REVIEW Fleetwood Mac Live in Columbia, SC February 22, 2019

Without Buckingham, Fleetwood Mac Offered as Many Gems as Duds
Fleetwood Mac ripped the bandaid right off.

By Jordan Lawrence
Free-times

The bass drum started that familiar thump, keying one of classic rock’s most recognizable slow builds, forming into the bittersweet anthem “The Chain.” But on this night, it wasn’t guitarist Lindsey Buckingham yowling out the opening number’s searing rejoinder — “And if you don't love me now / You will never love me again / I can still hear you saying / You would never break the chain.”

Friday in Columbia, New Zealander Neil Finn, best known for his time fronting Crowded House, took lead vocal duties. He and former Tom Petty backer Mike Campbell joined Fleetwood Mac following Buckingham’s dismissal last year. Finn never quite mustered the frenzied indignation that gives the song its spark, making for an uneven start to an equally uneven concert, one that offered stirring highs and frustrating missteps in equal measure.

Regardless of whether they feel they were justified in firing Buckingham, Mac’s remaining core of Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie broke the chain. And while their new hires brought impressive skills to the table, their insistence — displayed during “The Chain” — that they could sub Finn and Campbell in without losing anything marred some of the band’s best songs. It also made them seem like entitled jerks.

Stevie Nicks Stand Back Collections Available This Spring From Rhino

Release Date Fri, 03/29/2019

STEVIE NICKS STAND BACK 
ULTIMATE COLLECTION CELEBRATES ICON'S SECOND ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME INDUCTION

Career-Spanning Collections Outlining Nicks' Entire Solo Catalog Available On 3-CD, 1-CD, 6-LP Vinyl, And Digital Versions This Spring From Rhino

PRE - ORDER HERE: STAND BACK

LOS ANGELES - Stevie Nicks makes history in March when the beloved singer-songwriter becomes the first female artist inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice - first as a member of Fleetwood Mac in 1998, and this year for an extraordinary solo career that spans nearly 40 years.

To honor Nicks' groundbreaking achievement, Rhino has assembled a variety of new releases that celebrate her solo career with essential recordings chosen from studio albums, live performances, and soundtrack contributions, plus several of her most-celebrated collaborations with artists including Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Don Henley, Lana Del Rey, and Lady Antebellum.

STAND BACK will be available on March 29 from Rhino as an 18-track, single-CD ($14.98) collection. Accompanying versions will be released through digital download and streaming services on the same day. STAND BACK: 1981-2017, a 50-track, 3-CD version ($34.98) will then be released on April 19, followed by a 6-LP vinyl version ($109.98) on June 28.

In 1981, six years after joining Fleetwood Mac, Nicks went solo for the first time with her debut Bella Donna. A massive success, it sold more than five million copies in the U.S., topped the album charts and produced four hit singles, including her signature anthem, "Edge Of Seventeen." More platinum albums followed - The Wild Heart (1983), Rock A Little (1985), and The Other Side Of The Mirror (1989). Music from all eight of Nicks' studio albums are included in the set, from Top 10 hits like "Stand Back" and "Talk To Me" to "The Dealer" from her latest, 2014's 24 Karat Gold: Songs From The Vault.

On STAND BACK, those solo tracks are joined by Nicks' memorable collaborations with other artists, including "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, "Leather And Lace" with Don Henley, "You're Not The One" with Sheryl Crow, and "Beautiful People Beautiful Problems" with Lana Del Rey.

Beyond Nicks' work as a recording artist, STAND BACK also explores her career on stage with outstanding live recordings, including performances from her 1981 Bella Donna tour ("Dreams" and "Rhiannon"), and her 2009 live album The Soundstage Sessions ("Sara" and a cover of Dave Matthews Band's "Crash Into Me.") Rounding out the collection are several of her contributions to film soundtracks, like "Blue Lamp" from Heavy Metal and "If You Ever Did Believe" from Practical Magic.

REVIEW Fleetwood Mac Live at Amalie Arena, Tampa, FL February 18, 2019

Review: Fleetwood Mac, remade and re-energized, salutes Tom Petty at Tampa's Amalie Arena
It was a homecoming of sorts for Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell, who along with Neil Finn replaced Lindsey Buckingham in the band.

Review and Photo by Jay Cridlin
Tampa Bay Times

Most reviews of a legendary rock band that’s been around half a century don’t lead with the replacement guitarist who joined last year.

But this is Florida, and the heck if we’re not kicking it off with Mike Campbell.

"I gotta say, for myself personally, it’s so good to be back in the state of Florida where I grew up," the Fleetwood Mac guitarist -- man, that still sounds so weird -- told 17,000 fans midway through Monday's sold-out concert at Amalie Arena in Tampa. "Orlando, Jacksonville and of course Gainesville, where I started my band many years ago with my friend Tom."

And with the ovation that followed, the Heartbreaker hero removed his hat, bowed, and, in his first Florida show since Tom Petty’s death, ripped through a version of the vintage Mac cut (and Heartbreaker favorite) Oh Well that would’ve made his late bandmate proud.

REVIEW Fleetwood Mac Live in Tampa, FL February 18, 2019

In Tampa, Fleetwood Mac survives a slow start and hypnotizes a sold-out Amalie Arena
Gold dust and rust can coexist, right?

BY RAY ROA | PHOTOS KAMRAN MALIK
Creative Loafing View Photos

Forty-five minutes. That’s approximately how long many Fleetwood Mac fans waited before heading to the facilities during the band’s sold-out, Monday night show at Tampa’s Amalie Arena.

The exodus happened as Christine McVie and Crowded House’s Neil Finn (one of two newly minted Mac-ers) dusted off an old Fleetwood Mac cut from Kiln House. The band rarely played the song until last year. In fact, it’s been nearly half a century since the album it was pulled from was released.

But last night was as good a time as any to find new levels of nostalgia.

REVIEW Fleetwood Mac Live in New Orleans February 16, 2019

A reborn Fleetwood Mac showed all its strengths during sold-out New Orleans concert
BY KEITH SPERA
The Advocate | Photos: Jeff Strout

Fleetwood Mac vocalist Stevie Nicks had just concluded “Gypsy” on Saturday at the Smoothie King Center when guitarist Mike Campbell stepped to the microphone.

“She is our gypsy!” Campbell enthused.

He didn’t say, “She is Fleetwood Mac’s gypsy.” Instead, he used the first-person plural possessive, “our.”

That Campbell felt comfortable enough and empowered enough to count himself in that "our" spoke volumes about his status in Fleetwood Mac. The Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers alumnus, as well as Crowded House singer/guitarist Neil Finn, joined the band last year to replace the fired Lindsey Buckingham.

But as Campbell’s comment illustrated, and as the whole of the two-plus hour performance demonstrated, he and Finn are not simply stand-ins. They are fully ingrained members of a new incarnation of Fleetwood Mac, the latest of many roster re-configurations.

REVIEW Fleetwood Mac Live in NOLA February 16, 2019

Fleetwood Mac’s New Orleans gig proves yesterday’s not gone at all
By Doug MacCash | Nola.com
Photo Dinah L. Rogers

Fleetwood Mac summoned the magic of the 1970s at the Smoothie King Center on Saturday (Feb. 16) with a string of hits that are wound into the musical DNA of multiple generations.

I was late to Saturday’s concert, but it didn’t take long for Stevie Nicks to put the squeeze on my heart yet again with her fragile, girlish voice, as she sang “Landslide." Nicks' melancholy contemplation of the passage of time probably seemed more profound than ever to her audience, many of whom had silver hair that shone like snow-covered hills. 

Before the song, Nicks had congratulated guitarist Neil Finn (a newcomer to the band) on the imminent arrival of a grandchild. 

But, as anyone in attendance will tell you, the years have not dimmed the band’s passion or musicianship. Mick Fleetwood attacked his array of drums and cymbals as athletically as in days of old, Christine McVie’s understated vocals still poured from beneath her shaggy bangs as unwaveringly as ever and Mike Campbell (an alumnus of the late Tom Petty’s band who is replacing Lindsey Buckingham on the current tour) provided the soaring symphonic leads the band’s classics demanded.

The group closed the concert with “Go Your Own Way,” Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’” and “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow,” a trio of anthems that seemed to capture the sweep of the band’s tumultuous half-century career (the group’s personal and professional ups and downs are legendary).  

Fleetwood Mac (whose original members have all entered their eighth decades) ended their New Orleans show with a wistful duet by Nicks and McVie called “All Over Again,” that left no doubt that they wouldn't trade their long experience together. “Let's stop before it's too late,” the venerable rockers sang, “and leave it all up to the fates, ‘cause in spite of the heartaches and troubles in love, I'd do it all over, I’d do it all over again.”