spectacular onstage Stevie Nicks drag-queen battle royal. Who knows, we may even get an audience with the real Stevie.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
REVIEW: Fleetwood Mac at the Air Canada Centre, March 17, 2009
Iconic west-coast rockers stop thinking about tomorrow long enough to journey through the pastBY PAUL ISAACS
March 18, 2009
EDITORIAL RATING: 4/5
EYEWEEKLY.COM
"Unleashed" seems like a very odd title for a Fleetwood Mac tour. "Unleashed" is a word that suggests risk and danger — even the possibility of violence. That might be appropriate for an Yngwie Malmsteen concert, perhaps, or a Satanic Slaughter comeback tour, but Fleetwood Mac? Unleashed by who — and to do what? Shake their jewelry at us? A greatest-hits tour by a band who, decades after their heyday, remain one of the best-selling, most iconic and recognizable groups in the world — that's hardly a risk-filled proposition. (Unleashed by their accountants, perhaps.)
Still, it's great to have them back. And I suppose the concert was ferocious enough to just about deserve that "Unleashed" moniker. The band started, unfortunately, with the night's three worst performances, with Lindsay Buckingham faltering on the lyrics to the very first line of "Monday Morning," and the mix sounding abysmally echo-y and indistinct — as it would, with intermittent exceptions, for the entire evening. "The Chain," which followed, was just as stumblebum, with John McVie fluffing the cue to the bass riff at the start of Buckingham's guitar solo. (Don't worry, John, it's only the most important part of the song.) When Stevie Nicks then promised to finally "get this party started," only to respond with an off-key, pudding-paced "DREAMS," you felt the audience starting to brace for the worst.
Thankfully, things improved in drastic fashion with "I Know I'm Not Wrong," the first of several numbers from the Mac's seminal Tusk double album. When the band said this was a greatest-hits tour, they weren't kidding — save for "Gyspy" and "Big Love" (from Mirage and Tango in The Night, respectively), two numbers from Buckingham and Nicks's solo careers ("Go Insane" and "Stand Back"), and a cracking performance of Peter Green's "Oh Well (Part 1)," the band stuck entirely to the three records that made their name in the 1970s: their self-titled 1975 album, Tusk, and — of course — Rumours.
You would have thought that Nicks, with her drapes and scarves and bangles and glitter and multiple costume changes (I counted four, including a last-minute encore change into a pair of knee-high white pointy-heeled boots) would have dominated the concert, but in fact Buckingham provided most of the gig's most memorable moments: scissor kicking and primal-yelping with glee at the end of several songs, and indulging in a sublimely wanky, seven-minute (!) guitar odyssey during "I'm So Afraid," a solo that only appeared to end because he ran out of high notes to play on his fretboard.
Nicks, on the other hand, had to pace herself — not worrying about hitting the high notes on her first few songs, then going ballistic by the time the band reached "Sara" and "Gold Dust Woman" later in the set. Christine McVie, who last played with the band in 1998, opted once again out of performing this year, and while her absence was obvious on the group's last record, Say You Will — she's essentially the McCartney to Buckingham and Nicks's Lennon — she wasn't missed tonight, with Buckingham and Nicks providing creditable vocal turns on two of her songs, "Say You Love Me" and a predictable (if well-performed and received) encore of "Don't Stop."
"The 'Mac is back!" Mick Fleetwood yelled at the end of the show (dressed, for some reason, in red shoes and knickerbockers) — and they certainly were. Just for once during this financial crisis, let's raise a toast to accountants.
REVIEW: Fleetwood Unleashed on TD Banknorth
BCHeights.comBy Chris Dewey
Fleetwood Mac Live
in Boston, MA
March 11, 2009
Last Wednesday night, Fleetwood Mac brought their Unleashed tour to the TD Banknorth Garden in Boston. The tour marks the first time the group has been on the road since 2004. The band, currently a quartet, includes singer/guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, singer Stevie Nicks, bassist John McVie, and drummer Mick Fleetwood.
