Monthly Archives: September 2013

Fleetwood Mac, Original Content, Reviews, Tour Info

Fleetwood Mac: Live at the O2 London, 27th Sept 2013

A personal account of the Fleetwood Mac show at the O2 in London on Friday 27th Sept 2013 as well as the meet n’ greet with Mick Fleetwood before the show commences…

Mick Fleetwood – Meet & Greet

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The meet n’ greet was scheduled at 17.00, waited for the outside the hall for the longest time whilst the band completed their sound check (supposedly there were having technical issues), so after about hour we get led into the hall and take our seats at the foot of the stage, Mick comes out and welcome us, apologies for the lateness and invites us all up on the stage for a chat and photos, for some reason I was first in the queue (of about 40 people), so I took the stage, stood in the corner by his drum kit, right next to the set list!, which of course hadn’t changed . One thing I noticed straight away was how beautiful Mick’s drum kit is, all brass and well polished, a thing of beauty. Mick then starts talking, a little rambling, mainly talking about his ‘new’ love of coffee as he asks his assistant for a refill, he talked about preferring coffee now instead of alcohol and that for many years his body rebelled against coffee, but now his body lives for coffee, also told us a nice story about when he was trying to court Jenny Boyd back in the mid-sixties that he used to wait for her to finish school whilst he sat in a coffee shop! The photos then start so I am first, walk over to the drum kit with Mick, I thank him for taking the time to do this and he thanks me for coming, two shots and then the next person, so I exit the stage and take my seat. Mick’s assistance is now collecting items for Mick to sign, I hand over two CD booklets, others have their VIP laminate and someone had the Tusk LP. Once Mick has finished the photos, he then comes down to the floor at the foot of the stage to start signing and taking questions. Again I am first with a question…….

Me: “As Chris appeared at the last show, did you record the show and will you release the show on DVD and audio, as we will buy it!”
Mick: No, he rambled about HD and that the audio was recorded and something will end up on YouTube, but no official recording will be made available”

Other questions were taken, one question/comment stayed with me and that was please tell Lindsey that he needs to tour the UK, Mick replied that it was intended, but the backing guitarist was very poorly and they couldn’t reschedule, and that was that.  We were given back our signed items and led out the main concourse ready for the show.

To sum up this section of the night, Mick came across as very likeable, genuine and interested that we had a good time, I felt is was defiantly worth the money as a potential one time only event, now to roll on the show…….

Photos from Show

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Continue reading Fleetwood Mac: Live at the O2 London, 27th Sept 2013 →

Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac, Tour Info, UK Articles

Rumour: Christine McVie to play with Fleetwood Mac in Birmingham | Birmingham Mail

By Andy Richards
29 Sep 2013 12:07

Rumours abound that star will reunite with Fleetwood Mac at home city Birmingham LG Arena gig

Will she, won’t she? It is the big question on the lips of thousands of rock fans.

Will Christine McVie guest with former Fleetwood Mac bandmates when the group plays a sell-out gig tonight at the LG Arena (Sunday 29)?

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Birmingham is, after all, the city where she grew up and cut her musical teeth.

Singer Stevie Nicks once famously said there was “no more chance of an asteroid hitting the earth” than Christine being reunited with the band.

But out of the blue, McVie – a cornerstone of Fleetwood Mac for nearly 30 years – guested with the band at a London 02 Arena gig last week.

It was the first time in 14 years that they had been on stage together for a show.

And today speculation was mounting that she may make an appearance tonight, too. Continue reading Rumour: Christine McVie to play with Fleetwood Mac in Birmingham | Birmingham Mail →

Fleetwood Mac, Reviews, Tour Info, UK Articles

Fleetwood Mac, London O2 Arena, September 27, 2013 | Uncut.co.uk

Fleetwood Mac, London O2 Arena, September 27, 2013
Michael Bonner
Uncut.co.uk
28th Sept 2013

“Life is good,” reflects Mick Fleetwood. We are over two hours into Fleetwood Mac’s third and final show at the O2, and it has fallen to Fleetwood to introduce his fellow bandmates on stage.

