Live in London
 

Well, we finally got to see Mr Buckingham in London, just down the road from Buckingham Palace… And it was worth the wait.

I had a great seat in the fourth row, with a wonderful view of the great man. He was looking good, apart from his seemingly habitual runny nose (much sniffing and wiping). He’s a skinny little fellow these days, isn’t he?

I loved the setlist; I think the new songs worked particularly well. I Don’t Mind is a gorgeous thing. Great to hear Soul Drifter and Doing What I Can, but a shame that he still won’t play Countdown… I thought Trouble was a mite too slow, but that’s his prerogative!

Clearly a lot of tracks at work, as we all know. Loads of flown-in vocals of course. But he was actually in great voice despite all that.

I think my favourite part of all was the acoustic set. Wonderful to see him holding a big theatre in the palm of his hand with just a guitar and no tricks.

He seemed very happy with the reaction. People were very vocal in their love for him, and there was a small, very middle-aged mosh pit at the end, broken up by rather panicked Palladium staff!

So it was a glorious evening (despite the bloke next to me who kept checking his Facebook throughout, and actually offered me some liquorice allsorts at one point… Thankfully he left before the end, for some reason).

He said they (presumably meaning himself and the band) were working on a new album, which is great to hear. However, I’m not necessarily expecting to see him back in the UK again, considering how long it took him to make it here. But if that’s it, then, as someone once said, that's enough for me.

Well that's great news and we should expect to hear those new tunes in 2032 when Mr. Perfectionist feels they are ready for public consumption.

I see he is canceling again though. I wonder what is wrong.

Must have run out of liquorice allsorts.:laugh:

Should have had Maynards wine gums, they last longer.

If they'd been wine gums, I'd have said yes. Love a wine gum...

In light of the news of his cancellation of the remaining shows, I do wonder if he felt he had to do London...

Lindsey Buckingham at the London Palladium: SDE review

Back in London for a curtailed tour


BY PAUL SINCLAIR


It’s one of life’s mysteries why Fleetwood Mac singer and songwriter Lindsey Buckingham has only enjoyed a couple of hit singles as a solo artist in over four decades, when the band that was his day job for so long were regularly successful in that regard.

The uninitiated might conclude he keeps his catchier compositions for the band and was more experimental and less commercial on his solo albums. While it’s true Buckingham enjoyed the freedom to go off-piste a bit more outside of the constraints of Fleetwood Mac, his solo records have plenty of songs that would surely have been hits if released under the Mac moniker. His delayed date at the London Palladium offered the 73-year-old (it’s his birthday today!) a chance to remind people of this fact, with a few crowd-pleasing nods to the past.

It’s certainly been a tough three or four years for Buckingham, having been ousted, in 2018, from the band he and Stevie Nicks transformed in 1975 and soon after having a very serious health scare (open heart surgery). These two life-changing events would have taken their toll on him both physically and mentally and it seems Lindsey’s marriage was collateral damage, after his wife Kristen filed for divorce last year, but more recent reports suggest they’re working on it.

I guess there’s nothing like getting on stage and playing music to help forget your troubles and that’s exactly what Lindsey and his tight three-piece band did on Saturday evening, playing a almost two hours of songs from both his solo and Fleetwood Mac catalogue.

Buckingham looked well enough, very slim in the classic rocker’s garb of blue jeans, black jacket and boots, and with a full head of grey hair. He said very little during the performance, so anyone expecting a Springsteen-esque night of stories and songs (I’m not sure anyone was expecting that) would have be disappointed. The music did the all the talking.

I avoided looking at set lists in advance and hadn’t actually played much Lindsey solo output for a while, so the evening unfolded wonderfully, as I remembered forgotten gems and occasionally had to work hard to place certain songs on their respective albums.


The Californian singer-songwriter opened with ‘Not Too Late’ from 2006’s Under The Skin before hitting a raucous ‘In Our Own Time’ from 2011’s Seeds We Sow. ‘Soul Drifter’, from 1992’s wonderful Out Of The Cradle, followed and was the first song of the evening that embraced that truly commercial pop-rock sound that Fleetwood Mac are known for. Not long after, Buckingham would deliver ‘Big Love’ soundalike ‘Doing What I Can’ from the same album, but unfortunately he didn’t treat the audience to ‘Countdown’ the irresistible first single from the same record. Shame.

‘I Must Go’ from Lindsey’s 1984 long-player Go Insane starts off sounding like a bit of a racket but becomes fantastically involving, with that hypnotic chorus. It was an incredible live rendition and the whole thing is bonkers in the very best way possible.

Lindsey is of course a virtuoso guitar player and his finger-picking style was dominant all evening with him changing guitars virtually every song. A solo section saw the band retreat as a single spotlight fell on Buckingham and he delivered a stunning sequence of songs, starting with the languid and beautiful ’Trouble’, a rare bona fide hit (in the US) from his 1981 album Law and Order. The brilliant Fleetwood Mac track ‘Never Going Back Again’, from 1977’s Rumours followed and Lindsey teased the audience by slowing it right down in places and playing with his vocal delivery, but the guitar phrasing and the melody were largely intact for what was one of the evening’s many high points. It was no surprise to hear ’Big Love’ from 1987’s Tango in the Night and, as expected, it was in its familiar acoustic guise (he still did the heavy breathing outro!).

The band were back on for a handful of songs from Lindsey Buckingham’s most recent, self-titled solo album, the highlight being the non-more catchy ‘I Don’t Mind’ which sounds sweet and enticing, like a Tango in the Night outtake.

