Category Archives: Tour Info

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

Fleetwood Mac, O2 Arena, Dublin, review – Telegraph

The Telegraph – Live Music Reviews

Sunday 22 September 2013

Fleetwood Mac: Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood and Lyndsey Buckingham back in the spotlight 

Amidst an absolute thunder of drums, a sleek, racing Formula One bass line and a fuzzed-up guitar attack, a high male and low female voice coalesce in a gorgeous California sunshine harmony to deliver Fleetwood Mac’s key message: “You can never break the chain.”

Apparently not. They’ve been going 45 years in one incarnation or another, yet they still seem quite unlikely, a fundamentally disparate and unstable set of elements forced through sheer popularity to share a stage together with results that may well be greater than the sum of the parts but still teeter on the brink of a kind of explosive disintegration. This long-running soap opera of conflicting personalities and opposing musical styles remains extraordinarily alive and compelling.

Even without the perfect pop songs of Christine McVie (who left the soap at the end of the last century but is rumoured to be returning for a guest appearance at their London concerts this week) and unwilling to draw on nine early albums of blues rock, Fleetwood
Mac still seem to comprise at least three groups in one. There’s the British rhythm section of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, looking all Chas & Dave in waistcoats and flat caps, driving everything along with a propulsive pub rock efficiency. Then there’s Lyndsey Buckingham’s new wave art rock energy, hopping up and down on the spot in tight pants and leather jacket as he rips out trippy, echoing guitar parts and sings snappy songs like he’s going to combust if he doesn’t get the words out. Meanwhile Stevie Nicks, the hippie wet dream now looking like a dark folk witch, still waving her scarves about and drawling poetic fantasies in a voice that no longer floats ethereally but cuts and thrusts with the Americana grit of a female Dylan. On paper, this is a combination that shouldn’t work. Yet
that sense of hanging together by a thread is part of what lends the old troupers such vitality. This may be the least comfortable excercise in nostalgia I have ever seen and all the better for it. Continue reading Fleetwood Mac, O2 Arena, Dublin, review – Telegraph

Fleetwood Mac: the Time Lords of rock – Telegraph

The Telegraph
Friday 20 September 2013

Fleetwood Mac’s reunion with Christine McVie at the beginning of their European tour is another regeneration for this musical soap opera, says Bernadette McNulty.

Fleetwood Mac perform in Philadelphia in April this year Photo: REX

For a band that have had more than their share of “not before hell freezes over” moments, the news that Christine McVie would be reuniting with Fleetwood Mac on stage in London for two nights this week has still managed to raise eyebrows. Only last year Stevie Nicks declared that there was little chance of the Brummie songwriter returning after she walked out 15 years ago.

Admittedly, as reunions go it’s fairly perfunctory. McVie won’t accompany the tour beyond London, apparently down to her fear of flying, and she will only join her former band mates on stage for one song. That the number will be Go Your Own Way, however, does sound like the band at least have a sense of humour.

This, of course, is just another plot twist in the life of a band that has regenerated itself as often as a Time Lord. While they are most often portrayed as a baby boomer soap opera in two acts – the respected but struggling British blues combo of the Sixties who merged with the American couple Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks in the early Seventies to become multi-million selling soft-rock behemoths – the mutation of the band has been constant. Fleetwood Mac were a band born out of a splintering from the Bluesbreakers, and they continued to fuse and split with a kind of nuclear energy throughout the next four decades. Continue reading Fleetwood Mac: the Time Lords of rock – Telegraph

Birmingham’s set for return of Mac

Coventry Telegraph
20 Sep 2013 09:41

Stevie Nicks is back on tour with Fleetwood Mac. Steve Adams chats to her about what fans should expect.

Ian West/PA Wire
Ian West/PA Wire

Rock legends Fleetwood Mac are back on the road for their first UK shows in four years and the buzz is that keyboardist Christine McVie – who quit the band in 1998 – will rejoin other members of the band’s classic line-up for at least a couple of performances.

