Mick Fleetwood touring with his blues band

[pattyfan]

I wasn't sure where to post this since Mick doesn't have his own space here, but I just got an email from the Uptown Theater in Napa (SF Bay Area). I"m not sure what that means in terms of a new album or tour, but I thought people would want to know.

Kevin

[SeanJT]

THE MICK FLEETWOOD BLUES BAND TOUR DATES:

Sept 16 – Aspen, CO – Belly Up Aspen
Sept 17 – Denver, CO – Ogden Theatre
Sept 18 – Telluride, CO – Telluride Blues & Brews Festival
Sept 20 – Los Angeles, CA – John Anson Ford Amphitheatre
Sept 21 – Solana Beach, CA – Belly Up Tavern
Sept 23 – Grass Valley, CA – Veterans Memorial Auditorium
Sept 24 – Monterey, CA – Golden State Theatre
Sept 25 – Napa, CA – Uptown Theatre
Sept 26 – San Francisco, CA – The Regency Ballroom
Sept 28 – Spokane, WA – Fox Theater
Sept 29 – Aberdeen, WA – D & R Theater
Sept 30 – Coquitlam, BC – Hard Rock Casino Vancouver
Oct 2 – Victoria, BC – University of Victoria/Farquhar Auditorium

[~*BellaDonna*~]

Originally Posted by SeanJT

THE MICK FLEETWOOD BLUES BAND TOUR DATES:

Sept 16 – Aspen, CO – Belly Up Aspen
Sept 17 – Denver, CO – Ogden Theatre
Sept 18 – Telluride, CO – Telluride Blues & Brews Festival
Sept 20 – Los Angeles, CA – John Anson Ford Amphitheatre
Sept 21 – Solana Beach, CA – Belly Up Tavern
Sept 23 – Grass Valley, CA – Veterans Memorial Auditorium
Sept 24 – Monterey, CA – Golden State Theatre
Sept 25 – Napa, CA – Uptown Theatre
Sept 26 – San Francisco, CA – The Regency Ballroom
Sept 28 – Spokane, WA – Fox Theater
Sept 29 – Aberdeen, WA – D & R Theater
Sept 30 – Coquitlam, BC – Hard Rock Casino Vancouver
Oct 2 – Victoria, BC – University of Victoria/Farquhar Auditorium

Too bad he won't be coming to my neck of the woods.

[elle]

Originally Posted by ~*BellaDonna*~

Too bad he won't be coming to my neck of the woods.

yeah i was thinking the same. to get some info about the album etc at one of his m&gs!

[welcomechris]

Almost had a heart attack when i saw this was #1 trending on Facebook, I misread at first seeing fleetwood mac

[vivfox]

[QUOTE=SeanJT;1187403]THE MICK FLEETWOOD BLUES BAND TOUR DATES:

Originally Posted by ~*BellaDonna*~

Too bad he won't be coming to my neck of the woods.

I wouldn't go see him even if he were playing near me.

Originally Posted by welcomechris

Almost had a heart attack when i saw this was #1 trending on Facebook, I misread at first seeing fleetwood mac

I had the exact same reaction!

[michelej1]

http://www.inlander.com/Bloglander/a...ing-to-spokane

Blues news you can use: Mick Fleetwood Blues Band coming to Spokane
Posted By Dan Nailen on Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 1:05 PM, Bloglander


Before Fleetwood Mac became a hit machine after Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham joined the band, the group was better known for its late-60s era of blues music.

Between the arena-sized tours that brought Fleetwood Mac to Spokane two years ago, drummer and band founder Mick Fleetwood is getting back to his roots with the Mick Fleetwood Blues Band, which is stopping in Spokane on Wednesday, Sept. 28, for a show at the Martin Woldson Theater at The Fox.

Tickets range from $43 to $78, and are available via presale right now by going to the TicketsWest site for the show and entering "BLUES" in the promo code box. Otherwise, tickets go on sale to the public Friday at 10 am at all the usual TicketsWest outlets. There are also VIP tickets available that include some hang time with Fleetwood and primo seats in the first few rows.

Fronting the band is lead guitarist and singer Rick Vito, who stepped into the Fleetwood Mac lineup from 1987 to 1991 after Buckingham had left. He's also toured and played with the likes of Bob Seger, Bonnie Raitt, John Fogerty and Albert Collins, among others.

