Reviews: Lindsey Buckingham Live in Minneapolis

Photos by: @amp1979

Lindsey Buckingham solo acoustic: Loud, angry and too short
by: Jon Bream
Star Tribune

The Dakota Jazz Club offered free earplugs at the door (unprecedented). The classy downtown Minneapolis club also suspended food and drink service during the concert (not too common but prudent). And the performance of Lindsey Buckingham left many in Tuesday’s sell-out audience unsatisfied (not common).

Why? Buckingham’s solo acoustic performance lasted only 72 minutes (including the encore). And tickets cost $125 and $80. I imagine his soundcheck – for his four guitars, multiple amplifiers and effects pedals – might have lasted longer than the gig itself.

Buckingham’s previous Twin Cities shows with his own band (once as many as 10 pieces) have been longer if occasionally indulgent affairs. Wearing the same outfit he sported last year at his 110-minute Pantages performance with his backup trio, he called this solo session part of a little experiment. He commented about the shallowness of the Dakota—not the people, the space, he said. He talked about the small machine (his solo projects, namely six solo discs since 1981 but three since 2006) being necessary to balance the Big Machine (Fleetwood Mac) and how one couldn’t function without the other.

Using occasional backing tracks, Buckingham’s finger picking was fancy, fast and often phenomenal. He received standing ovations at the end of every long solo passage – and they weren’t just Fleetwood Mac tunes.

At 63, Buckingham came off as an angry man. Well, at least the songs he chose to sing from his solo career were very angry, from the radio faves “Trouble” and “Go Insane” to “Come.” And loud – for acoustic music. He sang hard, like he was trying to project in an arena.

Of course, the Fleetwood Mac tunes – including “Go Your Own Way,” “Never Going Back Again” and “I’m So Afraid” – weren’t exactly happy tunes. We knew that Buckingham wouldn’t be sweet, but we had no idea that he’d be so short.


Lindsey Buckingham
Dakota Jazz Club, Minneapolis
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
By Danny Sigelman

"This song is significant to me. Looking at the lyrics when this was written it 

accurately describes the person I was." causing some in the audience to laugh. 

"It wasn't so funny for me!" he cried defensively, "You try being in

 Fleetwood Mac. It's a god damn mine field out there!"  

- Lindsey Buckingham  "Big Love"

Whether it was the intro music of himself playing acoustic guitar or his stacks of amplifiers, you get the feeling Lindsey Buckingham has lived life mostly on massive stages and is most comfortable bringing his big personality and larger than life sound to adoring fans. As long as he has been performing he truly operates with a majesty and with perfection the giant body of work he has created with Fleetwood Mac and as a solo artist. It was from that pool of unforgettable songs that he magnificently showed his true self to the sold out Dakota Jazz club Tuesday night.

Springing towards the microphone Buckingham showed immediate gratitude towards the audience. Though in the intimate setting of the Dakota, he exhibited passionate delivery and a true rock star presence on "Cast Away Dreams" and the first of several Fleetwood Mac tunes of the evening, "Bleed to Love Her." The latter sounded much more personal and devout as it brought the song out from under the '90s production style of the recording which hasn't aged as well as the lyrics themselves.

Full Review at Citypages

The Minneapolis performance last night concludes Lindsey's solo acoustic tour this year.  

It's been an incredible year of touring for Lindsey and a great opportunity for his fans to see him up close and personal in some of the really great, small, intimate venues scattered across north america. Since late 2011 we've seen Lindsey with a full band... completely solo... and in conversation at the 92 Street Y in New York City, not to mention the various Meet and Greets that were offered at a lot of this years shows where fans, for a relatively small price, were given the opportunity to meet with Lindsey after the show.

It's been fun following along!

Tour Stats:

After the release of "Seeds We Sow" on September 6, 2011 Lindsey kicked off the 39 date "Seeds We Sow Tour" September 10, 2011 in Reno, NV. With a full band in tow, Lindsey played dates across the US and Canada bringing the tour to a close in Tulsa, OK on November 14, 2011.  A planned 9 date UK tour in December, 2011 was first postponed, then cancelled due to an injury suffered by his guitarist Neale Heywood.  Lindsey took a break over the winter, geared up for this little experiment of playing completely solo and acoustic and was back on the road May 3, 2012 in Solana Beach, CA. Ultimately, with this solo show success, the tour ended up being extended through the spring, summer and fall culminating in the Minneapolis show last night. With a total of 77 US and Canadian dates this year alone plus the 39 dates in 2011, Lindsey's managed to rack up 116 live performances since September 10, 2011! 

Not only has Lindsey been a beast on the road, but in terms of released music he's been no slouch! Since September 6, 2011 we've seen released:

 

"Seeds We Sow" - CD released September 6, 2011

"Songs From The Small Machine Live in L.A." - DVD/CD released November 1, 2011

"One Man Show" - Digital only live album released November 13, 2012

And Lindsey's not done releasing new music this year!  
On December 11th three new tracks, newly recorded this year, one of which features Nora Jones, will be included on the "This is 40" movie soundtrack due to hit stores December 11th.

With a Fleetwood Mac tour on the horizon for 2013, it will likely be 2014 before we see Lindsey solo again where he's promised to include some sort of request segment of the show, no doubt spurred on by the many requests during his shows to play various solo and Fleetwood Mac tracks not featured in his set.  I, like many, hope he can follow through with that.

Q&A with Lindsey Buckingham on Finding Happiness Balancing an Enormous Band and a Cozy Solo Project

The veteran Fleetwood Mac singer-songwriter-guitarist talks with THR about being onstage alone, changing the way he sings some songs and why "Rumours" would create a feeding frenzy today.

As a guitarist known for his rich, almost orchestral finger-picked playing style, solo acoustic might be the last thing you expect from Lindsey Buckingham. But the Fleetwood Mac veteran isn’t limned in by expectations. (Something about co-penning a 40 million-selling album and being a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.) Last week he released Lindsey Buckingham: One Man Show, culled from his current solo American tour.

When commercial concerns became an issue in Fleetwood Mac, Buckingham’s experimental explorations manifested a solo career that has endured fits and starts. Of late he’s been quite prolific, releasing three discs in six years exploring the kind of intimate, keenly crafted and emotionally edgy songwriter pop favored by indie artists such as Sondre Lerche, Joe Pernice and Ron Sexsmith.

Following the raw, almost lo-fi intensity of 2011's Seeds We Sow, on which he played every instrument, Buckingham took the next logical step embracing the austerity of the solo performer. He captured a Sept. 1 show in Des Moines, Iowa, and made it available online through the wonders of digital distribution.

Buckingham spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about the freedom of being onstage alone, defying the mediocrity of commercially successful career artists and Fleetwood Mac’s immediate plans -- calling from a concert stop near Grand Rapids, Mich., where, liberated from a tour bus, Buckingham had wandered off the beaten path again.

The Hollywood Reporter: It seems that after Rumours there was a choice of how your career would be going forward. Did the way Fleetwood Mac handled that inform your artistic choices?

Lindsey Buckingham: Oh, absolutely. Tusk was clearly a line in the sand that I drew. If that album had been … embraced longer term by the band -- I mean, they were happy with the results of that album, until it didn’t sell anywhere like Rumours numbers. Then there was this sort of dictum that came down, “We’re not doing that anymore.” It was really only at that point that I said, “OK, if they aren’t going to explore the left side of the palette, I guess I’m going to have to do solo work.” Otherwise maybe Fleetwood Mac would’ve gone in a whole other direction and there would never have been any need for the solo work. But, you know, that was fair enough.

THR: Well, it feels like otherwise we would’ve lost a lot of great music that would’ve had to pass through that filter. I think we got the best of both worlds.

Buckingham: I do too. It hasn’t always been easy, but you get to a point where you’re not doing the solo stuff with any kind of expectation in terms of commercial or a business outcome, you’re doing it because you believe in this. The fact that I have the freedom to do that and, I guess, after all these years still have that kind of ethic is a nice place to be. Because a lot of times people that have been doing it this long -- it’s not necessarily like you forget who you are, but you just don’t care anymore. So to have the idealism and feel like I’ve got the small-scale thing to keep me moving forward and at least aspiring to be an artist and can take risks. It’s a nice place to be.

THR: It’s funny because I was talking to Richard Thompson and he was saying, kind of puckishly, “The secret to my success is my continued failure.” Do you agree?

Buckingham: Well, yeah. He’s right. Because, again, you sort of hit on it when you talk about Tusk and the aftermath of Rumours. There are many elements and a lot of pressure from the business-model side of things that wants you to uphold this brand. That can be something which works well in the short-term. Certainly, from the business point of view, part of the model is if something’s working to run it into the ground and then move on, right? But from an artist’s point of view, it can be the beginning of painting yourself into a corner. I’m sure that’s what Richard means; he’s never had to do that.

THR: Having that pressure of people expecting that thing from him ...

Buckingham: If you can be who you are and remember who you are -- that’s half the trick when you have a certain amount of fame, and lucky for him he never had to go through that. I’m quite happy Rumours didn’t occur at a time where, say, the media is where it is now. It would’ve really fed off that. I mean, we brought out the voyeur in everyone because the album was a tabloid on our lives, but there was a certain amount of respect to it. I think people were actually invested in it. It would’ve been more of a feeding frenzy today.

THR: You’ve been fortunate to indulge both parts of your brain, as you say. You’ve written for arenas with thousands of people, and now you have a much more intimate album. How is it different?

Buckingham: Well, it is, and I think it took me a couple shows to get comfortable up there. The first couple shows I did by myself I was looking around wondering where the rest of my band was.

THR: You’re so exposed.

Buckingham: Yeah, but that’s a good thing too. You really are right at the center of what you do. The real challenge of putting the show together wasn’t -- I knew I could do a series of songs on my own, but how do you make a whole show that has an arc and goes somewhere? I realized doing something like “Go Your Own Way” or something like “I’m So Afraid,” which I do in the show, I was going to need a little help from a pedal to play an extra part. I’m not trying to fool anybody, I’m just doing it sparingly and tastefully, and that really opens up the whole vocabulary of the possibilities for this show to succeed and also for other things to try down the line now that I know they work.

THR: It must be a very different experience sonically to play solo instead of with a band.

Buckingham: For sure, plus when you’re up there by yourself without anyone else, you have a freedom to sort of spontaneously work a dynamic or to explore the possibility and the range of dynamics in different ways. One of the things I’ve gotten more centered on during this particular set of shows has been my vocals. It actually changed the way I sing some of these songs a little bit because you can hear so well, and there’s so little going on it’s liberating.

THR: What’s the story with Fleetwood Mac reconvening?

Buckingham: We have some dates on the books next year, and we’ll start rehearsing in the beginning or middle of February, so that’s a good thing. It’s about a year too late, but that’s the way it goes.

THR: Could these rehearsals lead to new music, or will you need to get together separately?

Buckingham: Rehearsing is really just rehearsing. If we were to get into something new-material-wise, that would be something we decided on ahead of time and you put yourself more in that format. There are some things I’ve cut with John [McVie] or Mick [Fleetwood]. I don’t even know what they’re for, but if they turned out great, maybe some of that would turn out being something down the line. But we haven’t spent enough time together to figure out what we want to do with that stuff. Anything is possible.

 The Hollywood Reporter

Review Lindsey Buckingham South Milwaukee "It was a little strange. It was also fantastic."

"About the concert: It was a little strange. It was also fantastic. Definitely more fantastic than strange."

By Steven Hyden
Grantland

Lindsey dressed his taut frame in a black leather jacket, a black shirt with the top two buttons undone, and dark slacks. His skin was bronzed and tight, and his chest appeared smooth and shiny. He is a 63-year-old man who could find work as a body double for a member of One Direction. When he walked out onstage, he briefly held a facial expression that said, “I can’t believe I’m playing a high school auditorium on a Saturday night at my age.” But that quickly dissipated. Lindsey got to work. Lindsey played by himself, switching between electric and acoustic guitars. He worked way harder than he had to. He played loud; even on the acoustic, the arpeggios sent shock waves down to my soles. When he sang, he sang with the twitchy, hammy, totally-unnerving-when-you-see-it-in-the-flesh Lindsey Buckingham intensity. “Go Your Own Way” might be a soft-rock oldie that scored a million divorces and 100 million barbecues in the past 35 years, but for Buckingham, it seems like it still kind of means something emotional and painful. When he denounces Stevie Nicks as unfeeling and slutty, he makes you believe the anger is fresh for him. Onstage, Lindsey Buckingham does not seem at all settled.

Full Review Here

Lindsey Buckingham Review - Madison, WI + Stevie Nicks Photos

LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM LIVE

The Barrymore Theatre, Madison, WI - November 18, 2012

by Andy Downing

Madison.com

With neither a backing band or an opening act in sight Sunday night at the Barrymore Theatre, Lindsey Buckingham gamely delivered in a sharp, 75-minute set that drew equally from his solo career and his time in Fleetwood Mac.

"Though a workmanlike singer at best, Buckingham remains a virtuosic guitar player, and his skill set was on full display this night. His fingers remained in near-constant motion as he plucked out weightless notes that fluttered like airborne butterflies and snarling riffs that mimicked great, mythical beasts. On the instrumental “Stephanie,” the guitarist conjured chiming acoustic notes that somehow mirrored distant church bells, while “Not Too Late,” a song about refusing to give up on your dreams, swung from delicate acoustic picking to urgent strumming, like a quiet mountain creek morphing into a raging river."

Check out the full review at Madison.com

STEVIE NICKS and LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM

Photography by Piernot

Gallery: Stevie Nicks | Lindsey Buckingham

Some nice captures by this photographer... 

Not entirely sure where the photos were taken but seems to be the NY/NJ area.

Check the links above for the gallery

A treat for the eyes... 46 Amazing Lindsey Buckingham Photos Live in Chattanooga, TN

Track 29 have uploaded 46 photos of Lindsey Buckingham Live in Chattanooga, TN from November 7th.  Whomever took the photos... Well done!

Track 29 Photo Gallery

FREE DOWNLOAD: New Fleetwood Mac Tribute Album "Family Tree"

Today, DeBurgio Records have released a FREE Fleetwood Mac tribute album titled "Family Tree".  The online-only label set out months ago in search of artists from all over the US looking for independent artists who were moved by Fleetwood Mac's music and excited to pay tribute.  There are some really great renditions of Mac tracks here... Stream each track or you could just download the whole album.

Download The Album for FREE here: