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WIN: Two tickets to the "Fleetwood Mac" Concert
and a free parking pass
TIME & DATE: 8:00 p.m. Monday, May 18
VENUE: Arco Arena - Sacramento, CA
DRAWING ENDS: Wednesday, May 13
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
FLEETWOOD MAC.COM RELAUNCHED TODAY
A nice welcome surprise today.... Fleetwoodmac.com was relaunched!! Check it out and register! Photos, videos, discography, news.... (forums coming soon),
Monday, May 04, 2009
Fleetwood Mac's missing member
Rumours of Fleetwood Mac's missing member
As Fleetwood Mac continue their latest tour in America, it seems that the rift between the band and Christine McVie, its former singer and keyboard player, is as wide as ever.
Lindsey Buckingham, 59, tells me that he has cut all ties with McVie, who pulled out of the group after a tour in 1998. "I'm guessing that Christine McVie has turned into a country squire or a farmer," he sneers. Buckingham has said that the band invited McVie, 65, to join this tour but that "there was no real expectation that she would accept".
REVIEW: Fleetwood Mac Live in Houston May 2009
Fleetwood Mac at Toyota Center
By Chris Gray
Photos by Jay Lee
HoustonPress
By Chris Gray
Photos by Jay Lee
HoustonPress
Every night the band goes onstage, Fleetwood Mac faces a concert onus only a handful of other groups need worry about: Are its songs too iconic? Is the rush of watching Stevie Nicks twirl out "Landslide" or "Rhiannon" live any match for the lifetime (or decades, anyway) of memories, associations and emotions those songs bring forth?
Of course not. It's a trick question anyway.
For one thing, only a fraction of Saturday night's nearly sold-out Toyota Center crowd - twenty- to sixtysomething, white as a glass of milk, at least 60 percent female and not nearly as many Nicks dressalikes as Aftermath expected - actually watched those songs. As in, had their eyes open and trained on either the stage or the two flanking video screens.
To this crowd, the opening notes to those songs hardly even qualify as music anymore. They're more like auditory passwords, and the files they unlock in the audience's memory bank caused their eyes to glaze over or close altogether, their lips to involuntarily mouth the words and their bodies to sway back and forth, whether alone or arm-in-arm with their neighbors.
What images hearing "Dreams" or "Gypsy" may cause them to see on the inside of their eyelids is a mystery, but watching it happen to thousands of people at once is both humbling and unnerving. It's like going to a different church, or a sporting event between two teams you don't particularly root for - you're obviously not having the same sort of spiritual experience as the people around you, but you're not entirely immune, either.
Personally, Aftermath likes those songs just fine, but they've never been the ones to soothe a freshly broken heart, never been irrevocably linked to a lost loved one, never been playing at the precise moment he's fallen in love. He supposes they could have been, somewhere in the course of his 34-plus years on this planet, they just weren't.
Luckily, Fleetwood Mac brings a little bit more to the table than that. For one thing, Nicks' status as one of rock's top-tier icons, both musically and visually, tends to divert attention away from the fact that her three bandmates are all monsters on their respective instruments, which was nevertheless plain as day watching them pound out "The Chain," "Tusk" or "Go Your Own Way."
And maybe it's because the band has had such great pop success, but Lindsey Buckingham's name hardly ever comes up whenever there's another list of rock's greatest or most influential guitarists. Or maybe it's because the people who make those lists have never seen him live and assume his sound is some sort of studio creation. It's not.
Buckingham is as technically skilled as any front-rank classical or jazz guitarist you can name, such as Paco de Lucia, John McLaughlin or Al di Meola. His blues chops are every bit the equal of Eric Clapton or Jimmy Page, which he proved beyond the shadow of a doubt on the jolting "Oh Well" and trance-like "I'm So Afraid," featuring a solo that was about as close to a musician bringing himself (and the crowd) to orgasm as Aftermath has ever seen. Finally, he is also an excellent folk musician, whether chiming out the minstrel-like melody of "Landslide" or the shardlike strumming of much spookier and more harrowing solo turn "Big Love."
As for the rhythm section and sole remaining founding members, John McVie's simple, understated bass lines are as fundamental to the appeal of "Dreams," "Gypsy" and "Rhiannon" as Nicks' crystal-vision lyrics, and he switches roles with Buckingham on "The Chain" and "Tusk," his springy notes acting as lead and leaving texture and rhythm to the guitarist. Drummer Mick Fleetwood, meanwhile, is both gentle giant and pillaging Viking, wispy and ethereal on the ballads, thundering and mighty on "The Chain" and stout Tusk folk-rocker "I Know I'm Not Wrong." His extended solo on "World Turning" should have come with a warning to pregnant women and children under five years of age.
Saturday also saw a visibly moved Nicks walking over to embrace Buckingham during heart-stripping Tusk ballad "Sara," an exotic "Gold Dust Woman" become equal parts dance of the seven veils and narcotic nightmare, and the late synthesizer onslaught of "Stand Back," a breezy, shawl-friendly palate-cleanser after the preceding guitar pyrotechnics of "Oh Well" and "I'm So Afraid."
Furthermore, several songs - "Monday Morning," "Second Hand News" and "Never Going Back Again" chief among them - showed how deep the band has sown its seeds on contemporary country radio. (And it would be that much deeper if the Dixie Chicks were still on there.) There have been rumours (sorry) of a new album in the works, and considering the debt owed by stars from Keith Urban to Taylor Swift, Fleetwood Mac going the Eagles/Bon Jovi Nashville route seems like a no-brainer.
