[elle]

Originally Posted by louielouie2000

When I say Stevie has finally garnered respect from the band, I don’t mean respect as a singer, songwriter, performer, or even as a person. I mean that they must suddenly respect her power. For decades Stevie was critically dismissed by both the music industry as well as her very own bandmates. No more. Fleetwood Mac was once run by Mick... then for many years it became a sort of democracy. Now, it’s a dictatorship ruled entirely by Stevie. Quite a coup for Stevie, as she rode in on Lindsey’s coattails... and has now fired him, and has the rest of the band at her complete mercy.

Regarding the band having to grovel to Lindsey to get him to return, maybe if this was 25 years ago. The interviews he’s done this past year have only impressed upon me how willing he would be to return to the band, and how much the band’s legacy means to him, and how he feels it’s important to wrap up the name Fleetwood Mac with a more dignified ending. He seems quite wistful, despite the childishly degrading way he was shown the door. And it’s not like the band has a long future before it, anyway. I think Lindsey knows it has one, maybe two additional tours left in it... and that he could put aside his creative disagreements long enough to close out the band in a respectful way.

now this post i almost completely agree with!

except that last part - 2-3 tours?? that is 10 years!! he's 69. realistically he's got probably good 10 active years left, IF we are lucky. so why would he spend those 10 years doing nostalgia greatest hits tours? he's already done 2009, 2013, and 2014-15. how would 2 more such tours add anything to band's legacy? there's no reason whatsoever for him to return to what they became, however wistful he might be. he was treading water with them, still trying to do something - anything! - different from the nostalgia band circuit, and not succeeding, and they completely went off the deep end instead. so now they have 4th nostalgia tour in a row, and at least he's not wasting his time with it.

Originally Posted by David

There's a weird syndrome at work in many of us in similar circumstances. I've known several people who were mistreated at work, left, and returned some time later when asked. You all undoubtedly know—are are—these people. In 1997, when Lindsey signed back in, it was different because Lindsey, Stevie, and Christine were all coming back after an absence, and the first time heralding the Holy Fivesome had a chilling effect on the spine because it was the first time. (Rolling Stone didn't just decide to give FM a 1997 cover story because those second-generation writers, swimming in hip-hop, post-grunge, and alternative, suddenly decided that Rhiannon and Say You Love Me were relevant. It was because that reunion and its subsequent commercial success were intended to be what they used to call a Happening in the sixties.)

But that wondrous sense of possibilities and healing and all that sh!t isn't really operative anymore, is it? Who wants to or needs to experience a Spiritual Reconvening of five rock stars a second time? Doesn't it begin to feel like a corny script at this point? Fleetwood Mac as the American Rock Dunciad?

In Lindsey's psyche, the band's legacy is going to have to remain unfulfilled. Lindsey should see his shrink—not rejoin Fleetwood Mac—to help him with closure.

thank you!