Sunday, June 30, 2024

Stevie Nicks Takes In Taylor Swift Dublin Show

Stevie Nicks was in the VIP tent at Taylor Swifts Eras Tour night 3 in Dublin June 30, 2024.  During the show she performed "Clara Bow" for the first time, a song off her most recent album The Tortured Poets Department. In the song, she references Stevie Nicks.  In the videos below watch Taylor introduce the song mentioning Stevie and Stevie in the VIP tent capturing the moment on her phone!  Julia Roberts was also there, she's the blonde to Stevie's right with the glasses.  

"You look like Stevie Nicks
In '75, the hair and lips
Crowd goes wild at her fingertips
Half moonshine, a full eclipse"



 


“The reason I want to play this tonight is because a friend of mine is here who’s watching the show and who has been one of the reasons why I, or any female artist, get to do what we get to do. She’s become friends with so many female artists just to be a guiding hand. I can’t tell you how rare that is. She’s a hero of mine and also someone that I can tell any secret and she’d never tell anybody. She’s really helped me through so much over the years. I’m talking about Stevie Nicks!”




Mick Fleetwood Confirms New Solo Album In The Works

"LOSING SWEET CHRISTINE WAS CATASTROPHIC" 
Are Fleetwood Mac really finished?

Bob Mehr asked Mick Fleetwood 
Mojo Magazine  - August 2024



FOR MICK FLEETWOOD - the one constant figure and unwavering force during the entire 57-year journey of Fleetwood Mac- the last few years have been, by his own admission, a personal and professional challenge.

When the most recent incarnation of Fleetwood Mac-Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine McVie, and Stevie Nicks, aided by Neil Finn and Mike Campbell-played the last show of a year-long world tour in November 2019, the drummer didn't think it would be a final farewell.

"There was a full intention, without waiting too long, that we'd go and pick things back up." says Fleetwood. "That we'd play stadiums, big shows, and festivals... and then at that point it was heading towards us saying goodbye." 

However, in early 2020- just after Fleetwood led an all-star concert tribute to late Mac founder Peter Green at the London Palladium - lockdown scuttled further touring plans. An even bigger blow to the future of Fleetwood Mac came in November of 2022, with the death of Christine McVie.

Though Fleetwood is open to the idea of adding a final chapter to the band's story, he is mostly resigned to the fact that Fleetwood Mac, or as he puts it "the mothership", may be harboured permanently.

"It's been a strange time for me," admits Fleetwood. "Losing sweet Christine was catastrophic. And then, in my world, sort of losing the band too. And I [split] with my partner as well. I just found myself "licking my wounds."

Then, last summer, Fleetwood's adopted home of Maui, Hawaii-specifically the city of Lahaina - was ravaged by a series of wildfires that killed over 100 people, and destroyed some 80 per cent of its homes and businesses, including his long-running restaurant, Fleetwood's, on Front Street.

“It was a hardcore hit for everyone on this lovely little island," says Fleetwood. "I mean, we're just Lucky to be here, but there was a lot of terrible loss, lots of people without homes, people who were badly affected.”

Nearly a year after the fires, Fleetwood says the residents of Lahaina “are making progress. And people are coming back to the island, which gives us a lot of hope of coming through this. It just takes time. Even I’m starting to think about bringing back my crazy little restaurant. It was a place where people around here would gather and commune.”

More recently, Fleetwood saw solace and found, renewed inspiration and playing music again. “I had to just get off my bottom, “he says. “I was sitting around twiddling my fingers for a long time. I finally plugged into the fact that I’m a drummer, I need to go play.” Fleetwood confirms he’s in the middle of making a new solo record, his first in 20 years. “And believe it or not, I’m actually starting to sing so God help you,” he adds, laughing.

In between work on the project, Fleetwood will spend part of the summer in the UK, where he's planning on attending Nick‘s Hyde Park concert in July, as well as shows by recent bandmate Neil Finns group Crowded House, and his old pal, ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons.

"I'm gonna get myself a vicarious fix," says Fleetwood. "For once, I get to be a punter in the audience and see them do all the work."

