{"id":5179,"date":"2019-06-22T10:14:16","date_gmt":"2019-06-22T09:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fleetwoodmac-uk.com\/wp\/?p=5179"},"modified":"2022-10-02T12:58:24","modified_gmt":"2022-10-02T11:58:24","slug":"fleetwood-mac-review-all-the-hits-with-a-sour-aftertaste-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fleetwoodmac-uk.com\/wp\/fleetwood-mac-review-all-the-hits-with-a-sour-aftertaste-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Fleetwood Mac review \u2013 all the hits, with a sour aftertaste | The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kitty Empire<\/a>
\nThe Guardian<\/a>
\nJune 22, 2019<\/p>\n

Wembley Stadium, London
\n3\/5 Stars
\n<\/strong>
\nLindsey Buckingham\u2019s absence casts a pall over a singalong show, despite sterling work from subs Neil Finn and Mike Campbell<\/h4>\n
\"\"
\u2018Brutal calculation\u2019: Fleetwood Mac onstage at Wembley Stadium, and on screen (clockwise from bottom left): Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Stevie Nicks, Neil Finn, Mike Campbell and Christine McVie. Photograph: David Levene\/The Guardian<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There is no arguing with the numbers. Wembley Stadium is brimming with fans, even on a wet Tuesday. A dozen people fill the vast stage, reproducing some of the most opulent harmonies and venomous kiss-offs of the late 20th century. On Dreams<\/a>, a bittersweet classic written by an enduringly swirly Stevie Nicks, a chandelier descends from the rigging. Amusingly, it goes back up afterwards, reappearing and disappearing with every one of her compositions on the final night of Fleetwood Mac\u2019s European tour.<\/p>\n

Superfan Harry Styles has brought his mum, Nicks reveals, complimenting her on what a well-brought-up young man he is. Super-producer Jimmy Iovine (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Nicks\u2019s 1981 solo album Bella Donna<\/em>) has flown over from the States, she says. The Fleetwood Mac setlist \u2013 barely varying from Berlin to London \u2013 is replete with peak-period hits and refreshed by a couple of deeper cuts. One, the Peter Green-era blues Black Magic Woman, made famous by Carlos Santana, finds Nicks vamping her way through a female reading of the tune as the chandelier glitters darkly.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t help but wonder, though, what constitutes a quorum in Macworld \u2013 a notoriously fickle place, which has seen a number of key personnel go missing. The reunited classic 70s lineup of Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie (back in the fold since 2013) has been touring for a year without guitarist and songwriter Lindsey Buckingham. Fleetwood asked Buckingham to join his band in 1974. Buckingham assented, but only if he could bring Nicks. The results were immediate: two of the biggest albums in rock history, sacks of cash, dangerous liaisons, mucous membranes caked in \u201cbooger sugar\u201d<\/p>\n

The Chain is pretty much the only song this schism-prone outfit ever wrote together. As its bass riff booms out across the stadium, keeping the rain at bay, two new links join this fraught concatenation. Loudest to look at is lead guitarist Mike Campbell, a man whose big-hat-and-shades combo nods to Slash from Guns N\u2019 Roses even as his bright yellow raincoat channels Paddington Bear. He is an old friend. Campbell was the late Tom Petty\u2019s guitarist in the Heartbreakers, played on Nicks\u2019s Bella Donna<\/em>, and, incidentally, also co-wrote Don Henley\u2019s fantastic non-Eagles 80s hit, The Boys of Summer. (Henley and Nicks had a Rumours<\/em>-era relationship.)<\/p>\n

