[Hey, I bet there will be fewer people at this meet and greet than at an FM one. You could have Mick all to yourself]
Mick Fleetwood embraces blues roots
The co-founder of Fleetwood Mac performs here Monday and Tuesday at the Belly Up with his three-man blues band, before reuniting with Fleetwood Mac.
By George Varga a.m.June 5, 2014 UT-San Diego
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/...oncert-review/
From the big stage to the little stage, and back again!
Mick Fleetwood played here with Fleetwood Mac last July at SDSU’s Viejas Arena. It’s the same venue the legendary band he has co-led since 1967 is scheduled to return to on Dec. 2, this time with singer-keyboardist Christine McVie back on board after a 16-year absence from the group's lineup.
But on Monday and Tuesday, Fleetwood will be drumming at the Belly Up. He last appeared there in 1987 with The Zoo, which featured Billy Burnette on guitar and vocals. Burnette and fellow guitarist-singer Rick Vito had both joined Fleetwood Mac that year, after Lindsey Buckingham left to focus on his solo career.
Vito is now in the four-man Mick Fleetwood Blues Band, along with bassist Lenny Castellanos and keyboardist Mark Johnstone. For Fleetwood, 66, playing with this seven-year-old band enables him to revisit his roots. In the mid-1960s, he drummed in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, before he and bassist John McVie left to launch Fleetwood Mac, which began as an all-blues/all-the-time group.
With his blues band, he gets to play classic blues songs, such as Elmore James' "Shake Your Moneymaker,"
and revisit such early Fleetwood Mac songs as "Rattlesnake Shake," "Albatross," "Stop Messin' Around," "Oh well" and "The Supernatural," few of which are in Fleetwood Mac's current repertoire. All of them date to the band's late 1960's incarnation, when guitarist-singer Peter Green was at the fore. By the time, Christine McVie had joined in 1970, Green had left the band, never to return (with the exception of his brief 1998 performance when Fleetwood Mac was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame).
To bring things full circle, Christine McVie’s decision to rejoin Fleetwood Mac this year came after she sat in with Fleetwood’s blues band early last year in Maui, whee he lives. It’s yet another reason this blues-loving drummer is singing such a happy tune.
An Evening With The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band, featuring Rick Vito
When: 8 p.m. Monday (sold-out) and Tuesday
Where: Belly Up, 143 S. Cedros Ave., Solana Beach
Tickets: $45 (general admission); $250 (VIP package, includes meet-and-greet with Mick Fleetwood)
Phone: (858) 481-8140