[michelej1]

Originally Posted by MikeInNV

I just cannot reconcile this "afraid for Stevie" stuff. By the time Tango was released, Stevie was in great shape. The promotional interviews they did (while Lindsey was still in the band) and the Shake Cage Tour both show Stevie in fine form. The coke was gone, and it took a while for the Klonopin to become a problem. It just doesn't add up to me.

I don't think Stevie was in "great" shape, but I don't think that rationale necessarily adds up, either. Both Stevie and Mick romanticized the reason Lindsey left the group themselves. Stevie is the one we first heard say that Lindsey left because he was afraid for her around the time of Unleashed. Lindsey had never said that before. But when confronted with her saying that, he didn't disagree. But it's not a reason he gave for leaving himself. He may or may not have been afraid for her, but he didn't talk about it. She's the one who first did.

And similarly in 2003 (and again in 2012) Mick said that Lindsey left because:

"I pushed Lindsey away, because he was never really much part of all that stuff," says Fleetwood. Did he frighten him? "In a way, yes, I probably did. We all have people we know like, 'Oh, I can only take him in small doses, he's off again . . .' The lifestyle and the trimmings became unattractive to Lindsey. He thought I was going to force him to sit in a corner and drink a bottle of wine with me. I was a crazy guy for a long time. Lindsey's very private, and he will never be otherwise."

But Lindsey didn't say that. Not to the press. In fact, Mick is the one who talked about Lindsey turning to them during an Unleashed interview and saying something like, "I couldn't watch you doing that to yourselves any more" and they all started crying and Mick declared it was Lindsey saying, "I love you. So, we got that melodramatic version of the story from Mick around 2012 or 2013. But we didn't see the interview where Lindsey actually turned to Stevie and Mick and said that.

What Lindsey said about leaving was that it was a survival move. He couldn't get any closure. He wanted to pursue his solo work, etc. But he didn't close the door on continuing to record with them.

Mick and Lindsey both said that Lindsey might not have left the band at all, if he could just keep recording, but they wanted to go on tour and Lindsey didn't want to go. So, they pushed the issue of a tour, something he couldn't agree to and then he left.

MICK:

It really got to a situation where it was like 'hey, we haven't done anything for four years, what are we really doing...are you in this band or not?' And that's what it really came to with Lindsey Buckingham. It came to forcing the issue to a point where he had to say 'I can't do it, I don't want to do it.' Cause if we left it and said, 'well, alright we won't go on the road' he might not have actually left and then we would have found ourselves sitting around for another four years not doing anything and it's not fair."