Saturday, June 22, 2024

Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks delivered 37 songs in brilliant succession June 21, 2024

Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks conquer Soldier Field in crowd-pleasing twin bill

The rock legends delivered their greatest hits and more in a four-hour summer night celebration.

By  Selena Fragassi
Photos: Ashlee Rezin



Four hours was barely enough time for the Two Icons, One Night tour at on Friday night at Soldier Field. Commencing at 7:15 p.m. and wrapping at 11:25 p.m., the catalog-busting doubleheader from Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks delivered 37 songs in brilliant succession, but still left fans wanting more.

It’s greedy to even say. The two legends are an incredible 75 and 76 years old, respectively, and the fact they are still performing at this level is a gift. Nicks just returned to the stage after an illness that sidelined her gigs in Michigan and Pennsylvania over the past week and kept apologizing for being hoarse and “not her best” (she could’ve fooled us). Joel kept using throat spray and had his own disclaimers for not being able to hit the high notes in “An Innocent Man” (no one seemed to mind).

Such limitations aside, both performers gave it their all amid a winding summer stadium trek that also marked their first time sharing a stage in our city. The pinnacle came as they joined together to duet on “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” Nicks’s 1981 collaboration with the late Tom Petty.



Even while being able to hear “Gold Dust Woman” on the same night as “We Didn’t Start The Fire” was itself a total rock and roll fantasy, it still was a mere tease of the voluminous songbooks from two music icons who have been performing a collective 118 years.

“If it seems like I’m rushed tonight, I am,” Nicks shared as she opened the festivities, donning her iconic black velvet, witchy ensemble in the near 90-degree heat, and explaining she had to curtail her typically juicy storytelling between songs. She still managed a few gems, like recalling working with Petty, and the tale of hearing Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” on the radio years ago and desiring to cover it. Nicks did so on this night, using the track’s political overtones to pivot to an endorsement to vote, lamenting she didn’t do so until she was 70 years old.

The 14-song set was almost identical to her headlining date at United Center last June, with the addition of “Leather and Lace” as her gifted vocal coach Steve Real filled in for Don Henley’s parts. But something felt heavier on this night, in the wake of her recent interview with Mojo in which she declared there’s “no chance of putting Fleetwood Mac back together in any way.”

There was a new immediacy to hearing “Rhiannon” and “Dreams” and of course “Landslide.” The latter was flanked by a slideshow of throwback images of Nicks and the late Christine McVie. As their baby faces took over the screens, the lyrical line “even children get older” took on more meaning and became a cornerstone of the entire night. It was hard not to reflect on time passed, how much has changed, and yet how much this music and coming-of-age songs still have a hold on us.

As Billy Joel reigned in the second half of the night, that sentiment carried over. It hit a fever pitch on “Piano Man,” as Joel let the audience take over the last verse. It soon morphed into a spirited acapella singalong, thousands of camera lights held high in the air, as the capacity crowd begged him to “sing us a song tonight.”

Nostalgia waved over the performer during moments like these in the 23-song set delivered from a bare-bones stage. After serenading the crowd with a snippet of “My Kind of Town,” he thanked everyone for “making me a lucky man … I had no idea I’d still be doing this at 75.”

He also recalled a time when he could do flips off the piano, admitting, “I’m a little too long in the tooth now.” And he tore through some of his most gilded works, sticking heavily to cuts from 1977’s “The Stranger,” 1978’s “52nd Street” and 1980’s “Glass Houses.”

Other standouts included the opener “My Life,” in which Joel showed his never-wavering dexterity on the keys, as well as a barbershop rendition of “The Longest Time” featuring four of his multi-talented bandmates, and a rousing edition of “We Didn’t Start The Fire” with Joel on guitar.

Unexpected moments included a cover of The Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up,” foreshadowing that band’s impending takeover of Soldier Field, and several of Joel’s eight-piece backing ensemble getting moments to shine. Among them was Gary, Indiana, native Crystal Taliefero aceing Ike and Tina Turner’s “River Deep Mountain High,” and Mike DelGuidice offering an unreal operatic turn with Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma.”

