Fleetwood Mac Pass The Torch To Radiohead

Undercover.com

Fleetwood Mac`s Lindsay Buckingham has described Radiohead`s performance at the Grammy Awards this week as a “passing of the torch”.

Radiohead performed ’15 Step’ at the Grammy Awards with the USC Marching Band. Fleetwood Mac used the USC Marching Band on their 1979 hit ‘Tusk’.

Ironically, the two bands were rehearsing last week at the same place. Fleetwood Mac were preparing for their US tour and Radiohead were rehearsing for the Awards show.

“Doctor Bartner is the guy who has been musical director for the USC Marching Band for about 40 years now,” Lindsay Buckingham said on media conference call this week. “He was the one we liaised with when we used them on ‘Tusk’. He was there rehearsing with Radiohead on an adjacent sound stage where we were rehearsing, over at Sony Studios. It is a small world”.

Lindsay loves what Radiohead is doing. “I told Art Bartner please go tell Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood how much their efforts have meant to me personally and thank them for their good work,” he said. “If that idea was inspired by ‘Tusk’ I would be quite complimented, as Mick should be because it was Mick’s idea to put them on the song. I look at that very much as the passing of the torch and an exchange of ideas. That is part of the greater function of music really”.

Fleetwood Mac will hit the road for the first time in 5 years on March 1.

Fleetwood Mac Auction Benefits School

To help parents meet their children's educational needs, supergroup Fleetwood Mac are auctioning off VIP tickets and meet-and-greets with Mick Fleetwood as a fundraiser. A cooperative, parent-participation nursery school is the beneficiary of the proceeds.

As supergroup Fleetwood Mac begins their first tour in five years, bandleader Mick Fleetwood has launched an important and exciting charity fundraiser on eBay: An auction of VIP tickets on Fleetwood Mac’s UNLEASHED tour which starts March 1st in Pittsburgh, PA.

Along with a pair of tickets in the first 25 rows, each auction winner and their guest will get a meet and greet the legendary drummer Mick Fleetwood before the show–a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the true fan!

The auction benefits Hilltop Nursery School in Silver Lake, California, a parent-participation, cooperative pre-school founded over 50 years ago. Giving Engine Auction Management, a pioneer in online fundraising for schools and non profits, will manage these one of kind experience packages.

This auction runs from February 9th through February 19th for the first 16 dates of the tour March 1st through March 26th

To bid on this thrilling auction go to http://www.ebay.com/hilltopla

One of the Worlds Greatest Furies... Unleashed!

Click to Enlarge

Full Article at: 24hours.ca

Gold Dust Woman justifies the high price of a Fleetwood Mac concert

BRAD WHEELER
Globe and Mail
February 11, 2009 

"We wish we didn't have to charge anything,” says Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac singer. “We wish we could go out and play. That's what we do – we're performance artists.”

Rock on, gold dust woman. During a teleconference Tuesday, Nicks and her fellow Mac mates were chatting up their upcoming North American tour (which kicks off March 1 in Pittsburgh, with dates in Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver to follow) when the subject of ticket prices came up. Fleetwood Mac, legendary for its rock-star indulgences in its prime, charge up to $149.50 for top seats in Toronto.

“The price of life in general is a gazillion dollars more than it was four years ago,” reasoned Nicks, not an economist. The British/Californian band's most recent tour wrapped up in 2004. “Our emotions are about trying to do this in the best way that makes sense for our audience,” chimed in drummer Mick Fleetwood, “and in a way that we can get to our audience.”

Ticket prices and ticket distribution are a touchy subject these days. A $510-million Canadian class-action suit filed this week alleges that Ticketmaster and subsidiary TicketsNow.com are conspiring to hold seats from the public and reselling the tickets at a higher prices – seemingly a violation of anti-scalping laws.

Those looking for Fleetwood Mac seats for the Air Canada Centre show on Ticketmaster.ca are able to pay face value, but also are offered “Official Platinum Seats” at the site's Marketplace, where concertgoers can purchase premium seats at inflated values – as much as $800 a ticket.

The band is represented by Irving Azoff, who also happens to be chief executive officer of Ticketmaster Entertainment, and will become executive chairman of Live Nation Entertainment if the just-announced merger of Ticketmaster and concert promoters Live Nation goes through. Asked about any unsavoury ticket-selling practices involving Fleetwood Mac, Nicks promised she would be “making phone calls” on the matter.

Nicks went to say that tour's “Unleashed” title refers to the unleashing of the band's furies “back into the universe.” Asked if the public would be able to handle all the pent-up rage, Nicks answered in the affirmative, but cautioned that fans might need to bring their “armour.”

That, and their gold card.

