By Jeff Giles June 16, 2015 9:51 AM

Fleetwood Mac have had to cancel some shows due to illness lately, but they didn’t name their latest tour On With the Show for nothing: In spite of rampant speculation that they’d be no-shows for their headlining slot at the Isle of Wight festival yesterday, the band took the stage and — by all accounts — delivered a triumphant set.

NME reports on the scene, starting with the cancellation of Mac gigs in Birmingham and Manchester prior to the festival, and describing the mix of anticipation and worry that ran through the crowd up until the moment the band took the stage.

A no-show would have been a disaster for festival organizer John Giddings, who admitted to the London Evening Standard that Fleetwood Mac were the “jewel in the crown” for this year’s lineup. “Getting them was a fantastic result. I’d approached them repeatedly and they hadn’t had much interest in it,” he explained. “They said they weren’t keen on playing in the open air, but they spoke to Tom Petty and the Kings of Leon, who said they had a great time at the festival. They managed to convince them.”

As you can see from the fan-shot footage above, Fleetwood Mac had no trouble running through a 20-song set that included a healthy selection of their greatest hits — and was punctuated with small asides from the stage such as the moment when Stevie Nicks dedicated the evening’s performance of “Landslide” to Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, saying, “Falling offstage, getting up and playing a two-and-a-half-hour set. I think that’s awesome.” Continue reading Fleetwood Mac Rebound From Illness to Close Isle of Wight Festival | Utimate Classic Rock →