people handing out Lindsey show flyers in front of venue

[David]

Originally Posted by SteveMacD

I’d be willing to believe that, if not for this…

Rolling Stone, August, 2017

There are a million examples in print and on radio where this or that member said, "Maybe we'll try a couple of old songs from the catalog on this next tour," and . . . nothing like that happened. Why should one statement quoted by Rolling Stone at this time convince you that the band suddenly decided to "roam vast" over its 50 years? Don't you remember Christine telling Jim Ladd, before the 1982 tour, that she was thinking about pulling some of her Mystery to Me and Heroes songs out of the cupboard? She said something like, "Now that I have trained myself to sing well, I want to play some of my old material because those old vocal tracks never pleased me."

Are you unfamiliar with Stevie's oft-quoted comments that "We can't throw in too many new songs because audiences will get bored" and "Look what happened to us in Kansas City in 1977"? Whether a song is a new song or an old song that may as well be new to the concert audience is moot: Stevie's true feelings are apparent. A concert set should consist of the familiar.

The idea that only some members of the band were sitting around for decades, slow-burning with the desire to play 1967 to 1974 songs but continually sabotaged by some other members . . . this is bunk. And the idea that one of those members who slow-burned with the desire to play old songs was Stevie Nicks . . . this is a layer of crud on the bunk.

It was probably Mick and John who were cool with the idea every tour. They're easy. They recorded all fifty years. They aren't songwriters. When you're a songwriter and your song is a radio hit, it's natural you want to perform it live. As Fleetwood Mac cemented its iconic whatness with multimillion-selling albums, the concert set ossified. Who is surprised?

(By the way, I'm not suggesting that, during the set planning for 1979, Lindsey didn't urge everyone to play a lot of Tusk. Of course he did. But that's not the same as saying that he wouldn't "allow" this or that from 1970.)