Friday night was an incredibly special moment to see Joel live — even if the venue was a big change from his home-away-from-home at Wrigley Field. The gig falls smack dab in his long-running residency at Madison Square Garden and just ahead of his 150th and final show at the legendary New York venue on July 25.

Stevie Nicks Live in Chicago June 21, 2024 with Billy Joel

Review: Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks at Soldier Field was a night reliving the years with a couple of music icons

By BOB GENDRON
Photos: John J. Kim



It’s good to be Billy Joel. The veteran singer-songwriter admitted as much Friday at a packed Soldier Field, where he and Stevie Nicks concluded the 2024 stretch of their ongoing Two Icons One Night trek. And really, how could he not?

Primarily seated at a grand piano that rotated on a turntable, and surrounded by a versatile eight-piece band, an affable Joel entertained a football stadium’s worth of people while barely breaking a sweat amid a punishing heat wave. Holding court with recognizable oldies, laissez-faire attitude, goofball humor and his trademark flyswatter, he inhabited the titular role of his signature tune, “Piano Man.”

Sure, the stage was far grander, and the tip jar transformed into merch stands hawking $100 sweatshirts. Yet the gist of Joel’s 135-minute concert connected to the feeling of performances given in bars everywhere by pianists who always take the same requests and still manage to smile: comfort, reminiscence and sing-a-long melodies that slosh around in your head.

At Joel’s outdoor establishment, nostalgia, familiarity and professionalism ruled. The most recent song he sang dated back to President Clinton’s first term. The slickest visuals amounted to the backdrop screens depicting an iPad revealing finger-swiped images of historical figures cited in the listicle anthem “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” Joel’s retro-minded approach proved wise. A production with the extravagance embraced by modern pop stars would’ve looked silly.

Besides, who needs choreography teams or pyrotechnics when faithful readings of doo-wop classics get the crowd on its feet? Or when a short snippet of “Hey Joe” — the bluesy revenge tune popularized by Jimi Hendrix — generated pleas for Joel to continue to the next stanza? With cameras panning the audience for reactions and consistently displaying that most fans knew every word to every chorus of Joel’s songs, following the work-smarter-not-harder observations outlined in “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)” seemed a foregone conclusion.

No artist has more successfully traded on their back catalog than Joel. Though his contemporaries keep cranking out LPs, he figured out long ago that traditional release-and-promotion cycles could be bypassed without consequence at the box office. Joel recently said, for him, writing amounts to self-torture and fostered unhealthy addictions. With apparent seriousness, he also suggested that hardly anyone makes albums nowadays, which might surprise those who pay attention to the contemporary music scene.

No matter. Save for three originals, including one (“Turn the Lights Back On”) issued earlier this year, Joel effectively shut off the creative spigot decades ago. Rather than toil in a studio, he spent a majority of the past 30 years filling seats on his own terms. The singer ranks in the top 15 highest-grossing touring artists of all time. Banners touting his streaks of sold-out shows hang from the rafters of multiple East Coast arenas. Next month, Joel will end his unprecedented run of 150 sold-out hometown shows at Madison Square Garden, culminating a residency of the singer playing the venue on a monthly basis for 10 years.

Nice work, if you can get it. Joel mentioned he’s been lucky to do the same job since he was 15. Now 75, his head bald and neatly trimmed facial hair snowy white, the New York City native showed a levity that tended to escape him in the past. Joel derided one of his albums (“Streetlife Serenade”), placed his rock-star moves beneath those of Mick Jagger (a slowed and abbreviated version of the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up”), paused and stared at his watch to elicit a pun (“The Longest Time”) and jested about the lack of special effects.

He also half-jokingly offered a disclaimer regarding his uncertainty about reaching upper-register notes. It contained plenty of truth. Joel’s midrange and low-end scope remain solid. His falsetto, too, admirably blended with group vocals. But attempts at hitting or holding lofty highs failed. A rough ride through “An Innocent Man” found him not only ceding choral elements to others, but stumbling amid verses.