The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band was nominated for a Grammy back in 2010 for their live Blue Again release, and their live shows are a mix of original tunes, covers of blues classics and reworked versions of songs from all eras of Fleetwood Mac.

[pattyfan]

What do y'all think the chances are of Christine, Lindsey, or Stevie showing up at the SF show?

Kevin

[jbrownsjr]

Originally Posted by pattyfan

What do y'all think the chances are of Christine, Lindsey, or Stevie showing up at the SF show?

Kevin

Christine 5%

the rest 0%

[HomerMcvie]

Originally Posted by jbrownsjr

Christine 5%

the rest 0%

Yep!!!

I wish he'd get off the West coast a little! Come to Nashville, Mick!

[michelej1]

Los Angeles Daily News, By Steve Smith POSTED: 08/12/16,

http://www.dailynews.com/arts-and-en...tt-looks-ahead

Fleetwood Mac is on hiatus this year, except for one private party it played last month for the owners of the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium, and the band has been cooling its heels. So, drummer Mick Fleetwood has decided to hit the road with his Mick Fleetwood Blues Band.

The band includes singer-guitarist Rick Vito, who was a member of Fleetwood Mac from 1987-1991, years after singer Stevie Nicks and singer-guitarist Lindsay Buckingham quit the group (and before they returned to the fold in 1997 (save for a one-off reunion at Bill Clinton’s first Inaugural Ball, where they played his campaign theme, their “Don’t Stop”).

Fleetwood’s 13-show tour runs Sept. 13 in Aspen, Colorado, through an Oct. 2 gig in Victoria, British Columbia. The SoCal shows are Sept. 20 at the 1,200-seat John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, cross the freeway from the Hollywood Bowl, and Sept. 21 at the 600-capacity Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach, just north of the Del Mar Racetrack and Fairgrounds.

[BLY]

The band includes singer-guitarist Rick Vito, who was a member of Fleetwood Mac from 1987-1991, years after singer Stevie Nicks and singer-guitarist Lindsay Buckingham quit the group (and before they returned to the fold in 1997


...ahhhh wrong Stevie didn't leave in 1987 and it's Lindsey not Lindsay.

[Nick]

Originally Posted by BLY

The band includes singer-guitarist Rick Vito, who was a member of Fleetwood Mac from 1987-1991, years after singer Stevie Nicks and singer-guitarist Lindsay Buckingham quit the group (and before they returned to the fold in 1997


...ahhhh wrong Stevie didn't leave in 1987 and it's Lindsey not Lindsay.

He must be thinking of Lindsay Wagner. lol

[michelej1]

Napa Valley Register 9/1/2016

http://napavalleyregister.com/entert...e3adca62a.html

The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band booked for the Uptown

Mick Fleetwood, the co-founder of Fleetwood Mac, brings his new band, The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band, to the Uptown Theatre in Napa on Sunday, Sept. 25.

In addition to playing its own music, the band pays tribute to the original Fleetwood Mac, the all-male blues band started in 1967. It harkens back to the Mac’s early days, when the group drew heavily on American blues music and produced hits such as “Rattlesnake Shake,” “Albatross,” “Oh Well” and “Black Magic Woman” (which was later covered by Santana).

The band is led by Mick Fleetwood, providing power-house percussion and persona. At the front of the group is Rick Vito, veteran Bluesman and former Fleetwood Mac vocalist and lead guitarist. Vito adds his personal touch while staying true to the styling of early Fleetwood Mac front man Peter Green.

“A lot of guys can play the licks but Rick has the tone and that’s so important in real blues,” Mick Fleetwood said.

With Fleetwood anchoring the band on percussion, the “other half” of the rhythm section is Lenny Castellanos on bass. Fleetwood said, “I’ve played with John McVie for 40 years, (so) any bassist who plays with me has big shoes to fill.”

The group’s new album, “Blue Again,” was recorded live at the Sheldon Concert Hall in St. Louis, Missouri in February of 2008.

“Over my career I’ve been called a pop star and a rock star, yet in my inner heart, I will always be part bluesman,” Fleetwood said. “On my journey from blues to a life of rock ‘n’ roll, I’ve always remembered where I started.”

