It will probably surprise a lot of people on here when I say this, but Lindsey's FM songs largely leave me flat. It's his work on Christine & Stevie's tunes that garners my love & respect for him. On Tusk especially he elevated songs like
Brown Eyes and
Beautiful Child beyond the mantle of simple pop/rock. Oddly enough the only Lindsey FM songs I truly love are the
Tango In The Night title track &
You And I, Part I... which didn't even make the Tango album
. Now his solo work on the other hand fascinates me. Which is so totally opposite of the case for me when it comes to Stevie- I love her FM contributions, but her solo works are mostly garbage to me.
So will I miss Lindsey in FM? Of course. His stage energy & purity of artistic motives are what will be missed the most. Not to mention Lindsey's phenomenal guitar playing. Not just the energy of his playing, but his style of playing... that whole mystical Spanish-style thing he morphed into from 1997 onwards.
Go Insane from the Dance is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. He ended up sprinkling little bits of that style into most of FM's live performances over the past 20 years, and I thought it was truly magical.
As far as what this new iteration of FM does or doesn't do... at this point I don't really care. I think they became fully dead to me when I heard they added
Second Hand News to their setlist. Not only had they fired the architect of the sound that brought them fame... but they straight up mocked him by playing that song. Shameful. But as Mick would say, onwards & upwards. At least I have the huge back catalogue of FM & solo works to drown myself in. Lately I've been exploring Peter Green & Bob Welch's solo albums... it's been a nice diversion from the toxic caricature FM has become.