FM Tribute Band Has Played with Mick
 

Salford Online

http://www.salfordonline.com/enterta...,_salford.html

Posted by Editor on 17th February 2014 at 02:18 PM
Preview: Rumours of Fleetwood Mac - The Lowry, Salford By Tony Flynn

The critically-acclaimed tribute act Rumours of Fleetwood Mac will be heading to Salford on Monday 10 March performing at the Lowry Theatre.

The group, who for the past 15 years have established their reputation as the number one Fleetwood Mac tribute group are beginning a UK tour paying homage to the spellbinding Rumours album, which arrived in record stores 37 years ago.

SalfordOnline.com caught up with founder member and drummer Alan Cosgrove who shed some light not only on the Rumours band but also his own musical career.

"I was in the Merseybeats for about 15 years and have supported such greats as Chuck Berry so I feel I've paid my musical dues over the years," he said.

"The current band came about when we were doing a commercial for Rolling Rock beer for America, it sounded a bit like the band, Heart, but the producer reckoned that we sounded like Fleetwood Mac.

"We sent a copy over to Mick Fleetwood in America who really liked it and gave us the thumbs up to for our band!"

"In fact when Mick comes over to England visiting he has joined us several times on stage to play drums, which is quite bizarre but very touching, sadly I have to get of my drum stool and play maracas!"

Cosgrove reckons that Fleetwood Mac have such incredible longevity because of the multitude of genres in the band's catalogue.

"With Fleetwood Mac you’ve got the blues of Peter Green, who is one of my favourite musicians of all times, the indie-pop madness of Lindsay Buckingham, the country rock of Stevie Nicks and the out-and-out pop of Christine McVie.”

"On the night you can expect to hear early Fleetwood Mac classics such as Green Manalishi, Oh Well and Albatross but about 70% of the show will be songs from the Rumours album, which was released in 1977 but still stands the test of time, an absolute classic."

Finally Alan says that he is looking forward to playing Salford, as the audience have always been great with them, jokingly adding that it's only down the road!

Rumours of Fleetwood Mac appear at The Lowry Theatre on Monday 10 March. Buy tickets online here or call The Lowry Box Office on 0843 208 6000.

I've seen "Rumours of Fleetwood Mac" before. They do quite an interesting set, with 1/3 of it being dedicated to pre-Rumours stuff. The Rumours-era sets are very Stevie heavy and not enough Lindsey, but I don't think the guy playing Lindsey has the strongest voice. They were good live, although their entrance fell a bit flat when I saw them, opening with "Gypsy" didn't really get the crowd roaring.

My main complaint is that they came out to sign stuff and chat to people after the show, and I got talking about the Hyde Park gig with their "Stevie", but "Lindsey" interrupted and said "no, we didn't go to that - Stevie Nicks is a bit weird, to be honest". My respect for them died in that moment.

Here is the setlist from their current tour:

Gypsy
You Make Loving Fun
Second Hand News
Sara
As Long As You Follow
Landslide
Say You Love Me
Rhiannon
Dreams
Songbird
The Chain
Green Manalishi
Black Magic Woman
Albatross
Jigsaw Puzzle Blues
Need Your Love So Bad
Man Of The World
Oh Well
Silver Springs
Rooms On Fire
Little Lies
Seven Wonders
Everywhere
I Don't Want To Know
Gold Dust Woman
Big Love
Go Your Own Way

Encore:

Don't Stop
Tusk

When I saw them a year or so ago, they had "Eyes of the World", "Stop Dragging My Heart Around" and "Rattlesnake Shake" in the set. Their version of "Big Love" with the band was pretty awesome.

Overall, it was a great show, but at times felt like they were just impersonating the Mac for the sake of it. "Stevie" clearly thought she could just throw on some shawls and twirl about a bit and had watched the Tango video WAAAAYYY too many times. "Christine" doesn't actually play any keys, she just stands behind a keyboard that isn't plugged in.

My thoughts on RFM, are they are excellent-
Well worth the price of admission.
Until Christine returns to the Mac, i would rather watch RFM live.
The set list is my far better than anything that FM has done in years,
A great 60's blues section is done at every concert


In My opinion the Real Mac need to learn from RFM regarding the setlists!!!!

They are also very friendly to chat to etc.

Well, it's certainly a lot cheaper than seeing the real thing and you get a heap of Christine songs thrown in, but they don't come close to seeing the Mac live, even minus Christine. I've seen RFM twice and the real Mac 3 times now.

In terms of tribute bands, Fleetwood Bac were slightly better than RFM, purely for their Lindsey material and the fact that their Stevie got La Nicks' accent spot on :D