Giving people what they want

The Mac are back
Croydon Guardian
Monday 27th October 2008

By Graham Moody »

They may have been in the music industry for more than four decades - but legendary rock group Fleetwood Mac are not quite ready to hang up their instruments just yet.

Next year the four-piece are hitting the road again on another world tour, the first time they will have worked together in four years - and they are even managing to keep the same line-up.

Sixteen different musicians have at some point played parts in the band’s history, but only Mick Fleetwood survives from the original members who first appeared at the Windsor Jazz and Blues Festival in 1967.

“It is sort of like the Rolling Stones or U2,” said Fleetwood, who will be joined on tour by John McVie, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.

“They take breaks but keep on coming back and keep going. If people stop watching and enjoying us then we will know they have had enough.”

The tour will be a new experience for the band as they have no plans to release a new album at the same time but will instead concentrate on playing their classics.

“For the first time we are not going to have a new album to go along with the tour so we are just going out to have a lot of fun, it will be totally unique,” said Fleetwood.

“When we do an album we tend to want to play the new stuff and people have to put up with songs they don’t know, this time we are going into our back catalogue and giving people what they want.”

Despite being in his sixties Fleetwood is still full of love for the music industry and is currently touring with his blues band that includes former Mac Rick Vito.

“It is the same thing as if you were talking to BB King or Tony Bennett now,” he said.

“There is a bunch of people that tend to come from my generation of musicians where we started this not to be rich and famous, we started it because we wanted to be playing the music we love.

“We enjoy playing so much that we have been doing four of five gigs a week. Rick is playing his arse off on guitar.

“we have been playing together for a while and we take on some great old Fleetwood Mac stuff I haven’t played for 40 years and then we do some classics or not classics that we just like.”

The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band, Fairfield Halls, Park Lane, November 2, 8pm, £22.50 / £25. Call 020 8688 9291 or visit fairfield.co.uk.

Christine attends Mick Fleetwood's Show

Christine McVie sat behind the Soundboard during Mick's Sold Out Marlowe Theater show in Canterbury on October 25th.

The Mick Fleetwood Band continue their UK tour with only a few dates remaining:

• Oct. 28th - Liverpool, UK Philharmonic Hall
• Oct. 31st - Holmfirth, UK Picturedrome
• Nov. 1st - Ipswich, UK Ipswich Regent Theatre
• Nov. 2nd - Croydon, UK Fairfield
• Nov. 3rd - Saint Albans, UK The Arena

Nicks in Motor City

Stevie performed in Detroit last night... a random show to open the Motor City Casino's venue "Soundboard"... Some clips from last night:

The beat goes on for Mick after 40 years

Yorkshire Post

He was in one of the biggest bands of the '70s, so what's Mick Fleetwood doing in Holmfirth? He talks to Sarah Freeman about growing older, his love of blues and the infamous Brit Awards.

Mick Fleetwood has more than earned his place in musical history.

The driving force behind Fleetwood Mac, the Cornwall born-drummer lived through the excesses of the 1970s, battled drug addiction, survived bankruptcy and having to up sticks to America, and he remains the only original member of the band which has released 50 albums to date.

However, after playing pretty much every stadium going, next week Fleetwood's large 6ft 6ins frame will be occupying a much smaller stage, when he brings his blues band to the Holmfirth Picturedrome.

"I'm a blues man at heart and playing these intimate gigs is a real joy," says the 61-year-old.

"Everything from the Beatles to the current crop of guitar bands have their roots in blues and it was a big part of the Fleetwood Mac legacy.

"There's something about that sound which gets people's feet tapping, it's a real emotional connection. On a tour like this there's not the huge circus which accompanies a Fleetwood Mac gig. It's just four guys in a band playing for other die-hard blues fans."

During his 40 odd years in the business, Fleetwood has had the opportunity to play with the likes of Eric Clapton and BB King, but he gives the impression that as long as he had his drum sticks and an audience he'd be happy.

"When I started out, people played music for the sheer love of it," he says.

"Of course we all wanted to get signed, but that was always seen as a bonus. Now bands have too high expectations and the music industry is a much bigger machine. People are dropped if they don't make it after the first couple of years and to me that doesn't seem right. Bands need time to mature, to experiment, but today they aren't given the time to develop.

"For me and many of the other bands around in the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was never about the money or the lifestyle, it was about getting out there and playing to audiences."