Fortunately, the vocal snafus were limited. Joel activated black-tie crooner mode for an apropos stab at “My Kind of Town,” stood on an imaginary streetcorner for the cascading doo-wop of “Uptown Girl” and unveiled tonal elasticity for the moonlit ballad “New York State of Mind.” Eyebrows arched and eyes wide, he often looked as if he was ready to bite into a tall triple-decker club sandwich when he went all-in on mid-tempo material. Ironically, the most soulful Joel got occurred when multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Crystal Taliefero led a cover of “River Deep — Mountain High” in the middle of “The River of Dreams.”

Brassy horns provided additional assists and paired well with Joel’s stable piano lines. Steadiness, sentimental journeys to fictitious neighborhood joints and check-ins with common characters steered Joel’s direction. Aside from a cover of Puccini’s operatic aria “Nessun dorma” sung by band member Mike DelGuidice, there were no surprises or diversions, and scant edginess to interfere with the breezy moods. Even songs about lust (the drab “Sleeping with the Television On,” the prophetic “Sometimes a Fantasy,” the clever “Only the Good Die Young”) blushed with a high degree of innocence.

“I am not an innocent man,” Joel declared toward the end of the show. Fair enough. His music and persona, however, thrive on that illusion.

Joel boasts more hits than Nicks, yet the Fleetwood Mac legend possessed more depth, charisma and grit. Almost a year to the day since her memorable 2023 show at United Center, the 76-year-old faced several challenges she avoided then. The opening slot forced her to trim her set and curtail her amusing song introductions, though she injected some storytelling by talking at a rapid clip. The biggest issue concerned Nicks’ voice.





She twice apologized for hoarseness and leaned on backing vocalists for extra support. Despite the shortcomings, which extended to overly sharp nasal deliveries, Nicks demonstrated why she continues to enjoy a late-career surge in appreciation and influence. Feisty and forward, the twice-inducted Rock and Roll Hall of Famer kept it real by presenting her raspy, warts-and-all singing without artificial enhancements. Her body language did the rest.

Twirling, curtseying, bowing, air drumming, tracing human silhouettes, leaning into a ribbon-festooned microphone stand as the wind blew her various shawls, capes and wraps: Nicks embodied a magnetic combination of physical energy and mystic mystery. After a threatening version of the serpentining classic “Gold Dust Woman,” she confessed her animated movements represented the struggle to live out the song.

For “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” Nicks invited Joel to step into the role originally occupied by Tom Petty. The duet lacked requisite heat. Joel’s tendency to stare at what appeared to be a TelePrompter scrolling the lyrics snuffed out any potential chemistry. Nicks’ collaboration with her vocal coach, Steve Real, on “Leather and Lace” fared better.

In terms of rock stars overstepping their bounds, one could fault Nicks for imploring people to vote before soon divulging she neglected to cast a ballot for most of her life. Yet given the way she attacked the cautionary “Stand Back” and raised her arm in triumph at its close, you might want to think twice before going after an icon who is having another moment.

Bob Gendron is a freelance critic.

Setlist from Soldier Field June 21:

Stevie Nicks
  • “Outside the Rain”
  • “Dreams” (Fleetwood Mac cover)
  • “If Anyone Falls”
  • “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around”
  • “Gypsy” (Fleetwood Mac cover)
  • “For What It’s Worth” (Buffalo Springfield cover)
  • “Stand Back”
  • “Bella Donna”
  • “Gold Dust Woman” (Fleetwood Mac cover)
  • “Leather and Lace”
  • “Edge of Seventeen”
Encore
  • “Rhiannon” (Fleetwood Mac cover)
  • “Landslide” (Fleetwood Mac cover)








Friday, June 21, 2024

Fleetwood Mac Albums Chart Update Worldwide

 Fleetwood Mac this week on the Album Charts world wide... 