Fleetwood Mac kicked off their set with "Monday Morning," an upbeat song about Buckingham's frustration with love that dates back to the group's self-titled 1975 album. Without missing a beat, the band launched into "The Chain," a song that found Buckingham and Nicks sublimely combining their voices with urgent intensity. Half-way through, the song transitioned into an increasingly faster section marked by an ominous bass-line and an unrestrained guitar solo.
While Nicks' voice seemed to struggle slightly on songs like "Gypsy" and "Rhiannon," there were other times where it was nothing short of outstanding. Her rendition of "Landslide" was just about perfect. "Gold Dust Woman," a song chronicling her past struggles with cocaine, demonstrated that she is at her most powerful and haunting when harmonizing with former lover Buckingham. Donned in flowing dresses, scarves, top hats, and other eccentric pieces of clothing, Nicks twirled about the stage like it was 1977, a move that would have been more ridiculous if the 60-year old singer did not look so remarkably youthful.
Photo by Matt Becker
REVIEW: Fleetwood Mac Live in Toronto - Rolls Out The Hits
Fleetwood Mac rolls out the hitsLive in Toronto, ON at Air Canada Centre - March 17, 2009
By JANE STEVENSON
TORONTO SUN
SET LIST:
It felt like the mid-to-late '70s all over again at the Air Canada Centre on Tuesday night as Fleetwood Mac's Greatest Hits - Unleashed tour pulled into the hockey hanger for the first of two shows on St. Patrick's Day.
And while the opening song, Monday Morning, wasn't a very smooth start to the two-hour-plus concert - singer-guitarist Lindsey Buckingham's first words weren't on microphone - and the followup tune, The Chain, sounded a bit disjointed and unpolished, the evening eventually picked up as the veteran rockers found a decent groove by the third number, Dreams.
"We are Fleetwood Mac, and we're thrilled to be here tonight. We hope you have a wonderful time. And now I think we should get this party started," said iconic singer Stevie Nicks, 60, decked out in her usual costume of flowing black dress and black suede boots with black scarves and silver chains decorating her microphone stand.
On their first tour together in five years, the band - rounded out by Brits Mick Fleetwood, 61, on drums and John McVie, 63, on bass - played material primarily from 1975's Fleetwood Mac, 1977's juggernaut Rumours (30 million copies sold worldwide and counting) and 1979's Tusk, embracing their most commercially successful years after Americans Nicks and Buckingham joined the group. (British keyboardist Christine McVie - and John's ex - gave up touring in 1989.)
Notable deviations from that trio of albums were Gypsy from 1982's Mirage, Big Love from 1987's Tango In The Night, Oh Well from 1969's Then Play On, Buckingham's 1984 solo tune, Go Insane, and Nicks' 1983 solo song, Stand Back, all highlights in a set brimming with hits.
"We're a band of complex, convoluted emotions," said Buckingham, 59, a recent visitor to Toronto's Music Hall last October on behalf of his latest solo album, Gift Of Screws.
"Every time we reconvene it's different. As we got into rehearsals this time we just said, 'We're just going to have fun, and because there's no new album to promote - yet - we're going to do the things that we love and hopefully they are the things you love as well."
The fun quotient picked up considerably as the initially remote Nicks and Buckingham, a former couple who met as teenagers and split up shortly after joining Fleetwood Mac (Nicks would later have an affair with Fleetwood), actually started to sing while looking at each other and even embraced - it was more of a lean actually - during Sara.
Eventually, they held hands and were arm-in-arm, respectively, as they returned to the stage for their first and second encores.