While drumming may have been his true love, he did indulge in the lifestyle which came with fame, squandering thousands on drink and drugs. He admits he never bothered about his finances and, despite earning millions, in the mid-1980s, Fleetwood was declared bankrupt.

"I screwed some things up back then," says.

"I am honest about that side of my life.

"I spent a lot of money on drugs, I went bankrupt and personally things weren't going well. I don't mind talking about it, it's not something I want to cover up, but I do get fed up when that's all people want to talk about. Throughout my life, good times and bad, the one thing which has always been constant is music.

"A lot of other things were affected, but whatever else happened during my journey through life, the music has kept on going."

If Fleetwood became a pin-up for the perils of the music business, he also became a laughing stock after co-hosting the Brit Awards with Samantha Fox back in 1989.

The live show was shambolic, lines were fluffed, guests failed to show up and Fox and Fleetwood looked like an increasingly desperate odd couple.

For the following 18 years the show was pre-recorded.

"It was so not our fault, but it was absolutely crucifying," he says.

"We had rehearsed, we knew our cues, but on the night we were confronted by 300 screaming boy band fans who completely drowned out the people on the walkie talkies.

"I felt really sorry for poor little Samantha, but hey these things happen."

Now living in Hawaii with his second wife, Lynn, and twin six-year-old daughters Ruby and Tessa, life is certainly much calmer than it was back in Fleetwood Mac's heyday.

"I am the happiest I have ever been or at least the most content," says Fleetwood.

"I'm more aware of the need to be involved in my daughters' lives and I'm much more involved with the family than I was before.

"We are all in control of our own destiny, but when you're in the music business, sometimes it's hard not to believe your own hype."

Mick Fleetwood Blues Band, Holmfirth Picturedrome, Oct 31.

Stevie Delux Package This Saturday October 25th

MotorCity Casino Hotel in Detroit is offering Delux Packages for your night at the Casino to see Stevie Nicks "For One Night Only"...

To those going... Have a good time!!

REVIEW: Lindsey Buckingham - Last show of the Gift of Screws Tour... New York City

By: Stephen Rodrick
New York MagazinePhoto by: Michael Meyer

October 20, 2008

Lindsey Buckingham Tears Up, Plays Guitar With One Hand

Lindsey Buckingham is a certain type of Californian. Only seven years younger than Brian Wilson, he never hit the bloat phase, physically or musically. Now 59, he still sports sunken cheekbones and skinny jeans. Wearing a tight, black leather jacket last night at the Nokia, he resembled a louche Roman oracle. His music, particularly his fingerpicking guitar playing, has always been tightly wound, a neurotic style rooted in California’s cocaine-addled seventies. It has never packed the joy of the Beach Boys: Wilson’s orchestral masterpiece is the ecstatic "Good Vibrations;" Buckingham produced the beautiful but accusatory "Tusk."

Bliss eluded Buckingham well into his forties. He brooded over pressure from his occasionally insolvent Fleetwood Mac bandmates to give his best songs to them. His always-interesting, but weak-selling, solo projects were pushed back repeatedly. But that’s all over now. Buckingham is now married with three children. (They're prominently featured in the, yes, joyful video for “It Was You.”) He’s released two excellent solo records in two years, Under the Skin, and the new Gift of the Screws. Last night, he played about half his set from the two albums, tossing just enough Mac hits into the mix to keep the wolves at bay. The new songs center on his ethereal guitar playing and late-in-life serenity. Unlike most "happy" rockers, though, Buckingham has plenty of angst still in the tank. About halfway through the show, he launched into a monologue about the difference between his "big machine" work with Fleetwood Mac and "smaller machine" solo career. He discussed the left brain and the right brain, and the concept of esoterica. This brought a whoop from a fan. Buckingham grinned: "Yeah esoterica!"

Not that he left his arena-rock roots completely behind. His guitar playing ventured into the show-offy — at one point he played with just one hand — and whoever came up with the idea of a five-minute drum solo featuring the drummer playing his head like a coconut needs to be checked back into rehab. Still, Buckingham seemed grateful for the opportunity to play his songs without worrying about Stevie, Christie, John, or Mick. He closed with "Time Precious Time" from Gift of Screws, a lamentation about patience and wasted moments, and perhaps a nod to not being able to watch kids fathered in your fifties grow into adulthood. His guitar playing seemed to disappear into itself. This was the last night of his tour, and by the end of the song Buckingham had tears in his eyes. He mouthed the last word of the song — "remember" — smiled, and walked off into the darkness.