The Ledge - Am I missing it somewhere???

You may have already seen this article from a staff writer at mercury news. I have also included his blog written last night.

Fleetwood Mac star personalizes solo CD
By Shay Quillen
Mercury News
Whenever he gets away from his responsibilities in Fleetwood Mac, Lindsey Buckingham has always gone his own way.

``It's not like Fleetwood Mac is about any one thing,'' he says, ``but certainly, if you cut to the chase, it's about the bottom line in a lot of people's minds. Whatever I might be interested in is not. So you have to make the choice and then fight the fight.''

For ``Under the Skin,'' his first solo album in 14 years, the Atherton native has stripped the music to its essential elements: Buckingham's intensely personal lyrics over his accomplished acoustic finger-picking, with no drums or bass.

``If I had wanted this album to reach the broadest audience it could have, I would have made a more normal album,'' he says.

Instead, it's an intimate portrait of the artist as a middle-aged man, a once-restless rock star who seems to have found both creative and personal fulfillment at age 57.

Buckingham joined Fleetwood Mac in 1974, along with fellow Menlo-Atherton High School alum Stevie Nicks, and his songs, voice, guitar prowess and production skills helped transform a fairly successful British blues-rock band into an L.A.-based pop-rock juggernaut.

The band hasn't been Buckingham's only outlet. He has released four solo albums in the years since, and left the band entirely from 1987 to 1997, but both Fleetwood Mac and Buckingham have found much more commercial success together than apart.

The new album's first song, ``Not Too Late,'' was inspired by an article in Rolling Stone that Buckingham read while on tour with Fleetwood Mac. It opens, ``Reading the paper saw a review/Said I was a visionary, but nobody knew.''

Buckingham makes clear that ``visionary'' was critic Bud Scoppa's word, not his own, but he expresses pride in having stuck to his artistic guns over the years, despite the pressures that come with being part of an enormously successful band.

``When you are in a situation where you are defining yourself in ways that others do not wish you to define yourself, you have to be your own best booster, because there's really not going to be anyone else,'' he says. ``Especially when it's pitted against some large machine like Fleetwood Mac.''

The song also introduces the album's key theme: family. It's the first album he's made since getting married and having kids -- now ages 8, 6 and 2 -- and his family's presence is felt throughout the album, both in the lyrics and in the photographs that illustrate the booklet.

``It Was You'' plainly and directly expresses gratitude to his wife and the family she gave him, in a multitude of overdubbed Buckingham vocals. The album closes with ``Flying Down Juniper,'' a song inspired by childhood memories of riding bikes down Juniper Drive in Atherton.

``It ran right into the front of our house, so any time we would leave and go out into that world, we were going down Juniper Drive,'' he says. ``It really was just a thing of thinking about childhood and those times, and how magical they seem. And family.''

Buckingham plans to tour the new album through July and then to record another solo album, which he expects to come out early in 2008. Then he'll return to his more lucrative job.

``I'm just trying to give myself the window to complete these projects properly,'' says Buckingham, who on multiple occasions has seen his own solo projects cannibalized into Fleetwood Mac albums. ``And then we'll see what Fleetwood Mac wants to do after that.''

Lindsey Buckingham @ Flint Center 1/17
Shay Quillen, 11:48 PM
Between numbers, Lindsey Buckingham is the perfect host -- calm, collected, smart, and soothing and reassuring when his guests get over-excited. But during songs, he has the tendency to get a little unhinged, whether he's channeling Neil Young in a "Cortez the Killer"-like guitar solo on "I'm So Afraid" or screaming "Bark like a dog" for no apparent reason toward the end of the effervescent "Holiday Road."

Wednesday night at the Flint Center in Cupertino, the man from nearby Atherton got a rather raucous hometown welcome during an impressive two-hour show that featured material ranging from Fleetwood Mac's first album to his most recent solo effort.

It started out acoustic, but definitely not soft. In my many months as a full-time music critic, I've heard plenty of loud guitars, but Lindsey's acoustic is the first one that had me wishing I'd brought ear plugs. Excessive volume marred his typically exquisite finger picking on three initial solo numbers. His band -- guitarist Neale Heywood, percussionist Taku Hirano and multi-instrumentalist Brett Tuggle -- joined for "Second Hand News" and a few 21st-century Buckingham selections. His acoustic guitar took center stage on his now-familiar solo version of "Big Love," which has turned a middling Fleetwood Mac single into a true show-stopper. The man's tireless, powerful right hand is a force of nature. The crowd rose to its feet for the first time of many. The acoustic reinvention of "Go Insane" that followed couldn't compete.

"World Turning" was the most experimental number of the night. It ended with a long, echoey hand drum solo by Hirano, who was joined by Tuggle playing sampled snippets of Buckingham's vocals on his keyboard. Very cool. Then Buckingham got the guitarheads fired up again with his electric work on the aforementioned "I'm So Afraid," which got the night's second standing O.
"I Know I'm Not Wrong" was again marred by excessive volume. The set closed with two Fleetwood Mac chestnuts, "Tusk" and "Go Your Own Way," which were fine but no match for the originals. Sometimes having Mick Fleetwood and Stevie Nicks around really helps.

The first encore, "Holiday Road," started out smoothly paved and ended up rough and rocky, with the band making animalistic noises that called to mind Buckingham's idol Brian Wilson at his weirdest. After a couple of mellower numbers, they closed with an extra encore, by request, of "Steal Your Heart Away," from the latest Mac album. Nice!

The crowd was wild and often eager to communicate directly with its "homeboy." To one booming "How ya doin', Lindsey?" our man responded, "I'm doing great. It's the best time of my life. I went through a lot to get here, but here I am." Local boy makes good. Nice to hear.

Here's the set list: Not Too Late / Trouble / Never Going Back Again / Second Hand News / Cast Away Dreams / Red Rover / It Was You / Big Love / Go Insane / Under the Skin / World Turning / I'm So Afraid / I Know I'm Not Wrong / Tusk / Go Your Own Way / Holiday Road / Show You How / Save Me a Place / Steal Your Heart Away