Sound City Players I Classic Rock Magazine I Apr 2013

Review from Classic Rock Magazine, Apr 2013

Utah Park City Live, Park City
Grohl’s supergroup rocks Sundance.

StevieNicks+DaveGroul_Sundance2013

Groul anchors the supergroup with a childlike enthusiasm

In a packed-to-the-rafters venue on Park City’s snowy Main Street. Dave Grohl is kicking off the 2013 Sundance Film Festival in ambitious. history-making style. Here to promote his directorial debut Sound City – a documentary chronicling the hallowed LA studio where Nirvana recorded Nevermind – Grohl has assembled a roll call of its famous tenants to play their greatest hits and songs from the film’s accompanying album, Real To Reel.

It may be cold outside (freezing in fact). but inside the temperatures fuelled by the unique chemistry of the shape-shifting supergroup – anchored throughout by ringmaster Grohl (switching between guitar and drums) and his infectious childlike enthusiasm. During the course of the three-hour-plus show, we’re treated to lively vocals from Alain Johannes. Rick Springfield. Corey Taylor and Stevie Nicks, supported by the likes of Trent Reznor, Taylor Hawkins and Krist Novoselic. It’s a who’s who of rock’s finest. and it’s exhilarating to see them on stage together.

There’s barely room to breathe between baton passes. and the constantly rotating line-up keeps the excitable audience on its toes. Both Springfield’s Jessie’s Girl and John Fogerty’s Creedence hit Proud Mary are greeted with roof-raising mass singalongs. However. it’s the ethereal Nicks who alters the night’s real highlight. teaming up with Grohl for an emotional, acoustic version at Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide – a goosebump-inducing close to what been a superbly surreal evening.

Richard Jordan

Reel to Reel – Sound City is available now on CD

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Tall Stories I Classic Rock Magazine I Apr 2013

By Max Bell
Classic Rock
April 2013

On the eve of Fleetwood Mac’s UK tour to celebrate the 35th anniversary of their astonishing 40-million-selling album Rumours, we catch up with drummer Mick Fleetwood to find out how the band survived drink, drugs and affairs to record it. “We were all fucked up,” he says.

First impressions of Mick Fleetwood are usually something like (to paraphrase the Harry Nilsson song): “Jesus Christ, you’re tall.” Fleetwood doesn’t so much inhabit his swanky Berkeley Hotel suite as loom across the available space. From head toe, he’s immaculately groomed: the silver hair, the Maui suntan, the crisp striped shirt and hand-stitched brown brogues are evidence of his post-psychedelic dandyism. His socks are box fresh and match his scarf. His trademark headwear — today it’s a burnt orange cap — lies on the table underneath a CD copy of his band Fleetwood Mac’s reissued Rumours — the elephant in the room. His ponytail, a reminder of longer-haired days, is constantly teased, as are the opulent Native American bangles on his wrists. He offers water. “Usually I’d have got through half a bottle of good wine by now, but since we’re about to go on tour I’m trying to stay fit.”

Mick Fleetwood has been an American citizen since 2006. He’s lived in California and Hawaii for 40 years, and understandably speaks with a transatlantic accent. Pleasingly, there’s a detectable trace of West Country burr. He was born in Cornwall in 1947 and educated at a public school in Gloucestershire, at one of those institutions where six-of-the-best corporal punishment was the norm — the bat and the cane. No wonder he became a drummer — taken out on those tom-toms.

Suggestions of a whistle-stop tour his life are met with: “Go ahead. I’ll talk about anything. As long as I can get through the jet-lag.”

Does he still see the old gang?

“Peter Green? Once in a while I’ll ring him. I may do once you’ve left. He doesn’t know it and won’t be expecting it.” Continue reading Tall Stories I Classic Rock Magazine I Apr 2013