Standouts proved to be Nicks' signature songs, Rhiannon, Sara, Goldust Woman (complete with her in a gold shawl) and Stand Back with a crowd-pleasing twirl; the fiery Second Hand News and Go Your Own Way, with Buckingham letting out one of his big whoops when the first song ended and Nicks decked out in a black top hat for the second; Buckingham's acoustic-guitar-driven Big Love and Never Going Back Again and then electrifying electric guitar work on I'm So Afraid; Landslide, which featured Nicks in a new burgundy dress and matching suede boots and Buckingham on acoustic guitar alone together on stage; and the old Peter Green blues-rocker Oh Well with Buckingham taking over lead vocals and a grinning Fleetwood having a grand old time behind his kit.
They also played the pretty and haunting Storms, from Tusk, which they have never performed on tour before.
"A stormy song for a stormy group of people," explained Nicks.
Less successful was Say You Love Me as Nicks and Buckingham traded verses on one of Christine McVie's signature tunes and her absence was definitely felt and Fleetwood's primal drum solo during World Turning.
The band were backed by two other musicians on keyboards and guitar and three vocalists but it was hard not to imagine how the lineup might have sounded given they briefly flirted with the idea of having Sheryl Crow join them on this tour.
There was also large curved video screens behind and above the stage that could have been put to better use with a montage of old footage or photos of the group given this was a Greatest Hits show.
Fleetwood Mac returns to the ACC on March 26.
SET LIST:
- Monday Morning
- The Chain
- Dreams
- I Know I'm Not Wrong
- Gypsy
- Go Insane
- Rhiannon
- Second Hand News
- Tusk
- Sara
- Big Love
- Landslide
- Never Going Back Again
- Storms
- Say You Love Me
- Gold Dust Woman
- Oh Well
- I'm So Afraid
- Stand Back
- Go Your Own Way
- World Turning
- Don't Stop
- Silver Springs
REVIEW: Fleetwood Mac Live in Toronto March 17, 2009
Fleetwood Mac fuelled by 'stormy' conflictsBand draws crowd into the band's `convoluted' history
ASHANTE INFANTRY
POP & JAZZ CRITIC
For a group that's conquered its demons, again and again, Fleetwood Mac sure does love to wallow in the memories.
No less than three times, during last night's Air Canada Centre show, either singer Stevie Nicks or guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, who do all the talking for the foursome rounded out by founding members, sneaker-shod bassist John McVie and ponytailed drummer Mick Fleetwood, alluded to the well-noted upheavals of the four decades-strong pop-rock group. These traumas included changing lineups – both Buckingham and Nicks departed for a time – and failed intraband marriages or romances.
But to hear the players tell it, these conflicts fuelled the songs and artistry that define them.
"Fleetwood Mac, as most of you know, has a complex and convoluted emotional history and it's actually turned out to be kind of cool," Buckingham said last night. Without a new album to push – "yet," he explained, the quartet was indulging themselves and fans with a 23-song, two-hour-and-20 minute hits concert, which drew heavily from 1977's Rumours – "Dreams," "Go Your Own Way," "The Chain," "Never Going Back" – and 1975's Fleetwood Mac – "Rhiannon," "Say You Love Me," "World Turning," "Landslide."
They also turned in a not previously toured tune, the moody, aptly titled "Storms" from 1979's Tusk, which allowed Nicks to again reference the group's peripatetic past – "it's a stormy song for stormy people and a stormy bunch of relationships and stormy problems."
She's actually the group's weakest component on this tour, which kicked off in Pittsburgh March 1 and returns to the ACC on the 26th.
If it weren't for that inimitable tremor in her voice, any female singer could've been substituted.
What Nicks lacked in energy and charisma, Buckingham delivered tenfold. He proved a crack showman whose fierce playing and vocal drama – replete with karate screams and maniacal laughter – was smoothly supported by Fleetwood's glee and tomahawk pounding and McVie's cool, steady groove.
And with a catalogue this deep – they didn't even get to "Everywhere" and "You Make Loving Fun" – it's great to have these sexagenarians back on the road after a five-year break.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM - EQ MAGAZINE
Lindsey is featured in the April, 2009 issue of EQ Magazine Multiple page spread where Lindsey discusses his approach in the studio and his technic.
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