Campbell\u2019s role is to play \u201cmaverick lead guitarist\u201d in someone else\u2019s band, unspooling solos and abetting a cover of Petty\u2019s Free Fallin\u2019, sung by Nicks, in the encore. The brightly attired American also provides something for the eye to follow in what is largely a static band. The exception is Fleetwood, the 6ft 5in court jester of British blues-rock, whose open-mouthed \u201cdrum-face\u201d is plastered all over the giant screens as he solos at length in the middle of World Turning, the kind of carry-on punk was invented to destroy. For the latter half of the solo, Fleetwood straps on an African talking drum and faces off against percussionist Taku Hirano, prompting a mass exodus to the bar, and air punching in roughly equal measure.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Photograph: David Levene\/The Guardian<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Then there\u2019s Neil Finn of Crowded House, tasked with rhythm guitar and vocals. He sings lead on his own composition, Don\u2019t Dream It\u2019s Over (\u201cthis is a song of unity, without a trace of irony\u201d), which gets one of the biggest singalongs of the night, and all of Buckingham\u2019s songs, starting with Second Hand News. \u201cI know there\u2019s nothing to say,\u201d the song goes, resignedly, \u201cSomeone has taken my place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, just when it seemed the sordid telenovela of Fleetwood Mac could provide no further twists, the band kicked Buckingham out, reportedly at the behest of Nicks. Flashpoints reportedly included Buckingham\u2019s desire to tour his own solo album around the Fleetwood Mac world tour dates, and that he \u201csmirked\u201d behind Nicks as she gave an acceptance speech at a gala performance.<\/p>\n

Nicks announced, via the band\u2019s manager, Irving Azoff, that she never wanted to share a stage with Buckingham again, and issued Fleetwood Mac with an ultimatum: him or her. Buckingham sued the band and the spat was settled out of court in December for an undisclosed sum.<\/p>\n

Who knows what else lies beneath this drama, but the band\u2019s latterday tensions predate 2018. In 2013, the long-absent Christine McVie began performing with the band again, prompting an EP of new songs. Tonight, she shakes a tasselled maraca, or sits regally behind her massive keyboard, no shirker in the hits department. Her song Everywhere provided this 70s band with one of its most enduring 80s moments, and it remains one of the standing-up moments of tonight\u2019s often sit-down set.<\/p>\n

But even with McVie back in the fold, no new Fleetwood Mac album appeared in 2014, or 2015, or 2016. Instead there was a 2017 Buckingham\/McVie offshoot record on which all band members appeared except Nicks: something in the reunion had soured even then. Events took a yet more dramatic turn in February, when Buckingham had open-heart surgery. He\u2019s back on his feet, but question marks hang over his voice, potentially damaged by a tube inserted into his throat.<\/p>\n

Even by the standards of a band notorious for infighting, Buckingham\u2019s excommunication feels cold. The crowd, though, are perfectly happy to sing along with Finn, the affable New Zealander, rather than fold their arms in protest at the nixing of the prickly Californian author of Go Your Own Way, perhaps Fleetwood Mac\u2019s greatest hit. Coming at the end of the set, it\u2019s one of the songs everyone came to slosh beer to. Yet even though it\u2019s delivered note-perfect, with two incandescent performances on guitar from Campbell and Finn, you can\u2019t help but conclude that Fleetwood Mac<\/a> have made a brutal if essential calculation in going their own way. The squad could tour the world without Buckingham, but not without Nicks, the face of the band, the one with the most successful solo career, and their most valuable player. This is a band who, after all, never stop thinking about tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kitty Empire The Guardian June 22, 2019 Wembley Stadium, London 3\/5 Stars Lindsey Buckingham\u2019s absence casts a pall over a singalong show, despite sterling work from subs Neil Finn and Mike Campbell There is no arguing with the numbers. Wembley Stadium is brimming with fans, even on a wet Tuesday. A dozen people fill the … Continue reading Fleetwood Mac review \u2013 all the hits, with a sour aftertaste | The Guardian<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[125,14,18,19],"tags":[79,126],"class_list":["post-5179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fleetwood-mac-2018-19","category-reviews","category-tour-info","category-uk-articles","tag-fleetwood-mac","tag-fleetwood-mac-2018-19-line-up"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p31Ax0-1lx","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4894,"url":"https:\/\/fleetwoodmac-uk.com\/wp\/fleetwood-mac-without-lindsey-buckingham-announce-european-tour-including-wembley-stadium-in-the-uk\/","url_meta":{"origin":5179,"position":0},"title":"Fleetwood Mac (without Lindsey Buckingham) announce European Tour including Wembley Stadium in the UK","author":"fmfanuk","date":"October 26, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"FLEETWOOD MAC ANNOUNCE EUROPEAN TOUR TICKETS ON SALE 26 OCTOBER 2018 AT 9AM (LONDON, U.K. Monday 22 October 2018) \u2013 Legendary, GRAMMY-award winning band Fleetwood Mac announced today a European tour, set to kick off in June with three exclusive performances currently announced in London, Dublin and Berlin. 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