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While Fleetwood was talking for the most part about the enduring friendships that exist between the various members of Fleetwood Mac, he could just as easily be surveying the last, remarkable 12 months in the band’s career. This sprawling world tour has been a tremendous success – “We’re doing the best business we’ve done in 20 years,” Lindsey Buckingham recently told Rolling Stone. The 35th anniversary of Rumours earlier this year provided a useful reminder of the band’s most successful and notorious period, while the Extended Play EP showcased a clutch of new songs that seem redolent of the Rumours-era sound. Elsewhere, there are the broader cultural threads that have pillowed Fleetwood Mac’s 2013 – the revival of the soft rock aesthetic, and the kind of West Coast vibes evoked on Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories and Haim’s Days Are Gone. Continue reading Fleetwood Mac, London O2 Arena, September 27, 2013 | Uncut.co.uk →

Fleetwood Mac, Reviews, UK Articles

Love is in the air for return of the Fleetwood Mac: Daily Mail Gig Review

Love is in the air for return of the Fleetwood Mac: Adrian Thrills gives his review as band tour Britain

By ADRIAN THRILLS
27 September 2013

Rock’s greatest soap opera rolled into London this week as Fleetwood Mac began their UK tour with a marathon concert dominated by the hits of the Seventies. Emotional punch was added by the presence of two ex-members who were major players in the Anglo-American group’s chequered history.

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For a rollicking encore of Don’t Stop, the band were joined at the O2 Arena by keyboardist Christine McVie — onstage with them for the first time in 15 years.

Earlier, singer Stevie Nicks dedicated a poignant Landslide to original Sixties guitarist Peter Green, who was watching from the wings.

As a generation-spanning audience demonstrated, our love for Fleetwood Mac shows little sign of abating, partly because their biggest hits are still so intertwined with their love lives. Continue reading Love is in the air for return of the Fleetwood Mac: Daily Mail Gig Review →

Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac, Tour Info

Fleetwood Mac & Christine McVie: Don’t Stop (London 25th Sept 2013)

There is nothing to say, but sit back and enjoy………

(oh, maybe turn the volume up!)

 

Fleetwood Mac, Reviews, Tour Info, UK Articles

Fleetwood Mac, O2 Arena – music review | Evening Standard

London Evening Standard
David Smyth
Wed 25th Sept 2013

The four ongoing members of Fleetwood Mac performed for the first time since 2009, with an epic set list drawn from the late Seventies. While Stevie Nicks still possessed a voice that bewitched, Lindsey Buckingham was a fiery leader, thumping his chest to celebrate every new solo accomplished

(Picture: Rex/Brian Rasic)
(Picture: Rex/Brian Rasic)

Though a rumoured reunion with the long-absent Christine McVie did not materialise last night, the four ongoing members of one of rock’s most turbulent bands looked like firm friends as Fleetwood Mac played in London for the first time since 2009.

It was all gushing introductions, a long hug for Lindsey Buckingham from Stevie Nicks, much hand-kissing and warm saluting. Given that most of their finest songs come from a period when their various couples were splintering painfully, time really is the great healer.

Most of an epic set list was drawn from that peerless period of the late Seventies when the Americans Nicks and Buckingham arrived to turn the bluesy Brits into superstars — The Chain, Tusk and Go Your Own Way all had energy to burn.

Nicks still possessed a voice that bewitched, especially on the acoustic Landslide. While even the engine room of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie had the occasional break, Buckingham was a fiery leader, thumping his chest to celebrate every new solo accomplished.

“There are quite a few chapters left in the book of Fleetwood Mac,” he claimed, airing one likeable new song and a long lost rarity. It’s been a fascinating read so far.

Also tonight and Friday, O2 Arena, SE10 (0844 824 4824,the02.co.uk)

Fleetwood Mac, Reviews, Tour Info, UK Articles

Fleetwood Mac The O2 Arena, London | The Times

Will Hodgkinson
September 25 2013
Four Stars out of Five

 

Thirty-six years after Rumours became the soundtrack to the age of divorce, four of the five people that made it are reliving their personal dramas once more. With their soft rock masterpiece from 1977, Fleetwood Mac articulated the new rules of relationships, capturing the reality of affairs, tensions, betrayals and break-ups and selling over 40 million
copies in the process.

Simone Joyner/Getty Images
Simone Joyner/Getty Images

They also documented their own reality. Singer Stevie Nicks was splitting up from guitarist Lindsay Buckingham, songwriter Christine and bassist John McVie were getting divorced, drummer Mick Fleetwood was stuck in the middle, and they dealt with it all in the best way Seventies rock stars in Los Angeles could: by taking huge amounts of cocaine. Now all but Christine McVie have come back for more. Without the cocaine.

