Sunday, May 20, 2012

Review: Lindsey Buckingham Is Gracious and Youthful at the Neptune Theatre on Saturday Night

Lindsey Buckingham appeared on stage at the Neptune on Saturday night in a black leather jacket, ankle boots, and skinny jeans.

Seattle Weekly
By Erin Thompson

Buckingham does everything with flair. He shakes his head as he sings, like he's willing the notes out. He paws at his guitar strings like a dog, picks at them like a pianist. He pumps his guitar up in the air and soaks in the applause. After playing a few midtempo songs--2006's "Cast Away Dreams"; Fleetwood Mac's "Bleed To Love Her"--someone in the audience shouted, "kick it up a notch!", which was rude, but as if on cue Buckingham switched to electric for "Come" and heated up the room bawling out the chorus ("Think of me sweet darling every time you don't come/Can you feel the fever?"). 

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Live Review: Lindsey Buckingham at the Neptune Theatre
Fleetwood Mac's Main Man Pares Down to the Essentials for an Awed Seattle Crowd

by Levi Fuller
ssgmusic.com

If the name Lindsey Buckingham means nothing to you, and yet you are a human possessed of the ability to hear, I can just about guarantee that his unique voice and brilliant pop songcraft are in fact quite familiar to you. As a key songwriter and singer in Fleetwood Mac from 1975 on, Buckingham penned and sang some of the most recognizable and enduring tunes to grace the FM rock radio airwaves, including “Go Your Own Way,” “Second Hand News,” and “Never Going Back Again” (and that’s just from side 1 of Rumours).

Buckingham has had a relatively prolific solo career for decades – during Saturday’s concert he referred to it as the “small machine” to Fleetwood Mac’s “big machine” – probably the most recognizable product of which for the casual listener would be “Holiday Road,” the theme from the 1983 movie “National Lampoon’s Vacation.” That little pop gem aside, Buckingham’s solo career has generally been about experimenting as an artist and letting himself be creative without worrying about hits. He spoke on Saturday about the importance of having these two elements in his life, and it was plain that his work with the “small machine” brought him much joy. By all appearances the audience at the Neptune was here not to witness a slice of the big Fleetwood Mac machine, but to revel in the brilliance of the small machine on a small stage. And revel we did.

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Shows I’ll Never Forget: Lindsey Buckingham, May 19, 2012
by Glen Boyd
Something Else Reviews

At Neptune Theatre, Seattle, Washington: “The small machine appears to have just gotten a little smaller,” was how singer-songwriter, and Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham described it during the Seattle stop of his current solo tour this past Saturday night at the Neptune Theatre.

Buckingham returned to this topic again and again during the show. Comparing what he does with the “big machine” of Fleetwood Mac, to the more left-of-center music he plays as a solo artist — both with smaller groups, and now, as a virtual one man band — Buckingham talked about how the two seeming extremes are a necessary compliment to one another. Performing songs from a setlist which drew equally from his solo work (from “Trouble” to the recent “Seeds We Sow”), his platinum smashes with Fleetwood Mac (“Go Your Own Way,” “I’m So Afraid”), and even the relatively obscure, pre-Fleetwood Mac Buckingham-Nicks album (“Stephanie”), Buckingham made a very convincing case for how these individual pieces form a more complete artistic whole.

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CHART UPDATE: Fleetwood Mac - UK, IRELAND, AUSTRALIA, USA

IRELAND, UK, AUSTRALIA & US ALBUM CHARTS



IRELAND - MAY 17, 2012
After re-entering the chart last week at #76 Rumours drops to last place #100.  It'll likely disappear from the chart next week.

TOP 100 ALBUMS CHART
#100 (76) Fleetwood Mac - Rumours

AUSTRALIA - MAY 21 2012
TOP 100 ALBUMS CHART
# 80 (R/E) FLEETWOOD MAC – The Very Best Of

TOP 50 CATALOGUE ALBUMS CHART
#15 (26) Fleetwood Mac - The Very Best Of

UK - May 26, 2012
TOP 100 ALBUMS CHART
#62 (49) Fleetwood Mac - Rumours

USA - MAY 26, 2012
For the week ending May 13th and Billboard chart date May 26, 2012, Rumours is down 6% in sales in the US this past week to 1,736 units vs 1,847 last week placing the title at #138 down from #116 last week.  Total US sales for Rumours = 2,955,735.  On the Top Catalogue Digital Chart the album dropped 15% in downloads to 1,012 units vs 1,191 the previous week.

