The new line up referred to as a "cover band"
 

The Sirius XM FM Channel has been playing some live tracks from Lindsey and Stevie's first tour with the band in 75.

I remember all my bootlegs from the first two tours with Buckingham and Nicks playing "Oh Well", "Green Manalishi", "Hypnotized", "Why", "Station Man" "Spare Me a Little", "Rattlesnake Shake", "Jumping at Shadows", "Emerald Eyes", "Sunny Side of Heaven", "Miles Away" "Tell Me All The Things You Do", and a few others.

But nobody labeled them a "cover band".

We don't even have a first show set list with Mike Campbell and Neil Finn, but they're being called a cover band from fans, many of whom only started listening in 97. Funny how things evolve over time with Fleetwood Mac fans.

That's because they're sure to be covering songs from Crowded House as well as Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. :distress:
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Do you mean, like a cover band would do?

Don't Dream It's Over...

Alas, it BE over.

Not remotely the same situation.
In the first tours with Lindsey and Stevie, the 1975 album had just barely come out. Fleetwood Mac was not really famous in the US yet and that lineup was very new. Of course they were going to have to play older songs on that early tour. But, they still played the new material that they had put out-- Rhiannon, Blue Letter, So Afraid, Landslide, World Turning, etc.
Unless you count the two songs off the EP, not since Say You Will have they toured behind new music. And they've had 3 tours since then, now going on the 4th without any new music. And if they're bringing in Mike Campbell and Neil Finn and are going to start singing some Tom Petty songs for reasons I truly don't understand, then of course people are going to be tempted to call them a cover band.
And this is coming from someone who's never really minded 'greatest hits tours' as much as a lot of other people. I understand that that's the norm for those big, classic bands when they're older.

I don't understand why they would do Tom Petty songs, or why Mike Campbell fans would want to attend a Fleetwood Mac concert just for that dubious experience. How would people feel if Mick and John started touring with the Heartbreakers playing Dreams?

100% spot on...most wouldn’t

Most people I know who are big Petty fans are also big FM fans. And the idea of any of the musicians playing together is a fantasy come true.
(I showed up at Stevie’s first two tours because it meant being able to see her sing with Benmont Tench and Roy Bittan).
They also tend to be big music people or musicians themselves.
I don’t think they feel like anything has to be categorized or rigid.
Look what’s happened to the remaining members of the Grateful Dead.
They keep on playing because they like to play. New music or not.
Gigsters keep on playing until they can’t anymore.
Bonnie Raitt has never stopped. Until now while she’s going through treatment for a health problem
I’m sure she’ll be back on the road soon.

If this band followed rules imposed on them by rigid closed-minded fans, they’d all be pretty miserable. And they would lose interest in making music on their own terms.

It’s like Joni Mitchell once said “it’s like telling Van Gogh to paint another Starry Night, man”.

No be best

Would Bob Dylan tell Van Gogh to paint another Starry Night?

Well, would Van Gogh say "Nee" to Bob Dylan?
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Would Van Gogh cut off everyone's ears so they
wouldn't have to listen to this cover band?

Would Van Gogh cut off his own other ear so that he wouldn't have to listen to anymore rubbish?

Cover band? LOL! The first song the band ever played live was an Elmore James cover. We’re going to get puritanical now?

But let’s go with that premise that playing songs like DDIO or any TPATH songs Mike had a hand in writing are covers… They were still a cover band that first show for playing “The Supernatural.” They remained a cover band whenever they played “Get Like You Used To Be,” “Don’t Let Me Down Again,” “Stand Back,” and “Go Insane.”

Not to mention that most albums prior to Rumours had actual covers. The Elmore James stuff, the early rock stuff, “Roadrunner,” “For Your Love,” “Blue Letter,” and even after Rumours, there was “Farmer’s Daughter,” “Cool Water,”’ “Can’t Help Falling In Love,” “Roll With Me Henry,” “Winds of Change,” “Nothing Without You” (a 1975 Delaney Bramlett song that Bekka changed a line on to make it gender neutral), and “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” (which also begs all the Stones covers Lindsey has done since OOTC).

Well said! If I buy tickets to a Crowded House show, I'm not interested in hearing "Second Hand News".

If he had any sense, he would.