This is truly a new experience for Fleetwood Mac

Billboard Magazine

February 11, 2009

by: Gary Graff, Detroit

Not having a new album is working to Fleetwood Mac's advantage as the group prepares for its upcoming Unleashed North American tour.

"This is the first time we've gone on the road without an album," drummer and co-founder Mick Fleetwood told Billboard.com during a teleconference with reporters on Tuesday. "This is truly a new experience for Fleetwood Mac to go out and play songs that we believe and hope people are going to be familiar with and love."

Singer/guitarist Lindsey Buckingham added that not having to integrate new songs into the set -- which the group has been rehearsing since Jan. 5 in Los Angeles -- "just allows you to relax into the situation. We're not coming off a new group of tunes, a new album ... the stakes for that side of it become a little bit lower."

As for a new Fleetwood Mac album, vocalist Stevie Nicks said "there isn't any plan at this point ... for any album. We're going to get through this tour before deciding what to do with an album." Fleetwood, however, confirmed that "there have been discussions, for sure, that we would love to make some more music ... We hope it happens, and certainly it's been somewhat loosely touched on ... My heart says I believe that will happen. Certainly I know that all of the songwriting department, both Stevie and Lindsey are continually writing ... The whole creative bowl is very much intact, so I would love to see what happens."

While declining to get specific about the 46-date tour's repertoire, Fleetwood did say that hits such as "Dreams," "Go Your Own Way" and "Don't Stop" would be included, and that the group would be "paying some attention" to material written by former band member Christine McVie.

"Her songs are surviving very well in the set that we're doing," Fleetwood said. "Stevie and Lindsey are finding a fresh way in certain instances to present those songs. And then we are finding songs as we go along that we feel are special songs that maybe aren't considered the massive, massive hits but truly are emotionally connected to Fleetwood Mac."

Nicks, meanwhile, confirmed that the group seriously considered adding Sheryl Crow to the lineup in 2008, even setting up a rehearsal last Mother's Day to work on material.

"We needed Sheryl to come in and just play some music with us," Nicks recalled. "But it was Mother's Day. She had a brand new baby. She had all her parents and everybody coming and she chose not to cancel that, understandably. She called back and said, 'I have to pass,' and it was over. I said, 'You're making the right decision. You have a new baby, you survived breast cancer, you survived Lance Armstrong.'

"Sheryl is my very dear friend. We are best buddies, and that will go on forever. The fact she is not in the band does not mean she's not our friend."

The Unleashed tour, Fleetwood Mac's first road trek since 2004, begins on March 1 in Pittsburgh. The group is also planning to release a CD/DVD edition of its 1977 "Rumours" album with unreleased songs, demos and previously unreleased footage of the band from that era.

Lindsay and I don’t need a buffer (Stevie Nicks)

Undercover.com

February 11, 2009

Undercover was part of the Fleetwood Mac media conference today where Stevie revealed that Sheryl Crow almost joined Fleetwood Mac following the departure of Christine McVie. 

“We rented a studio and hired a crew,” Stevie said. “We were ready to go in and I called her and needed her to come for two or three days to just play. It was Mother’s Day and she had invited 300 people in her family there. It was her first Mother’s Day as a mom and she could not do it. At that point she said “I am going to have to pass”. I said “I think you are making the right decision. You have a new baby, you have survived breast cancer and Lance Armstrong. I don’t think this is the right thing for you”. That is what happened with Sheryl Crow. She is still our friend and I still adore her. She is one fm my dearest friends”.

While Sheryl Crow came close to joining Fleetwood Mac, no other female has been considered. “As far as having another girl in the band, after we went through that we really realised that there wasn’t going to be another woman that could come into this band who could fit,” she said. “I was looking at it three years ago as a buffer between me and Lindsay. Lindsay and I don’t need a buffer. Certainly Sheryl Crow and not any woman in the world is going to be able to get in the middle of Lindsay and me. The fact is if Lindsay and I can’t work out our problems by ourselves we might as well throw in the towel. That's what we are currently trying to do is work out own problems and certainly another person could not do that for us. 

Think about this – Christine has been gone since 1998 so I have been the only girl in this band for a long, long time. I’m used to it now. At first I was not used to it. After ‘The Dance’ it was horrifying for me. She has been gone a long time and I’m fine with it now”.

Christine McVie was a member of Fleetwood Mac from 1970 to 1998. Prior to Fleetwood Mac, she sang with English band Chicken Shack but left in 1970 after marrying Fleetwood Mac bass player John McVie.

After leaving Fleetwood Mac, she released her third solo album ‘In The Meantime’ in 2004 but has remained relatively out of the public eye.

Fleetwood Mac will begin their `Unleashed` tour, their first tour in five years, on March 1st in Pittsburgh.