Fleetwood Mac in the UK over the last six weeks: A few thoughts…….

Fleetwood Mac completes the European leg of the On With The Show tour tonight in Dublin, Ireland at the 3 Arena.

Thinking back over the last six weeks we have seen many highs, with their first UK festival appearance since the early 70s at the Isle of Wight festival, six nights at the O2 in London and lots of positive reviews in the press.

However we have also seen some lows, the cancellation and non re-schedule of the Manchester show was poor form from the logistics team, we understand that illness can cause last minute cancellations, but this date should really have been rescheduled as the cancelled Birmingham date was, so not to disappoint thousands of loyal fans who had paid an enormous amount of hard earned money on travel arrangements and hotel stays, the reimbursement of the ticket cost is only one element of the overall cost.

But my gripe with this leg of the tour is not with the band or the tour, but with the UK TV and radio media, there has been next to nothing mentioned on the main channels in the UK on the momentous re-joining of Christine McVie and her first live appearances in the UK since 1990, or the first time that the Rumours-five had played in the UK since 1979 and the TUSK tour.

I would have thought that the BBC would have lapped this up with a new TV special that chronicled this ‘never thought would happen’ event. The tour stops were sell-outs, the band was playing their hearts out, celebrities from music, TV, and film were attending the shows, the MAC was well reviewed in the national press, but for radio and television next to nothing. We did get a bare minimum appearance on Sky Arts of four live songs and a small interview with Stevie and Mick from the Isle of Wight Festival, but that was it!

Also, the mainstream music press in the UK seemed to ignore this tour, only one mainstream publication covered the Mac, this was MOJO, nothing in print editions of Classic Rock, Uncut or NME, the coverage in Q Magazine was a review of the Los Angeles show, they couldn’t even bother to review a UK gig and Uncut contributed only an online review.

This appears to be very strange and is at odds with the newspapers that lapped up the shows and carried lots of positive reviews and photos of the band performing. I for one cannot understand this or find a reason why…..

Anyone reading this care to comment on why Fleetwood Mac was largely ignored on this tour by the main radio and TV outlets and main music press, please leave your comments below, in addition also please post your thoughts of the last six weeks…

Not sure when the band will be back in the UK, so let us relive the wonderful six weeks…

Fleetwood Mac UK 2015 Tour

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