Stevie Nicks says another Fleetwood Mac album is unlikely but is happy for Christine and Lindsey

Stevie Nicks says another Fleetwood Mac album is unlikely: ‘We’re not 40 anymore’
The music icon says the band are more keen to focus on touring

BY: ALISTAIR FOSTER
Evening Standard

Stevie Nicks says she does not think Fleetwood Mac will make another album together — because they are “not 40” any more.

The singer, 68, believes the band  are more likely to focus on touring and doubts they will ever record a  follow-up to 2003’s Say You Will.

She said: “If the five of us were to get together to make a record it would take a year, which is what it always takes us.

"It would be a whole year of recording, then press, then rehearsal, and by the time we got back onto the road, it would be heading towards the second year, and I don’t know whether at this time it’s better for us just to do a big tour.”

The band has sold more than 100 million records and reformed with the classic line-up of Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, John and Christine McVie and Mick Fleetwood for a world tour, which ended in 2015.

Nicks said: “It’s every single penny we make divided by five, so the expense of making a record, which is huge, and then to get back on tour ... we are not 40.

"We have to take that into consideration — how long can we do tours that are three-hour shows? Would you rather spend a year in the studio or get back on the road? I think that the band would choose to tour.”

Nicks, who is focusing on her solo career, is also reluctant to make new music.

She said: “I don’t write as many songs any more because with the internet, the way that kids listen to music, all the streaming, and the fact that if they’re very savvy, if they want to get it and not pay for it, they can.

"It goes against the grain of our whole belief in, ‘You write a song, you record it, and you put it out there and people should buy it’.

"We realise it’s not our world any more and the younger kids don’t look at it like they’re taking from us... we don’t have the impetus to write 20 songs because we know that unless you’re under 20 you’re not going to sell many records.”

She is not involved with the new album by McVie and Buckingham, which is not a Fleetwood Mac record.

She said: “I’m sure it’s going to  be great, because Christine is super-inspired. I’m really happy for them.”

On July 9, Nicks will support her old friend Tom Petty with his band The Heartbreakers at Barclaycard Presents British Summer Time in Hyde Park.

She said: “I’m the girl who always wanted to be in his band and he’s always the one who said, ‘No, no girls allowed.’ There’s just no one else I’d rather be on stage with than Tom.”

Buckingham McVie Duet Album Tentatively Scheduled For May Release

Fleetwood Mac's Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham talk about making their first duet album
By Randall Roberts
LATimes

Longtime devotees of the rock band Fleetwood Mac might be forgiven for letting out a gleeful yelp when registering the news that singer-keyboardist Christine McVie shared with The Times in December while sitting next to her band mate -- guitarist, singer and producer Lindsey Buckingham.

“I've been sending Lindsey demos in their very raw form,” she says, sitting in the Village Studio’s storied Studio D in West Los Angeles, “and he's been doing his Lindsey magic on them, which I love.”

The product of that magic is tentatively scheduled to come out in May, and the two are at the Village to work on vocals. Working with them are two familiar names: Mick Fleetwood, whose towering drum kit is in the next room, and bassist John McVie.

The album coming out of these sessions, however, won’t bear the Fleetwood Mac imprimatur.

Rather, the release with the working title “Buckingham McVie” will arrive as the first full-length collaboration between the pair.

For hard-core fans, it’s not news that, save band mate Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac’s members have been holed up at the Village. At various intervals over the past few years, the band has acknowledged working on an unspecified project thought to be a new Fleetwood Mac album. 

In fact, during a studio visit in 2014, The Times’ Randy Lewis sat down with Christine McVie and Buckingham to discuss her return to touring after 16 years away from the band.  

“I thought, I'm really missing out on something — something that's mine, that I’ve just given up,” she said to Lewis. “I'm not paying respect to my own gift."

Nearly three years later, sharing a couch in the same suite where decades earlier Fleetwood Mac recorded its epic album “Tusk,” Buckingham says that after her return, he and McVie generated an entire album’s worth of material during the sessions.