Four Fleetwood Mac songs ended the main set including two more from Rumours, ‘Second Hand News’ and ‘Go Your Own Way’, although for this writer the highlight was ‘Tusk’, the amazing title track from that follow-up to their 1977 Goliath. It sounded massive, thanks incredible drumming and sound-filling samples from keyboard player Michael Kiyoka.

The encore featured ‘Go Insane’ from 1984 followed by the moving ‘Love Is Here To Stay’ from the very underrated 2017 Lindsey Buckingham Christine McVie album. Buckingham and the band signed off with the delicate and lullaby-like ‘Time’, another track from the new album.

It was a special evening, although depressingly, there was a few empty seats in the Grand Circle of the Palladium. Hopefully that can just be put down to transport issues (there was a train strike in London on Saturday evening).

On a more positive note, Lindsey was in fine voice and the rumours of vocal chord damage during his life-saving surgery in early 2019 seem to have been unfounded; he sang beautifully all night. The performance was even more remarkable since it seems that Lindsey was not feeling 100 percent and the rest of this European tour was hastily cancelled yesterday (Sunday, 2 October) due to “ongoing health issues”. Bitter news for fans waiting to see him in Glasgow, Liverpool and Dublin, especially after the original Spring 2022 dates were postponed when Buckingham went down with COVID-19. We can only wish him well and hope he returns to Europe and the UK soon.

https://superdeluxeedition.com/revie...um-sde-review/

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/...adium-reviewed

Michael Hann’s review of Lindsey’s recent show at the Palladium in London reinforces what we already know: the man is still generative, creative, and exciting.

Here’s the full text:


“Incredibly his new songs were the best songs: Lindsey Buckingham, at the London Palladium, reviewed”


Lindsey Buckingham, at 72, still has cheekbones that cast shadows. He has the upright shock of hair, too, though now it makes him look less like the kohl-eyed pop god of 1980 and more like Malcolm Gladwell’s cooler, angrier brother. He still has fire, too. A couple of solo renditions of Fleetwood Mac songs won the crowd over, but it was the following run of three numbers from his newest album, played with his three-piece band, that put the spark to the show. It proved he’s not yet a heritage act.

He had no choice, really, but to forge ahead. In 2018, he was booted out of Fleetwood Mac, for various reasons, chief among them appearing to be that Stevie Nicks couldn’t stand the sight of him any longer, and it was her or him. There were also books documenting him being controlling and abusive to two former partners, Nicks and Carol Ann Harris. One American musician I interviewed idly wondered what it must be like inside Buckingham’s head. Probably, he concluded, a bit like that horror movie Event Horizon, where the malevolent spaceship drives everyone mad. All of which is to say that while he may be an elder statesman who has given pleasure to millions, Buckingham is very much not the music industry’s answer to Tom Hanks.

Buckingham is one of pop music’s geniuses, worthy of comparison with Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson
But popular culture will persist in throwing up problematic people who happen to be geniuses, and Buckingham is one of pop music’s geniuses, worthy of comparison with Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson. His run of records with Fleetwood Mac from 1975 to 1987 is a glory (well, OK, Mirage is patchy), and though Nicks and Christine McVie were also major songwriters, Buckingham was the one with the vision. He was an astounding, adventurous songwriter, a brilliant guitarist, and an extraordinary producer and arranger – the studio was his instrument. Mick Fleetwood used to refer to Buckingham as the band’s ‘musical director’, and they are a shadow without him.

Buckingham’s London show – 2,200 people at a West End theatre – might have been more intimate than Fleetwood Mac’s two nights at Wembley Stadium last time they were here, but the place was packed with zealots, eager to show their loyalty. ‘We love you, Lindsey,’ came the shouts between songs, mainly from men. They even gave him a standing ovation for ‘I’m So Afraid’, the showcase for his interminable, furious guitar solo, which at Fleetwood Mac shows was often the cause of a mass exodus to bars and toilets.

It took a while for the show to find the sweet spot, as Buckingham traversed through his back catalogue of solo material: all expertly played – special kudos to drummer Michael Urbano, who was fantastic – and pleasant to listen to, but unspectacular. It was like Buckingham himself: austere, ascetic, and just a little joyless. But then his acoustic spot – including a gorgeous ‘Never Going Back Again’ – gave way to that run of three new songs, and it was all smiles from that point onwards, especially with ‘Tusk’ and ‘Go Your Own Way’ yet to come. It’s hard to overstate how incredible it is that new songs might lift a set from someone who has been making records for 50 years. Who last went to see McCartney or the Stones hoping for more of the latest material?

Also over from America and away from the band that made his name was Craig Finn, usually of the Hold Steady but here promoting his fifth solo album, A Legacy of Rentals. The Hold Steady play high-energy rock’n’roll while Finn sings about lives gone awry. Solo, his backing band, play a kind of freewheeling Americana, with sax prominent – a bit early Springsteen, a bit Van Morrison, a bit the Band. The Hold Steady are my first love, but Finn’s lyrics – he is the best lyricist this century – are a pleasure to hear in any setting.

The Moth Club is one of the loveliest, most atmospheric small venues in London, but its PA rendered large chunks of the lyrics indecipherable, sadly. Never mind: the band was cooking, Finn looked joyful, and the crowd – containing a disproportionate number of Minnesotans who were in town to watch Minnesota Vikings play at Spurs’ stadium (Finn is from Minneapolis) – lapped it up, many having arrived from the game in a state of prior refreshment.

And as the sombre ‘God in Chicago’ rang out, those brilliant lyrics came through loud and clear: ‘Her mom found her brother./ Then she found the container wrapped up in a newspaper/ Stuffed in a duffel bag with hockey pads/ And seven grand in rubber bands.’ Somewhere between Elmore Leonard and Raymond Carver, set to weeping piano. Glorious.

It's nice to see his visionary quality being call out.