Buckingham said that Rumours “brought out the voyeur in everyone”. It also spoke to millions: the emotional truth of the music jumped out of the grooves. Judging by the hordes filling a packed O2 arena, it still does. Floaty scarves hung from Nicks’ microphone, but beyond that the stage was bare: fitting for a concert dedicated to an album defined by its simplicity. Continue reading Fleetwood Mac The O2 Arena, London | The Times →

Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks, UK Articles

Eye Of The Hurricane | Classic Rock Magazine, Oct 2013

4 Comments

Words: Paul Elliott
Portrait: Neal Preston

Heroic drug abuse, physical violence, epic strops… Forget Rumours, Fleetwood Mac’s craziest album was Tango In The Night.

Fleetwood Mac

In December 2012, three members of Fleetwood Mac cried together. in public, at the memory of something that had happened all of 25 years previously. Singer Stevie Nicks, guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and drummer Mick Fleetwood were doing a round of media interviews to announce the band’s 2013 tour when they were asked about the events of 1987, when Buckingham quit the band following the release of the album Tango In The Night. Buckingham did not respond directly to the interviewer. Instead he turned to Nicks and Fleetwood and reiterated his reasons for leaving the group at a critical stage of their career: foremost among them, his sense that Nicks and Fleetwood had lost their minds and souls to drugs.

“What Lindsey said in that interview was very moving, ” Fleetwood says. “He told us: ‘I just couldn’t stand to see you doing what you were doing to yourselves. Did you ever realise that? You were so out of control that it made me incredibly sad, and I couldn’t take it any more.’ It was really powerful stuff. This was someone saying: ‘I love you.’ It hit Stevie and me like a ton of bricks. And we all cried, right there in the interview.” Continue reading Eye Of The Hurricane | Classic Rock Magazine, Oct 2013 →

Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks, Tour Info, UK Articles

Spotlight: Stevie’s prediction for Fleetwood future | Manchester Evening News

The singer is relieved her tip about the band’s big return has come true, writes Sarah Walters

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‘I TOLD the press last year that 2013 was going to be the year of Fleetwood Mac,” comes the nervous confession of Stevie Nicks, the band’s vocalist and songwriter. “I was just hoping with all my heart that this big statement was gonna come true!”

Certainly, the UK hasn’t made a liar out of Nicks who, at the age of 65, is about to embark on a headline trip around the country’s biggest arenas. Nor, in fact, has the rest of the world: the band’s biggest selling album, 1977’s Rumours, found itself nearing the top of several worldwide charts again this year – adding hundreds of thousands more sales to the 40m copies shifted since its release.

Nicks is still a blonde stunner, and it’s hard to believe she’s preparing to celebrate her 40th year with the group in 2014; in that same year, Fleetwood Mac – completed by Mick Fleetwood (drums), John McVie (bass) and Lindsey Buckingham (vocals, guitar) since the departure of Christine “Perfect” McVie in 1998 – will reach the grand age of 47. Continue reading Spotlight: Stevie’s prediction for Fleetwood future | Manchester Evening News →

Fleetwood Mac, Reviews, Tour Info, UK Articles

First night: Fleetwood Mac, The 02, Dublin | The Independent

THE INDEPENDENT
SUNDAY 22 SEPTEMBER 2013

UnknownThree songs into the first European date Fleetwood Mac have played since 2009 comes the first of several magical moments as mad-eyed drummer and ringmaster Mick Fleetwood suddenly hits his monogrammed kit harder to underpin the “loneliness of a heartbeat drives you mad” lyric of the US chart-topper ”Dreams” Stevie Nicks is delivering in her trademark low yearning voice. This perfect marriage of musicians from two different countries united by a common language and purpose is part of what makes the Mac such a compelling concert attraction and must-see act into their fifth decade.

However, the main ingredient remains the soap opera of their intertwined relationships, acknowledged from the off with ”Second Hand News” from 1977’s epochal Rumours, and given a sense of closure with the apposite ”Say Goodbye” at the end. Not many set lists have a narrative arc or the feel of a group therapy session but no band, not even ABBA, have lived their personal lives in public and used this emotional roller-coaster as inspiration like the Mac. Guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, wearing a Ramones-like tight jeans and leather jacket combo, admits as much, talking about “the power of change” before an impassionate solo version of ”Big Love”. He has just been hugged by Nicks after a sublime double whammy of ”Sisters Of The Moon” and ”Sara”, two of four selections from Tusk, the somewhat self-indulgent double set the Mac issued in 1979, since reclaimed by left-field acts like Camper Van Beethoven. Continue reading First night: Fleetwood Mac, The 02, Dublin | The Independent →