The move has delighted singer Stevie Nicks as much as the fans, as she formed an instant bond with the band’s only other female member when she joined in 1975 alongside guitarist Lindsey Buckingham.

“I knew from the beginning when Lindsey and I joined Fleetwood Mac, that Christine and I had to really stand our ground,” says the enigmatic singer.

“We had to be a force of nature or we would be considered second-class rock stars. And between the two of us that was never gonna happen! Continue reading Birmingham’s set for return of Mac

Stevie Nicks talks to The Daily Mail | 17th Sept 2013

‘I will go to my grave angry at that man’: Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks opens up about the psychiatrist she blames for ruining her chances of having a family

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
PUBLISHED: 11:19, 17 September 2013

article-2423353-1BDEFF1B000005DC-925_634x953

She was as famous for her drugs battle and rock and roll lifestyle as for her distinctive voice during the height of her fame with Fleetwood Mac.

And as Stevie Nicks returns on tour with the band, she reveals that she holds a 20-year grudge against the psychiatrist she claims prevented her from marrying and having children when he treated her for over eight years in her thirties.

The 65-year-old star accused her psychiatrist of being a gossip-hungry groupie who fed her high doses of valium to keep her coming back into his surgery.

Miss Nicks became addicted to cocaine for 10 years but following her treatment at the Betty Ford clinic in America in the 1980s she then started seeing a psychiatrist.

She said: ‘When I came out of Betty Ford I was in great shape and then I went to see the psychiatrist that everybody was seeing at that point and I think he was just a groupie. Continue reading Stevie Nicks talks to The Daily Mail | 17th Sept 2013

Return of the Mac: Stevie Nicks talks Fleetwood Mac, feminism and romancing Prince ahead of O2 gigs

Tuesday 17th September 2013 in Leisure latest news
By Jim Palmer, Leisure Editor

Return of the Mac: Stevie Nicks talks Fleetwood Mac, feminism and romancing Prince ahead of O2 gigs

FLEETWOOD Mac are back touring for the first time in four years and heading for the O2 arena for three dates at the end of the month.

The classic line-up includes iconic members Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. Christine McVie is rumoured to join up with her old band.

Singer Stevie Nicks said explained now was right to bring the band back.

She said: “I thought Fleetwood Mac should stay off the grid for three years. It’s a good idea; it’s just smart to keep us out of the spotlight for three years. Everyone went along with it.

“We were gone long enough that it was us coming back.

“I told the press last year that 2013 was going to be the year of Fleetwood Mac. And I was just hoping with all my heart that this big statement was gonna come true.”

And the show is not to be missed, the singer said. Continue reading Return of the Mac: Stevie Nicks talks Fleetwood Mac, feminism and romancing Prince ahead of O2 gigs

Stevie Nicks ‘thrilled’ by Christine McVie Fleetwood Mac London return

Digital Spy
Published Tuesday, Sep 17 2013, 12:11 BST  |  By Kate Goodacre

Stevie Nicks has told Digital Spy that Fleetwood Mac are “thrilled” Christine McVie will rejoin the band for a special appearance in London.

McVie, who last performed with Fleetwood Mac in 1998, will rehearse with the band in Ireland this week. She is tipped to appear at two shows in the capital later this month.

Nicks told DS at the UK premiere of documentary Stevie Nicks: In Your Dreams that McVie had approached Fleetwood Mac about joining up with them again, explaining: “Well, she said she’d do it. She did not say she would do it on the last two tours.

“So, she offered and we were thrilled, and it’s great to have her back and to do a song. She’s been very, very missed, so even to have her back for a little while is going to be good.

“And it will be good to see her, I mean, we never see her, you know? We’re all so far away. I mean, London to California is far. So it’s really great that she’s decided to hang out with us for a little bit.”

McVie and Mick Fleetwood joined Nicks at the Curzon cinema in Mayfair on Monday night (September 16) for a screening of In Your Dreams, which was directed and produced by Nicks and Dave Stewart.