So even if, for some unfathomable reason, someone walked into Toyota Center Saturday night free of any preexisting Fleetwood Mac prejudices or connotations, after those two and a half hours it's downright impossible to imagine they walked out that way.
REVIEW: Fleetwood Mac rocks Tulsa’s BOK Center
FLEETWOOD MAC LIVE IN
TULSA, OK - MAY 3, 2009
By Brandy McDonnell Entertainment Writer
The passing of four decades, the retirement of a core member and one of the most turbulent histories in rock ‘n’ roll haven’t dimmed the star power of Fleetwood Mac one watt.
The remaining members of the seminal pop-rock band — singer/guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, singer Stevie Nicks, drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie — effectively sent the BOK Center into a time warp back to the 1970s for about two and half hours Sunday night.
“There’s no new album to promote — yet,” Buckingham told the appreciative near-sellout crowd of about 13,000. “So we decided let’s just go out and do those songs that we all love, and hopefully, they’re the ones you love, too.”
For the Tulsa stop on the “Unleashed: Hits Tour 2009,” the quartet let loose on a string of favorites, mostly from their classic ‘70s albums “Fleetwood Mac,” “Rumours” and “Tusk.” The years have taken their toll in a few ways, and the warm vocals of former singer/pianist Christine McVie (who retired in 1998) were certainly missed.
But Fleetwood Mac has maintained its consummate chemistry and musicianship. And that’s amazing considering what Buckingham described as the band’s “complex and convoluted emotional history.”
Emerging from darkness to the crowd’s excited cheers, the group launched the concert with the bouncy “Monday Morning,” putting Buckingham in the lead on vocals and showing off his still fleet fingers.
On his solo “Gift of Screws” tour last fall, the multitalented musician, 59, electrified Tulsa’s intimate Brady Theater, and he proved Sunday that his spellbinding picking and quirky vocals can still captivate an entire arena, too. He blazed through his flamenco-style version of “Big Love,” the frenetic “I Know I’m Not Wrong” and the intense “I’m So Afrai d,” often bending over limply and then straightening to shout “Oh, yeah” at the end of his songs.
With their deep catalog of hits, the group could afford to put their throbbing trademark “The Chain” second on the set list. The dramatic song got the fans chanting along on the chorus and proved that Fleetwood and John McVie still form a formidable rhythm section.
When Nicks stepped into the spotlight with the hopeful hit “Dreams,” the show briefly took a worrisome turn. Her vocals were markedly deeper and less supple than in the past, and she let the trio of female backup singers carry the high note at the end.
But the songstress, who turns 61 on May 26, sounded more like her familiar sultry-voiced self on the evocative “Gypsy.” Plus, she shared the story behind the music: Buckingham was a former schoolmate who called her a couple of years after they first met to ask her to join his hard rock band.
“That moment catapulted me into the greatest musical time of all time, 1965 to 1970, in San Francisco, Ashbury Park. ... where I’m back to the velvet underground,” she said, referencing the opening lines of “Gypsy,” a childhood favorite of mine that brought back potent memories.
By the time she got to her witchy signature track, “Rhiannon,” Nicks’ voice was warmed up and ready to blast out her powerful ballads. With her black dress, glittering shawl and long blond tresses flowing, she looked lovely and ethereal, and it wasn’t long before she was doing her distinctive swaying dance and twirling around the stage.
Later donning a crimson gown and shimmering golden shawl, Nicks wailed tunefully about shattered illusions of love and mesmerized the audience with her hypnotic dancing on “Gold Dust Woman.” My favorite Fleetwood Mac song, it thrummed with the drama of a Wild West showdown.
Though their romance ended long ago, the musical chemistry still crackles between Buckingham and Nicks. The former lovers were in perfect sync as they belted out hits chronicling their rocky relationship, from the achingly beautiful “Landslide” to the rollicking “Second Hand News.” They ended the wistful “Sara” with a tender moment, each laying their head on the other’s shoulder, with Buckingham still playing guitar.
“For the tour, we wanted to include a song we’d never performed live before. This is a stormy song for a stormy group of people,” Nicks said in introducing the heartbreaking “Storms,” which all four members performed at the forefront of the stage, with Fleetwood on a mini drum set.
The quartet stayed front and center for a bold take on “Say You Love Me,” a Christine McVie hit. Nicks and Buckingham took turns on vocals for their rootsier rendition, which was fun but couldn’t surpass the original.
The show featured too many highlights to mention, but Fleetwood Mac made sure to end the set on a high note. An extended drum intro built anticipation before the band erupted into the rollicking pop classic “Go Your Own Way,” which got the fans bouncing and singing along.
Screaming, clapping and stomping their feet, the crowd demanded an encore, and the band obliged with a foot-stomping rendition of “World Turning” which included a raucous extended drum solo from the wild-eyed Fleetwood.
The perky pop hit “Don’t Stop” again got the fans singing and dancing to what seemed to be an upbeat end of the show. But soon after the lights dimmed, they came up again for a second encore, the sparkling ballad “Silver Springs,” a soulful and fitting finale.
Before he left the stage, Fleetwood quipped, “Remember, the Mac is back.” And on Sunday night, they showed everyone at the BOK Center that their greatest hits truly are still great.
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