The show begins at 8 p.m. Opening the night at Uptown Theatre is local bluesman Jeffrey Halford.

Tickets for the Uptown show are $65, $75 and $105 and can be purchased at www.uptowntheatrenapa.com or by calling the theater box office at 1350 Third St., Napa. For more information, call 707-259-0123.

[michelej1]

Huffington Post 09/16/2016 10:00 am ET | Updated 22 hours ago

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/..._entertainment

Chats With LOCASH, Mick Fleetwood, And Carl Palmer, Plus Rodney Parker & 50 Peso Reward, Firebug, Francis Cheer, And Huntertones Exclusives

A Conversation with Mick Fleetwood by Mike Ragogna

Mike Ragogna: I want to talk about the Mick Fleetwood Blues Band featuring Rick Vito, who was briefly part of Fleetwood Mac. Because of the amazing, off-the-charts success you had with Fleetwood Mac, a lot of people don’t associate you so much with the blues. When you do these tours as the Mick Fleetwood blues band I imagine it’s going full circle and you’re getting to the heart of what you really love about music.

Mick Fleetwood: No doubt. For me it’s sort of a seamless transition. I’ve never really not done this from time to time. I’m a blues player and Fleetwood Mac was a blues band and we went onto our merry way musically and developed into the band that people know and love, but there are hundreds of thousands that remember what we did, especially in Europe. This is always a pleasure, to go back and regroup. We do certainly focus on the old Fleetwood Mac but it’s also reconnecting more importantly for me. We’re a British band, it’s not that complicated, but you’ve got you’ve got to do it properly or else you fall very far away from the mark. There’s nothing worse than a bad blues band.

MR: [laughs] You’re going all the way back to “Black Magic Woman,” which I believe you were the first to record.

MF: Oh yeah, Peter penned that song with a band in 1968.

MR: When you play these songs are you still discovering things in them?

MF: Interesting question, especially to me. I’m not a super-slick player, but that turns out to be a benefit. I play most of these songs differently every night, which I always say is because I don’t know what I’m doing. Having said that, we do know what we’re doing, but every time it happens for me—there’s an old phrase: The band is as good as the drummer. I’m not back there ****ing it all up, but I am back there somewhat amazingly because of the nature of the way I do and don’t learn and retain information, which is nothing new. I’ve always been like that from childhood. I’m sort of on the edge of imploding, which is sort of a nice thing. If you get a player who is super slick there’s a danger that—yeah it’s all super great, but I know which choice I would make. It has to be a balance, I understand that, where you actually empathize with someone who’s on the edge of really pushing to express themselves. In this formula I’m really able to do that because there is more freedom to stretch and grab moments and change them if you like. When you don’t know what you’re doing, getting yourself out of trouble is what makes people take note. They ask, “What was that?” and you say, “We caught each other and turned it into something else.” That’s the magic that this platform affords. I think that’s the magic that you go after, and I really enjoy that and it really suits me because I’m able to express myself in the moment proportionally more than I am in the band as it is, and rightly so. It’s not hugely different, but it is different. Selfishly, I’m a blues drummer, so I’m out there and I need to do what I’m doing. It’s not more fun, it’s just more freedom.

MR: Within the format I understand how Fleetwood Mac recordings need to be more structured, and playing in the blues again allows you to improvise more and bring in other elements.

MF: Totally well put, in a much more succinct way than I did. For a percussionist I’m sort of speaking for myself, but it actually translates across the board. In Fleetwood Mac you’re playing with a hugely famous outfit all over the world and quite frankly beautifully, unbelievably successful. You’re on stage for three hours and you have a massive production with two hundred people working the show. It’s a very different situation to turning up to a five hundred, nine hundred, maybe twelve hundred people max little theater like on this tour. Of course the geography and the physicality of it is different. With a blues band there’s no fluff at all, meaning there’s no production. We don’t know the lighting guy, we do have our own sound guy, but every night is sort of on the come—you’re rolling the dice a little bit about what’s in the support team. When we come off it’s not about celebrating the same type of show as Fleetwood Mac. The element that applies to this band is, “Did I play well?” Then you have, “Did everyone have a good night?” Then you have “Did everyone in the road crew have a good night?” Was the production as good as we’d have liked it? Then you talk to the sound guy. “What was the sound like out in the front?” because you’re running a highly mechanized, huge studio really in the back of a circus truck. Then you go the audience and think, “How did they like it?” If you come out the other end with Fleetwood Mac you come out with all of those components in line and say, “Yeah, we had a great night playing, but apparently it sounded like **** out front.” The utopian statement is, “When everything’s right with Fleetwood Mac,” and there’s a lot more to be right, “That’s a good night.” With my band it’s really simple, and actually a lot more personal, since about the only thing you have is, “How did we play? Did the audience enjoy it?” It’s simple. Having said that, those components become hugely important and actually go right to the gut of a player, where you go, “The only thing we had to offer was to get on that stage and really, really pull it off.” That’s exciting, because you have to hit your mark.