Nicks previously hinted that McVie may join up with the band for ‘Don’t Stop’. Continue reading Stevie Nicks ‘thrilled’ by Christine McVie Fleetwood Mac London return

Stevie Nicks lectured Lindsey Buckingham in candid phone call | Daily Express

Stevie Nicks lectured Lindsey Buckingham in candid phone call

Daily Express
Published: Thu, September 12, 2013

FLEETWOOD MAC star STEVIE NICKS rebuilt bridges with her former lover and bandmate LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM by spending 90 minutes lecturing him about their 35-year friendship.

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The pair lived together for five years before joining the band in 1975 but their romance ended a few years later and Nicks has been bottling up her feelings about Buckingham ever since.

The Don’t Stop hitmakers announced last year (12) they were reuniting for a tour, and Nicks poured her heart out to Buckingham in a mammoth phone call in a desperate bid to clear the air ahead of the comeback.

She tells TV show Loose Women, “We are getting along probably better than we ever have… Because about a year and a half ago I had a talk with Lindsey. I had the ‘everything I wanted to say to you for 35 years’ talk. I started in 1968 and I worked up… I started with (recalling how) he cut my fingernail off once because he decided I should practice guitar more. That was not a good move on his part. And I went from there all the way up until now.

“I said, you know, ‘Do you remember how funny and sweet we were? Do you remember how cute we were? Do you remember how when we walked in the room we were a power couple… Do you know how long it’s been since we have not been that power couple? If we are going to do this again, we’ve got to go back to the way we were.’

“He was very quiet. It was a solid hour and a half where I never stopped talking… It’s much better now since the talk. Now we walk onstage and we are holding hands.”

Christine McVie to rejoin Fleetwood Mac on stage

BBC News
13th Sept 2013

Christine McVie (centre) left the band in 1998

Singer Christine McVie is to rejoin Fleetwood Mac at two shows on their forthcoming European tour, her former bandmate Stevie Nicks has confirmed.

McVie was part of the group from the 1970s to the ’90s, writing and performing some of their biggest hits.

Nicks told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour that McVie, who left the group in 1998, would perform one song at two concerts.

The tour begins with two shows in Dublin on Friday 20 September followed by a further three in London. Continue reading Christine McVie to rejoin Fleetwood Mac on stage

Stevie Nicks: The Original Rebel ‘My whole life is a rebellious moment,’ she laughs.

IN CONVERSATION WITH THE ORIGINAL REBEL

Elle-UK October, 2013
by Chrissy Iley
Elle-UK is on newsstands now.

Fashion is having a rebel moment. But long before maverick icons Grace Jones in black rubber, Courtney Love in ripped tights and lace, and Chrissie Hynde who cut her own hair and never removed her leather jacket, there was Stevie Nicks.  ‘My whole life is a rebellious moment,’ she laughs – a long, throaty, mocking-the-world-laugh.

The look she invented for herself in the early Seventies was part Dickensian waif in raggedy chiffon and heavy boots, party romantic gypsy. At first, this came from her own wardrobe, but she later developed costumes with Californian designer Margi Kent. They made her look as if she inhabited an imaginary world of birds of paradise and fairies, but they were highly practical on stage: a leotard here, a floaty skirt and fringed scarf there.  It is a look that still works for her now – deliberately so. ‘I planned to still be doing this when I’m 60.  I wanted to make sure that what I wore then, I could wear at any age,’ she says.  I suggest she should have started her own label. ‘I thought of doing a fashion line, but there would be a lot of work involved.  I don’t have time.’ It’s a shame, as I’d certainly shop there.  My entire wardrobe is stuffed with tops named Stevie.  The black Stevie, the grey Stevie, the shimmery Stevie.

At 65, she’s still rocking the Stevie, too-today’s is wispy and black. I am in something almost identical, which she admires, examining the label so she can buy the same.  This makes me very happy.  I have always loved Stevie – her look, mystical fairy meets ethereal temptress; her voice raw, rippled with emotion.  I love her fearlessness and I love the drama of her falling in love with so many rock stars. Continue reading Stevie Nicks: The Original Rebel ‘My whole life is a rebellious moment,’ she laughs.