UK Top 100 Albums Chart
11 (10) 50 Years: Don’t Stop
24 (32) Rumours

UK Official Vinyl Albums Chart
8 (14) Rumours

SCOTLAND Official Albums Chart
16 (26) Rumours
67 (Re-entry) Fleetwood Mac

IRELAND Official Albums Chart
10 (9) 50 Years: Don’t Stop
25 (26) Rumours

USA BILLBOARD TOP 200 Albums
39 (36) Rumours
174 (181) Greatest Hits

USA Top Album Sales
18 (19) Rumours

USA Best Selling Vinyl Albums
14 (10) Rumours

CANADA Top 100 Albums Chart
37 (33) Rumours

AUSTRALIA Top 50 Albums Chart
30 (31) Rumours

AUSTRIA Top 75 Albums Chart
60 (75) Rumours

BELGIUM Top 200 Albums Chart
173 (133) Greatest Hits
138 (141) Rumours

DUTCH ALBUMS Top 100 Albums Chart
21 (18) Rumours

DUTCH Top 33 Vinyl Albums Chart
16 (16) Rumours

GREECE Top 75 Albums Chart
29 (33) Rumours
67 (Re-Entry) Greatest Hits

SWEDEN Top 60 Albums Chart
46 (50) Rumours

Thursday, June 20, 2024

The Ultimate Music Guide to Fleetwood Mac Available June 21 2024

 


Uncut Ultimate Music Guide: Definitive Edition - Fleetwood Mac 

The 172-page Definitive Edition Ultimate Music Guide to Fleetwood Mac.

Available 21st June 2024.


There is also a limited edition hardback version of the 172-page Definitive Edition 
Ultimate Music Guide to Fleetwood Mac. Only 250 copies available!




Decades before Beyoncé, Fleetwood Mac were taking relationship lemons, and serving them up to the world as lemonade. Whether it was maintaining continuity against unlikely odds after the departure of their original guiding light Peter Green or turning their personal intrigues into melodic gold with Rumours, the band’s coping strategy became a key marketing point – as the band crested each vicissitude with an outpouring of new songs. 

Still, even a band that doesn’t shy away from motivational affirmations (see: “Don’t Stop!” “On With The Show”) might have to acknowledge that the passing of Christine McVie in 2022 likely spells an end to any subsequent reformations of Fleetwood Mac, a band that created spellbinding music for its reliably enormous audiences for over 50 years. Even Mr Resilient himself, Mick Fleetwood, admits these days it would be “a tall order” to do anything as Fleetwood Mac. “…But stranger things have happened.” 

It’s the band’s incredible legacy that we celebrate in this 172-page definitive edition of our Ultimate Music Guide to Fleetwood Mac. From our curated selection of classic interviews, you can enjoy a vivid inside track on the band’s saga, its key players, and the drama that unfolded around them. As we dive deep into the music, our team of expert writers reveals the evolving Mac sound: from the melancholy blues tones of their earliest triumphs through to the sophisticated pop rock that brought them their greatest successes. In our foldout timeline, we take a – literally – sideways journey through the band’s career.

Fleetwood Mac always fought hard to field a winning team, but there was life for its members outside it and we have taken the opportunity in this edition to dig deeper into the solo careers of its members in reviews and interviews. In 2020, Christine McVie looks back humbly on her achievements and decides she’ll soon be shutting up shop, songs-wise. We review the erratic solo work of Peter Green while Rob Hughes tracks down the close associates who would meet him once a month to jam in his front room. We have tea on Lindsey Buckingham’s patio. 

Excitingly, we also discover a long-lost conversation with Stevie Nicks. She and her dog Shulamith are being driven to a Fleetwood Mac rehearsal, while we sit rather in awe of her candour and insight. It’s a bittersweet conversation to look back on from the viewpoint of 2024. On the one hand, Stevie is out there now playing a well-received solo tour, where she hits her Mac songbook hard. On the other, her tender recollections of Christine McVie’s return to Fleetwood Mac in 2013 only remind us more acutely of her absence now. 

“The second people saw she was coming back, the tickets just sold,” Stevie tells us. “I tell her, Chris, it’s all about you – everyone wants to see you. And we’re thrilled. It’s kinda fun to see it through her eyes…”