View Single Post
  #1  
Old 05-01-2017, 01:31 PM
ricohv ricohv is offline
Addicted Ledgie
 
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 973
Default 11/90 NY Times BTM Tour review (Madison Square Garden)

Review/Pop; Fleetwood Mac, on the Verge of a Change, Revisits Several Musical Eras
By JON PARELES
Published: November 4, 1990
"Yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone!" Fleetwood Mac proclaimed in its hit "Don't Stop," but the band ignores its own words. Its concert on Thursday evening at Madison Square Garden showed a band tangled in several time warps. (After performing "Don't Stop," the singer Christine McVie wished the audience "a great Christmas.")
From the 1960's, when Fleetwood Mac got started, there were blues-rock guitar jams. Most of the wardrobe recalled the band's heyday in the 1970's, when Fleetwood Mac turned to California pop-rock; the singer Stevie Nicks wore velvet, lace and high-heeled platform shoes, while the drummer Mick Fleetwood had a vest, knickers and wooden spheres dangling from his waist, like his get-up on the cover of the best-selling 1977 album "Rumours." For 1980's touches, there were an occasional dance-rock beat and synthesizer line, a headset microphone worn by Mr. Fleetwood, and backup musicians on the sidelines.
Moving into the 1990's, Fleetwood Mac is trying to survive the departures of the singers and songwriters who led it to pop glory: Lindsey Buckingham, who quit in 1988, and Ms. McVie and Ms. Nicks, who have said the current tour is their last (although they may continue to record with the band).
The current group is musically divided. Rick Vito and Billy Burnette, the two new guitarists, lean toward blues-rock, although they reprise Mr. Buckingham's parts in pop material. The band came full circle when its original rhythm section, Mr. Fleetwood and John McVie on bass, backed Mr. Vito in "I Loved Another Woman" from Fleetwood Mac's first album -- an American guitarist imitating an English guitarist imitating American blues.
Ms. McVie, as always, sang about longing, with lyrics that may seem tepid ("When I'm with you, it's all right") but that are transformed by the combination of her worldly voice and bouncy tunes. And Ms. Nicks, who now looks more like a matron than like the fairy princess she made herself in the 1970's, sang in tremulous, husky tones about lovers' pain and anger; between her songs, she would leave the stage to change into another shawl or cape. She treated Fleetwood Mac largely as backup band, saving most of her dancing for "Stand Back," a song from her second solo album. When the band played its finale, she strolled the edge of the stage, collecting bouquets.
The most spirited music came through in the blues-rock jams, especially the hoary "Oh Well," from 1969. Other songs were by turns vigorous and ragged, sometimes endearingly so. But the audience was eager to suspend any disbelief for hits from "Fleetwood Mac" (1975) and "Rumours," good or indifferent. And when Ms. Nicks sang the ballad "Landslide," there was a burst of applause for the line "I'm getting older, too."
Reply With Quote
.