REVIEW: Fleetwood Mac “Extended Play” - "concise burst of fresh songs'

Fleetwood Mac “Extended Play” (iTunes)

In the decade since Fleetwood Mac released 2003's “Say You Will,” a new surge of interest in the group's distinctive pop style has taken hold in the modern pop, alternative and country communities. Recent music by artists as diverse as Cut Copy, Lady Antebellum, Vampire Weekend, Haim, Daft Punk, John Mayer and Little Big Town was inspired by the warmth and harmonic richness of Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham/Stevie Nicks era, and last year's tribute album, “Just Tell Me That You Want Me,” offered persuasive testimony to the band's enduring influence.

But for all the enthusiasm those acts show for Fleetwood Mac's pop shimmer, most would balk at walking a mile in their shoes, and continued tension within the band is a key reason why they only mustered four tracks for “Extended Play,” Fleetwood Mac's first new material since 2003. But this concise burst of fresh songs, mostly co-produced by Buckingham and Mitchell Froom (Crowded House), says more about what it really means to be part of Fleetwood Mac than anything since “Rumours” and “Tusk.” Buckingham takes it on directly with “Sad Angel,” which addresses the challenge of getting Nicks on board with new Mac material while the fans are “calling out for more.” Even the inclusion of “Without You,” an unreleased Buckingham Nicks song, underlines the continued tension — putting the song on “Extended Play” was a compromise after Nicks and Buckingham could not agree on how to handle the 40th anniversary of the “Buckingham Nicks” album.

But Buckingham extends an olive branch with “It Takes Time,” a rare piano ballad from the band since Christine McVie's retirement. The song acknowledges that Buckingham bears some of the burden here, and that he carries his own emotional baggage to every Fleetwood Mac gig. The group wraps up “Extended Play” with Buckingham's “Miss Fantasy,” a wistful uptempo song about “the queen of the underground.” “Everyone whispers when you go, into the silence soft and low/ Ten thousand voices, crying ‘on with the show,” Buckingham sings. Over 35 years after the romantic fissures that nearly wrecked the band, on “Extended Play” Fleetwood Mac proves that some chains never really break.

— George Lang
Newsok.com

A Lot of Rock in Little Rock TONIGHT with Fleetwood Mac

YOUR WEEKEND STARTS NOW! 
Fleetwood Mac are in Little Rock, AR tonight at Verizon Center.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY:
Stevie Nicks latest album "In Your Dreams" turns two today - released May 3, 2011.

"IN YOUR DREAMS"
The film that chronicles the making of the album screens in Winnipeg, Canada tonight at Cinematheque.

inyourdreamsmovie.com

Review: Fleetwood Mac "Extended Play" "as fresh and exciting as anything they have recorded for a very long time"

Fleetwood Mac – Extended Play Review

by Terry Hearn
WhatCulture

Ten years is a long time between records but for Fleetwood Mac it feels like the rest has done them good. Containing four tracks, three new Buckingham compositions and a reworking of an old Stevie Nicks track from the 1970’s, the new EP, ‘Extended Play’ is as fresh and exciting as anything they have recorded for a very long time.

At a show during their current world tour, singer and guitarist Lindsay Buckingham announced the EP saying it would be out in ‘a few days’ before performing one of the new tracks. This created quite a buzz of expectation online, not least because the band hadn’t released any new material for so long. Weeks later the iTunes-only release appeared without fanfare. In the gap between the announcement and release it was rumored there was a delay centered around getting an agreement on the title and artwork. Between the over simplistic title and the black and white cover it seems that the band fortunately decided releasing the music was the most important thing.

The EP leans strongly towards Lindsey Buckingham which is no bad thing as his song writing and performance is clearly in rude health but it would be nice to hear the lead vocal shared a little more.

By a long way the standout track is the opener ‘Sad Angel’ which is the best thing they have done since ‘Tango in the Night,’ possibly longer. It sounds fresh and new but it also fits with ease amongst the best of their vast back catalogue and would not be out of place on ‘Rumours.’ While not holding the strength or immediacy of the first track of this collection, the light and breezy ‘Without You’ sways with a sureness that was lacking from their last full album release ‘Say You Will’ from 2003. ‘It Takes Time’ hears an isolated Lindsay solo on the piano whispering until strings join him for a dramatic climax. Despite a small number of tracks, ‘Miss Fantasy’ is still able to stand out as a particularly delightful pop song.

If nothing else this EP shows that Fleetwood Mac still have what it takes in the studio. Each  song is immediate and fresh which belies the familiarity they provoke after only a handful of listens. Hopefully it is the first step towards a new full length album rather than a souvenir to give the current tour an identity. The Mac is back.

Get the EP on iTunes $3.96

It's Out Now... Granted, it’s only four songs. But still. Fleetwood Mac Man! "Extended Play"

With relatively little fanfare or forewarning, iconic pop/rock act Fleetwood Mac have released their first new music since 2003’s Say You Will.

Granted, it’s only four songs. But still.

Simply titled Extended Play, the four-song EP contains three brand-spanking-new tunes penned by Lindsey Buckingham, plus a lost Steve Nicks tune from the Buckingham/Nicks era, “Without You.” The band decided to resurrect the tune officially after an early demo of the song surfaced on YouTube.

Along with the oft-rumored tour, a new album from the band has been hovering on the will-they-won’t-they table for quite some time. The tour landed in the “will they” column and is currently in progress, but a full-length album is still up for speculation as Stevie Nicks in particular seems to be in wait-and-see mode. After Say You Will saw disappointing sales compared to earlier releases, Nicks has indicated that future music from Fleetwood Mac would be based on fan demand. Thus, it would appear that Extended Play is something in the middle, a way to test the waters, as it were.

(Translation: if you want even more new music from Fleetwood Mac, buy this EP. You can currently get it only at iTunes.)

Get the EP on iTunes $3.96

Fleetwood Mac have released a four-track EP called "Extended Play" via iTunes.

Classic Rock Magazine

Their first new music in 10 years comes in the form of three recently-written songs – Sad Angel, It Takes Time and Miss Fantasy – plus a reworked Buckingham Nicks number called Without You.

Lindsey Buckingham says: “After all this time you would think there was nothing left to discover, no new chapters to be written. But that’s not the case – there are new chapters to be written.”

He and Steve Nicks recently reflected on the life they might have lived if they’d remained together as a couple.

Fleetwood Mac are currently touring the US and will arrive in the UK in September:

Sep 20: Dublin O2
Sep 24: London O2 Arena
Sep 29: Birmingham LG Arena
Oct 1: Manchester Arena
Oct 3: Glasgow Hydro


Fleetwood Mac releases new music for the first time in 10 years.
CNN

While some musicians make a splashy entrance when they're returning from a recording hiatus, Fleetwood Mac has been far more subtle.

The legendary group has released a four-track EP called "Extended Play," which became available Tuesday on iTunes.  It's the group's first studio release since 2003's "Say You Will."

While Lindsey Buckingham said at a concert in April that fans should look out for a new EP from the band, "Extended Play" simply popped up on Tuesday.

The EP contains three songs written by Buckingham - "Sad Angel," "It Takes Time" and "Miss Fantasy" - as well as a fourth, "Without You," that was penned by Stevie Nicks years ago in the era of Buckingham/Nicks and was rediscovered for the EP.

REVIEW | PHOTOS: Fleetwood Mac Live in Tulsa, OK

FLEETWOOD MAC LIVE

TULSA, OK - MAY 1, 2013

AT BOK CENTER

Fleetwood Mac 'infallible' in BOK Center performance

By JENNIFER CHANCELLOR World Scene Writer 

Photo by: James Gibbard / Tulsa World

Tulsa World

Fleetwood Mac would be nothing without Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. Despite the band’s rocky history, their chemistry on stage is forged in steel.

Wednesday night at a tour stop at the BOK Center, Mick Fleetwood fortified his namesake band with solid rhythm, and John McVie held it tight on bass.

Strong out of the gate, Nicks and Buckingham harmonized to “Second Hand News,” fans on their feet, Fleetwood and McVie rumbling strong behind them.

Fans pressed to the stage, hands raised, and sang along.

Those fans who weren't on their feet then were by the first few notes of “The Chain,” Buckingham’s finger-pick guitar style texturizing each note with rich emotion. Multiple fingers added voices — harmony — to the band’s own vocals, almost like a multi-track machine.

With Buckingham head-to-toe in black, what stood out is his lightning fretwork, again and again through the nearly three-hour set. This version of Fleetwood Mac might as well have a “Lindsey Buckingham with …” in front of it.

Continue to the full review on the original site including pics

Full setlist tonight including Silver Springs

Concert review: Fleetwood Mac at the BOK -- better live now than ever?

By George Lang

The Oklahoman

NewsOK.com

There is a great argument to be made, one completely supported by Fleetwood Mac's immensely skilled and generous Wednesday performance at Tulsa's BOK Center, that Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood are better live performers now than when they were the biggest band in the world.

Listen to 1980's "Fleetwood Mac Live," and it sounds like a talented, enormously successful band exhausted by its circumstances and frayed at the edges. But 33 years later, in front of 20,000 fans, Buckingham and Nicks sounded completely engaged with both the audience and the music they've made together for more than four decades.

Undoubtedly, the reasons for Fleetwood Mac's current excellence have as much to do with history markers as they do with their present. Earlier this year, singer-guitarist Buckingham oversaw the remastering and release of an expanded version of the album that made them superstars, 1977's "Rumours," and they started their BOK Center show with three huge songs from that album: "Second Hand News," "The Chain" and "Dreams." Nicks sounded great -- no key changes were needed to accommodate aging vocal cords -- and her enthusiasm for taking her first lead of the evening on "Dreams" was made clear when she told the crowd, "This party starts now!"

Buckingham seemed similarly proud on the next song, "Sad Angel." The lead track on "Extended Play," the four-song EP released Tuesday on iTunes, "Sad Angel" might be a song about Buckingham's difficulty in persuading Nicks to record new material, but the uptempo song felt celebratory and meshed well with the classic songs that preceded it, and Buckingham seemed energized by the performance and the audience's response.

Nicks returned to her storied classics with 1975's "Rhiannon," then the band dipped heavily into the masterfully ramshackle 1979 album "Tusk," and Buckingham was in his zone. He ripped through "Not That Funny" and "Tusk," then ceded the spotlight to Nicks for "Sisters of the Moon" and a lovely version of "Sara."

Granted, the retired Christine McVie will always be missed -- she was a top-notch balladeer with a soulful, rounded voice, the creamy center between two singers with sharp vocal edges. It will always hurt that her repertoire is mostly missing, although Nicks now takes her vocal parts on "Don't Stop." But Nicks and Buckingham always were the stars of this drama, and their trove of great songs and residual tension continues to make a Fleetwood Mac concert an exciting proposition.

When McVie, Fleetwood and their backup singers and players left the stage to the ex-lovers for "Landslide" and "Never Going Back Again," Buckingham and Nicks bolstered one another's strengths. Their voices blended beautifully on "Without You," a lost pre-Fleetwood Mac song they re-recorded for "Extended Play," and the band all joined together for a strong version of 1982's "Gypsy."

But for several memorable minutes, Buckingham stole the show. "I'm So Afraid" is not one of the biggest songs in Fleetwood Mac's repertoire, but the closing track from the band's 1975 self-titled album is, in many ways, the quintessential Buckingham song -- paranoia, throaty wailing and thunderous guitar work. Buckingham completely killed on the ending solo, earning a standing ovation that was repeated with Nicks' solo single "Stand Back" and the main set closer, "Go Your Own Way."

Fleetwood Mac returned for two encores, playing "World Turning," "Don't Stop," "Silver Springs" and "Say Goodbye" before finally saying goodbye after a two-and-half hour show. They were in fine voice and spirits, and the feeling they brought to both old and new material was kind of miraculous for a band that has been through it all.

FAN PHOTOS

Audio Interview: Lindsey Buckingham Talks Fleetwood Mac Tour, Stevie Nicks, "Sad Angel", Christine McVie

Lindsey Buckingham

93.7 The Arrow Houston's Classic Rock Station

May 1, 2013