“We got in here, and it made sense to me with what she had given me and what I done with it. But we still didn't know how it was going to play out in the studio,” Buckingham says. 

He quickly realized that he’d had a pent-up enthusiasm for this kind of collaboration. “I loved doing it, because it's something that I haven't had a chance to do for Stevie as much as I did in the past,” he says, stressing that he continues to compose for solo projects.

“Those are a little more esoteric and off to the side,” he says, “but that's not the same as doing it for somebody else.”

McVie says she reconnected with Mick Fleetwood prior to joining the 2014 Fleetwood Mac “On With the Show” tour. She’d been living a solitary life in rural England when the drummer traveled to London in order to escort her to Hawaii, the destination she chose to help her overcome her fear of flying.

“I'd been virtually doing nothing in the country in 16 years of being a retired lady. Being busy walking my dogs — actually not doing anything very constructive,” she says. “I made one little solo album in my garage.” (2004’s “In the Meantime.”)

Buckingham remembers Fleetwood calling him soon thereafter. “He said, Christine's been over here and, you know, she would like to maybe rejoin the band." For Buckingham, it was a no-brainer.

McVie lets out a big laugh. “It’s unprecedented!”

“Yeah, but a lot of things about Fleetwood Mac are unprecedented,” says Buckingham. “I left for a long time and you guys got two guitar players and went ahead and did that for a while. Then I came back.”

“Weird times,” McVie says.

“Yeah,” Buckingham agrees. “I mean it's a band like no other.”

McVie, who is best known for writing and singing Mac gems including “Don’t Stop,” “Over My Head” and “Think About Me,” acknowledges that, early on in the Buckingham-McVie project, she doubted her ability to reconnect with her muse.

“I suppose I wondered if I believed in myself,” she says. “But I was like, 'Go for it, Chris. Go for it.' And, you know, a better thing's never happened to me. I've reconnected with the band and found a fantastic person to write with.” 

Looking at Buckingham, she adds, “We've always written well together, Lindsey and I, and this has just spiraled into something really amazing that we've done between us.”

For his part, Buckingham’s initial songwriting contributions were the product of sessions with Fleetwood and John McVie, which Buckingham invited Christine McVie to augment. 

“It was just pieces with no wording,” she says. “ so I put melody and lyrics on some of his material.”

“That was a first,” says Buckingham. “She would write lyrics and maybe paraphrase the melody — and come up with something far better than what I would have done if I'd taken it down the road myself.”

Those up on the history of Fleetwood Mac might note in the Buckingham McVie moniker the echo of an earlier duet album, “Buckingham Nicks.” Released in 1973 by the two future Fleetwood Mac members when they were a romantic and musical partnership, the Nicks and Buckingham release led Fleetwood a year later to invite the couple to join his band. 

Nicks hasn’t contributed to the forthcoming Buckingham McVie project. She’s been on her own trip. In 2016, Nicks embarked on her “Rockin’ 24 Karat Gold Tour” with the Pretenders as openers. That tour will continue with a few dozen more dates across early 2017.

Her schedule, however, had little bearing on what Buckingham and McVie were creating, says Buckingham.

“All these years we've had this rapport, but we'd never really thought about doing a duet album before,” Buckingham says. “There is that album that I did with Stevie back before we joined the band, but other than that, it's all been Fleetwood Mac or solo.”

Interrupting with a tone of bafflement, McVie says, “And why on Earth? It seems absurd after 45 years.”

“Sometimes,” Buckingham says, “it takes, oh, about 40 years of perspective to figure it out.”

Fleetwood Mac help UK reach 25 year high in vinyl sales

Vinyl sales have been climbing steadily over the world but in the UK, it has reached a 25-year high with 3.2 million albums purchased on vinyl in 2016.  Fleetwood Mac's Rumours was the 5th best selling vinyl in the country for 2016.  Below is the Top 10.

OFFICIAL VINYL ARTIST ALBUMS CHART 2016 – © Official Charts Company

Pos.         Artist & Title  

1.  David Bowie / Blackstar
2.  Amy Winehouse / Back To Black
3.  Various Artists OST / Guardians Of The Galaxy - Mix 1
4.  Radiohead / A Moon Shaped Pool
5.  Fleetwood Mac / Rumours
6.  The Stone Roses / The Stone Roses
7.  Bob Marley And The Wailers / Legend
8.  The Beatles / Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
9.  Prince & The Revolution / Purple Rain OST
10. Nirvana / Nevermind

All about the lights... Stevie Nicks 24 Karat Gold Tour

Stevie Nicks has gone solo for the 24 Karat Gold tour playing more than two dozen arena dates in North America before the end of the year. Production designer Paul Guthrie of Toss Film & Design in Minneapolis chose 88 ClayPaky Mythos fixtures for the lighting rig.

He previously deployed Mythos on tours for Miranda Lambert and Macklemore. Nicks’ latest tour, in support of her album, 24 Karat Gold – Songs from the Vault, launched in Phoenix and will wrap in Los Angeles. While the iconic singer/songwriter appears as a solo artist, she tapped the Pretenders to open for her – delivering a powerhouse show for ticket holders.

A veteran of Nicks’ tours, Guthrie endeavoured to: “create something new and a bit more modern” for her new show. “Stevie enjoys using video content so the tour features a lot of video on an LED videowall backdrop and L-shaped scenic pieces,” he explained. “Our overwhelming lighting edict is always no smoke. So we defer to lighting the band and adding in layers of light to create new looks.” The versatility of Mythos offers myriad options to Guthrie. “It’s fun to have one light that can produce a multitude of different effects in the same head,” he said. “Mythos is basically the workhorse light in the rig.” He notes that the tour’s complement of 100-120 moving lights is now considered a medium- size rig for an arena tour adding: “It used to be that 16 were considered to be a lot! We’ve come a long way.” PRG’s Las Vegas office supplied the fixtures.

Eighty Mythos are mounted in the overhead lighting trusses where they form solid lines of fixtures. Guthrie reported: “On the downstage and mid-stage trusses they provide stage wash and beam effects. Those on the most upstage of the trusses, upstage of the videowall, create layers to add depth.” Eight more Mythos are positioned on the floor upstage of the band to illuminate their dynamic performance.

Tom Wagstaff, the lighting director for the Pretenders deploys about 60 Mythos, on the downstage and mid-stage trusses, and repositions the complement on the floor, says Guthrie. For the 24 Karat Gold Tour Thomas Mayer is the lighting crew chief and Cecil Nelson, Matt Schiller and Scott Naef are the lighting crew. A.C.T Lighting is the exclusive North American distributor for Clay Paky. Francesco Romagnoli, Clay Paky Area Manager for North and Latin America, added, “Mr. Guthrie always does great work and is trusted to work with great artists. It’s always a please to collaborate with him.”

TPIMagazine

Best Reissues of 2016 - Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac

Stevie Nicks: “Bella Donna”/”The Wild Heart” (Atco/Modern/Rhino) -- The albums that established the charismatic Fleetwood Mac singer as a solo star get expanded nicely. “Bella Donna” gets supplemented with nine outtakes (including four worthy songs that didn’t make the album) and a 1981 concert. “The Wild Heart,” her solid, if overly synthy, 1983 follow-up, meanwhile has nine outtakes. Insightful liner notes help illuminate Nicks’ life and career during this period. -- Ratings: “Bella Donna” -- 4 stars; “The Wild Heart” -- 3 ½ stars

Fleetwood Mac: “Mirage” (Warner Bros.) -- Following the artistically bold, but commercially disappointing “Tusk,” Fleetwood Mac retreated to safer pop territory on “Mirage.” This reissue adds 20 outtakes to the finely crafted original album, including a pair of strong unreleased Stevie Nicks songs, “If You Were My Love” and “Smile at You.” -- Rating: 3 ½ stars

Daily Herald

Review Stevie Nicks in Las Vegas December 17th

FIVE THOUGHTS ABOUT STEVIE NICKS WITH THE PRETENDERS AT PARK THEATER (DECEMBER 17)
by Spencer Patterson
Las Vegas Weekly

1. For the record, the first song performed publicly at the Las Vegas Strip’s newest music venue—attached to the Monte Carlo resort (soon to be rebranded with the same Park name as the theater and adjacent outdoor plaza)—was “Alone,” the title track from the Pretenders’ latest studio album. The first hit, 1981’s “Message of Love,” arrived two numbers later.

The sound inside Park Theater ranged from fairly muddled for the Pretenders’ first half-dozen songs (turn up Chrissie Hynde’s vocals!; and is that slide guitarist actually playing, ’cause we can’t hear him at all) to somewhat improved midway through that opening set (Hynde sounds great, but there’s still no slide in here) to pretty pristine for Stevie Nicks’ headlining performance (which bodes well for the future).

3. The venue lays out roughly like the Colosseum at Caesars Palace or the Axis at Planet Hollywood, though it’s less ornate than the former and less comfy than the latter. The lobby’s chandeliers and the second floor’s circular patio deck are memorable touches, and two giant side-stage screens provided close views of the musicians, but the theater itself felt a bit generic for Las Vegas’ most modern concert hall.

Sight lines seemed clear across the venue—unless you were seated on the flat floor and someone stood up in directly in front of you. The primo seats appear to be those in sections 201 through 205, and then working back.

A few logistical quibbles: Armrest drink holders render armrests virtually useless (there’s a reason most venues build their drink holders into the backs of the seats in front of you). Concession lines looked lengthy all night, probably because there aren’t many areas set up to sell food and drinks at this point. And upstairs bathrooms are quite small, so time your visits wisely.

4. The Pretenders are one of those, “Oh, I know that song!” bands. Serious fans aside, I doubt most attendees knew they’d recognize so many tunes on Saturday—“Back on the Chain Gang,” “I’ll Stand by You,” “My City Was Gone,” “Middle of the Road” and “Brass in Pocket” among them—and the band still left some of its classic cuts (like “Talk of the Town” and “Show Me”) unplayed during a healthy 15-song set.

At age 65, Hynde remains a strong singer and a magnetic presence, bringing an Elvis T-shirt and good grand-opening awareness to the stage: “Elvis played on this stage … in spirit. We’re the first band to play this stage.” She also marveled that Las Vegas will soon have hockey, and delivered this zinger during her intro of 65-year-old founding drummer Martin Chambers: “We couldn’t get Buddy Rich, because he’s dead.”

5. Nicks explained that she designed her latest solo tour to excavate deeper cuts from her catalog, and she did just that Saturday night, at one point reeling off six-consecutive non-charting songs between Fleetwood Mac classic “Gypsy” and synthy solo favorite “Stand Back.” That unorthodox approach largely succeeded, on the strength of Nicks’ still-powerful pipes (her voice sits in a lower octave these days but retains its singular, spine-tingling quality), her crack eight-piece backing band (Hynde also joined in for “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around") and her folksy between-song storytelling. The 68-year-old singer occasionally got off track as she related the origins of songs like Buckingham-Nicks oldie “Crying in the Night” or newer solo composition “New Orleans,” but the loose approach brought a cozy, living-room vibe to the sold-out, 5,300-capacity room.

Of course, the crowd cheered loudest for the night’s closing quartet of all-timers—“Gold Dust Woman” and “Edge of Seventeen,” and then “Rhiannon” and “Landslide” in the encore—and whenever Nicks twirled in place, proving that even in shiny new buildings on just-enlivened stretches of the Las Vegas Strip, some things never change.