Greatest Hits is up 10% in sales in the US to 1,582 units vs 1,433 units last week placing the title at #170 up from #172 last week.  Total US sales for Greatest Hits = 4,546,509.  On the top Catalogue Digital Chart the album increased in downloads by 19% to 820 units vs 690 the previous week.

The Very Best Of re-enters the Top 200 Physical Catalogue Chart this week at #139 on an increase in sales of 28% or 1,233 units sold for the week vs 964 the previous week.  Total US sales for The Very Best Of = 1,475,530, which given it's a double cd release, it needs just under 25k to qualify for triple platinum status in the US (each 2cd package sold is counted twice towards certification).

TOP 200 CATALOGUE ALBUMS CHART
# 138 (116) Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
# 170 (172) Fleetwood Mac - Greatest Hits

TOP 200 CATALOGUE PHYSICAL ALBUMS CHART
# 139 (R/E) Fleetwood Mac - The Very Best Of

TOP 200 CATALOGUE DIGITAL CHART
# 53 (27) Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
# 71 (98) Fleetwood Mac - Greatest Hits

Book Review "Making Rumours" by Bob Lefsetz

Making Rumours
by Bob Lefsetz
The Lefsetz Letter

What if I told you this book was full of tech talk, read like a manual and was filled with arcane details…would you read it anyway?

I DID!

Ken Caillat was smart enough to get a cowriter, unlike Carole King. And he’s not afraid to sling shit, some of the stories about Lindsey Buckingham will horrify you, like how he punched his girlfriend in the face. But what keeps you reading are the memories… Of when music was the most powerful medium on the planet, when it drove the culture and the highest personal achievement was international rock star, not banker.

I’m not saying if Fleetwood Mac started today they wouldn’t make a deal with Pepsi, wouldn’t go on "Idol", but it was a completely different era, that stuff was anathema, it was all about the MUSIC!

Ken Caillat remixes a single another engineer flubs and suddenly he’s driving his Audi up the coast to the Sausalito Record Plant, to record a follow-up to an album that’s not yet a hit. Sure, what Ken references as the "white album" had impact, but it wasn’t until after they started recording during the NoCal winter that it went nuclear, and the band’s manager/attorney Mickey Shapiro called and said if they could record just one more hit album, they’d be set for life!

Talk about pressure.

But Mickey was right.

John McVie drinks so much he has to leave early, but determined to get his bass parts right he shows up before everybody else, to rerecord them.

Everybody looks down on Stevie Nicks because she doesn’t play an instrument, not knowing she’d eventually become the biggest of the bunch.

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Video: Lindsey Buckingham Live in Seattle at The Neptune

Photo by SeattleB

Lindsey Buckingham Live in Seattle, 
The Neptune Theatre May 19, 2012

BIG LOVE - THE NEPTUNE


More Video:  Seeds We Sow | Go Your Own Way | Trouble 

AND even more video - different angle:
Never Going Back Again | Trouble | Big Love | Seeds We Sow | Go Your Own Way | Go Insane

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Stevie Nicks Sighting... Maui Burger Joint!

Stevie Nicks was spotted on Maui yesterday at Cheesburger in Paradise in Lahaina, just down the street from where Mick Fleetwood's new restaurant will be situated.  That would be Karen to Stevie's left in white.

Mac members in the oddest places... First Lindsey's sitting on a woman's porch in Bend, Oregon... and now Stevie in pigtails in a burger joint in Hawaii...

Photo by: Ashley Mc. Glass @ashleymcglass on Twitter.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Fleetwood Mac guitarist brings solo act to Portland


Buckingham still going his own way
Fleetwood Mac guitarist brings solo act to Portland
By Alan Sculley for The Columbian
Friday, May 18, 2012

Two and a half years ago, as Fleetwood Mac was getting ready to launch its “Unleashed” world tour, the band members were talking up the possibility that the tour might be a prelude to a new CD from the group.

The game plan at the time was to do the tour and then maybe get into the studio, and if a CD came together, another round of touring was possible.

The only thing that happened was the “Unleashed” tour. But Fleetwood Mac fans got a pair of welcome consolation prizes instead. First came singer Stevie Nicks’ latest solo CD, “In Your Dreams,” and then, last fall, singer/guitarist Lindsey Buckingham released his sixth solo CD, “Seeds We Sow.”

At least in Buckingham’s case, his solo CD is a direct result of Fleetwood Mac not doing a new CD. It opened a window of time he hadn’t expected to have, and so he did what came naturally. He started writing songs.

“I had no preconceptions going in on this one,” Buckingham said in a recent phone interview. “I didn’t even really have completed songs or anything that was fleshed out in terms of material.”

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