REVIEW Fleetwood Mac Live in LA at The Forum December 11, 2018

5 impressions of the new version of Fleetwood Mac and its first concert at the Forum
By PETER LARSEN | LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS
Photos: Kelly A. Swift

Fleetwood Mac played the first of three shows at the Forum on Tuesday and yes, despite what you’ve thought or heard, it is still Fleetwood Mac even without Lindsey Buckingham, the longtime singer-guitarist was ousted earlier this year.

Is it the same band it was? No. And neither is it the same band it was before Buckingham and singer Stevie Nicks joined in the mid-’70s and – with members Christine McVie, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood – made Fleetwood Mac one of the biggest acts in the world.

The question you ask then is whether this version is good, and with the additions of Crowded House singer-guitarist Neil Finn on Buckingham’s vocals, and Mike Campbell, long a member of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers on Buckingham’s lead guitar licks, the answer is: absolutely.

In a set that packed 22 songs and one massive old-school drum solo into two hours and 45 minutes, the fans got almost all the hits they wanted and a few rarer numbers that probably wouldn’t have shown up if Buckingham was still in the band, while both Finn and Campbell got spotlight moments for their work in their longtime bands.

Here are five impressions that stick in the memory the morning after.

REVIEW Fleetwood Mac Live in Los Angeles December 11, 2018

Thinking through Fleetwood Mac's tour without Lindsey Buckingham
By MIKAEL WOOD | LA Times Photo: Luis Sinco

The idea of turnover is baked into Fleetwood Mac, the long-running British American band that arrived in its latest (and possibly strangest) iteration at the Forum on Tuesday for the first show in a three-night stand.

Formed as a crusty blues-revival outfit in London in the late 1960s, the group burned through a series of singers and guitarists before resettling years later in Los Angeles, where Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks helped transform Fleetwood Mac into a polished hit-making machine.

So in a sense it comes as no surprise — as secondhand news, if you will — that the band is on the road this year after it fired Buckingham (allegedly because he didn’t want to tour) and replaced him with a pair of skilled but distantly connected pros: Neil Finn of Crowded House and Mike Campbell of Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers.

For this famously mercenary group, no one — not even the architect of 1977’s gazillion-selling “Rumours” — is safe from elimination.

Yet Buckingham in recent years had taken to describing Fleetwood Mac as a kind of monument to durability. Having quit the band himself in the ’80s (only to return a decade later), he seemed to be putting across the idea that the members’ ability to “rise above the dysfunction,” as he put it to me in a 2017 interview, gave their music a “heroic” quality that distinguished the group from other classic-rock acts still doing business.

REVIEW Fleetwood Mac Live in San Diego December 9, 2018

Fleetwood Mac soars and dips at first San Diego concert with two new band members
By George Varga San Diego Union Tribune

Ouch!  The newly revamped lineup of Fleetwood Mac that performed Saturday at San Diego State University’s Viejas Arena didn’t begin its concert by burning in effigy recently ousted guitarist and singer-songwriter, Lindsey Buckingham, at least not literally. Nor did the 51-year-old band — now touring with two new members in his place — display any Photo-shopped pictures of Buckingham being poked in the eye on any of the three video screens that bedecked the stage.

But figuratively and musically?

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Double-ouch!

The new/old band, which fired Buckingham in January, kicked off its hits-fueled, two-hour Saturday concert here with an especially impassioned version of “The Chain.” Not coincidentally, Fleetwood Mac performed the same song to open its 2014 Viejas Arena show, when Buckingham was still front and center. (It was the second song played at the band’s 2013 Viejas Arena concert.)

A standout number from “Rumours,” Fleetwood Mac’s classic 1977 album, “The Chain” was co-written by Buckingham and the group’s four remaining veterans, drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie (who co-founded the band), and three longtime members who joined in the 1970s — singer-keyboardist Christine McVie and singer Stevie Nicks, Buckingham’s former girlfriend.

A love-gone-wrong song, “The Chain” is also tribute to tenacity and overcoming obstacles. Those attributes have defined Fleetwood Mac through its numerous lineup changes, including Christine McVie’s 16-year absence between 1998 and 2014.

REVIEW Fleetwood Mac Live in Fresno December 6, 2018

Fleetwood Mac was in town with a new lineup. How did it stack up to the classics?
BY JOSHUA TEHEE FRESNOBEE
PHOTOS: CRAIG KOHLRUSS

Fleetwood Mac isn’t what it used to be; quite literally.

In April, the band fired its longtime guitarist and singer and announced it would be touring with a new lineup. So, Lindsey Buckingham was out (and not for the first time), to be replaced with Tom Petty’s ax-man Mike Campbell and Neil Finn of Crowded House.

Buckingham might take solace in knowing it took two men to replace him.

While hardcore fans might balk at the idea of a Fleetwood Mac without Buckingham, the crowd that packed into Save Mart Center Thursday night didn’t seem to mind as the band ran through two-plus hours of its biggest hits, plus a few choice surprises just for the tour.

REVIEW Fleetwood Mac Live in Denver December 3, 2018

FLEETWOOD MAC KEPT IT CLASSIC AT THE PEPSI CENTER
Kori Hazel 303 Magazine
photo by Bridget Burnett

Few bands have had as storied a past and embodied as many different sounds and textures as Fleetwood Mac. Over the course of their 50-year legacy, they’ve lost members, regained them, pivoted directions — rinse and repeat. Stopping by the Pepsi Center Monday night, the conditions were almost no different than they’ve ever been, except at this juncture in their career, they stepped into the fray without core member Lindsey Buckingham. Stevie Nicks and Buckingham were the catalysts that launched Fleetwood Mac onto the charts and led the band to create some of their most cherished songs, so the absence was particularly jarring. In his place, Mike Campbell — the former guitarist of Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers — and Crowded House’s Neil Finn took the reins. In Buckingham’s void, two people were required.

Much like the music Fleetwood Mac makes, the feeling was complicated. It hovered somewhere between the deep dive into the nostalgia of their incredible discography, and the unwavering desire to relive it. Nevertheless, the night offered such nostalgia, surprises and despite the circumstances, wide-reaching delight.

REVIEW Fleetwood Mac Live in Las Vegas November 30, 2018

Fleetwood Mac delights Vegas audience at T-Mobile Arena
By Brock Radke - Las Vegas Sun

After Fleetwood Mac opened its T-Mobile Arena concert on Friday with the reliable, rollicking “The Chain” — a 1977 track from best-selling album “Rumours” that was used in the soundtrack for last year’s superhero epic “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” — singer Stevie Nicks reminded an already worked-up packed house that this was show 25 in the band’s “An Evening with Fleetwood Mac” tour. Then she suggested we all get this party started as the band rolled into 1987 hit “Little Lies.”