MR: Within the blues, and especially in the live element, you have the experience of the creativity of setting up with a couple of friends and playing whatever comes up.

MF: There’s no doubt about that. The overview is, when I get going on a Fleetwood Mac gig or when I get going down at a three-hundred seat club, you hope you can get in the zone. Once you’re in the zone as a player, it’s really all the same thing, pretty much. In Fleetwood Mac, yes we have a production, but it’s not like seeing Beyoncé where there’s lights everywhere and bombs going off—with Fleetwood Mac or the Eagles, you feel like there’s some players on stage.

MR: You were nominated for a Grammy for Blue Again!. You’re getting recognition in your field. Where does the reward come from for you? Is it in playing, the creativity, the audience response—what is the blues doing for you?

MF: Selfishly, it’s a platform that is entirely my comfort zone. That’s really a huge, lovely thing for me, that I can go out from time to time and do this and really get to play in a woodshed that is in the backyard of your upbringing. That’s a good feeling. It’s like coming home. It’s not a huge statement, “Oh, I can’t stand playing the music with Fleetwood Mac,” absolutely not, but it is sentimentally a fun thing for me to do. It’s not that we sit there playing Fleetwood Mac songs, because we don’t. We play some of Rick’s stuff and change it up occasionally and just do stuff we like playing. That’s really the essence of it. I’m freer, if I want to get up from the drums and get on the microphone and start telling a story about a song, I’ll just go and do it. You can’t do that in a Fleetwood Mac show, the whole show would fall to pieces.

MR: There’s obviously going to be lots of loyal fans at your shows, but does your demographic also skew young at all?

MF: Good question. I think we’re blessed in Fleetwood Mac where we have a lot of young people going back into the archives as they do with people like Neil Young. We’ve got like thirty albums flying around, I think young, musically inclined, inquisitive guys and girls like that journey. We often get people that are going, “I started listening to you with Stevie and Lindsey and then found out there were albums before that.” We’ve got those elements, I think it’s pretty across the board and we do enjoy quite a young demographic that turns up. If we were doing this in Europe I think it’s fair to say that a lot more of the older generation that were weaned on early Fleetwood Mac, which was more popular in Europe than America, come out and enjoy hearing stuff they heard when they were nineteen years old. It’s almost a more refreshing area to be in over here because there’s a sense of the unknown. Sometimes you’re like, “Is anyone going to turn up at all?” I hope so, that’s why I’m on the phone with you.

MR: What advice do you have for new artists?

MF: I say, find your audience and play to them. There are a lot of people that have totally become privatized and made it all online and so forth. That’s a world I don’t know enough about, but I always end up saying, “If you have both, that’s great,” and if you haven’t got the live component and you’re capable of having a live audience, there is nothing more loyal, nothing more personable than looking someone in the eyeballs. Do you want to communicate with all of your school friends on an iPhone for the next fifty years and never see their face? An element of that is great, it often leads to a holistic, multi-purposed outcome, “Hey, we can arrange to spend the weekend skiing,” but I’m just saying to the young audience, explore the unknown. They come from a different world, but bodies in seats is something that’s going to keep you company, and you’ll be quite grateful for it if you’re interested in forming a career that’s going to make you a living until you push up daisies.

MR: Are you working on an album? What’s the future?

MF: That’s a long answer. Plenty of music. The hope is one way or another Fleetwood Mac is going to get some music out. This band, we’re going out with no album, just the simplest of thoughts: to go out and play. It’s sort of a nice innocent way of approaching it.

Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne