Sleep Train Arena 11/24

[michelej1]

Concert review: With Christine McVie back, Fleetwood Mac feels complete

By Carla Meyer - 11/25/2014 6:42 AM

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/entertainment/...#storylink=cpy

Fleetwood Mac played without an asterisk Monday during a sold-out show at Sacramento's Sleep Train Arena.

The superstar band offered all it hits and all its lead singers, with Christine McVie having returned to the road after a 16-year absence.

McVie was elegant and unassuming Monday, just as she was during the band's "Rumours" heyday. Chic in black jeans and a leather jacket, the 71-year-old singer/keyboard player seemed happy to be back, whether she was in the spotlight or assuming a utility role by playing accordion on "Tusk," the still-wild-and-weird title single from Fleetwood Mac's 1979 album.

McVie was not so unassuming that you did not notice, when the band kicked into the McVie-led "You Make Loving Fun" as its second song of the night, that an intact Mac beats the four-fifths crew that toured in her absence.

The band's 1970s and '80s success lay in its musical diversity. In how it made room for McVie's graceful melodies, Stevie Nicks' airy poetry and Lindsey Buckingham's more coiled, intense songwriting, then joined those styles in a signature sound cemented by three-part harmonies.

Mac minus McVie still entertained in concert, with Nicks tapping her distinctive, raspy vocals, witchy-woman vibe and giant-rock-star stage presence, Buckingham quick-picking his guitar and exploiting his own considerable charisma, and Mick Fleetwood going mad on drums.

But those shows never felt like complete Mac. Not like the Mac that killed it Monday night on the band's McVie-led 1987 hit "Little Lies." A harmony bonanza, the song sounds edgier live than on record.

No one looked happier to see McVie than Buckingham, the band's creative engine and biggest champion. McVie's return, Buckingham said, marked a new period for the band that appeared likely to be "poetic" and "prolific."

For a 65-year-old to be mapping out a rock 'n' roll future with a 71-year-old (and with Nicks, 66, Mick Fleetwood, 67, and bassist John McVie, who turns 69 Wednesday) is inspiring. It also speaks to why the group endures, 37 years after "Rumours" and its surrounding excess and romantic strife. It's through Buckingham's sheer will.

Christine McVie's road rustiness showed at times Monday, especially during the ballad "Songbird," during which she clearly had trouble hitting notes. But even at these moments, the band was better with her than without her. The notes might not all still be there, but the reassuring, husky quality of her voice is.

McVie seemed shy as she thanked her bandmates and fans for their support. Nicks was not shy at any point. Not when turning "Gold Dust Woman" into a welcome bit of performance art involving a sparkly shawl, or when regaling the audience with a story from her days as a Bay Area rock baby.

She was in a band with Buckingham that once opened for acts such as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. After Nicks discovered all the famous San Francisco rock women shopped at a boutique called Velvet Underground (which Nicks name checks in "Gypsy"), she visited the store.

She couldn't afford anything in it, Nicks told the crowd. But she had an epiphany while there, that one day she would be famous and play for big crowds. It happened, Nicks said, gesturing toward the 15,000 people watching her in Sleep Train Arena.

You gotta love Nicks for barely bothering with the "humble" part of humble bragging. But why bother with humility? Nicks has been an icon for decades.

"Icon" gets used too often. But add up Nicks' one-of-a-kind, nasal-yet-pleasant singing voice, shawls, scarves, all-summer-long boots and the creation, last year, of an "American Horror Story: Coven" witch character who worshipped the singer, and there it is: icon.

Now that you know to whom the term legitimately can be applied, don't go calling Taylor Swift an icon.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/entertainment/...#storylink=cpy

[lulu28]

"Now that you know to whom the term legitimately can be applied, don't go calling Taylor Swift an icon."

I love this quote!!

[elle]

http://thesoundla.com/2014/11/fleetw...oncert-review/

Fleetwood Mac Sacramento Concert Review
Uncle Joe
Nov 26, 2014

Going to see Fleetwood Mac tonight or tomorrow at the Forum? Here’s a humorous take on their concert in Sacramento this week from Sound listeners Dave & Robyn:

1) Apparently we had the best seats in the house, because we were on the aisle, and every person in the place with a nosebleed number on their ticket stub decided to “Come On Down!” And take their photo(s) video(s) selfie(s) right in front of us. All night long.

2) Apparently Sacramento is a late night working market, because pretty much everybody around us arrived late for the 8PM SHOW, and none of them had eaten yet, or indulged in their usual alcoholic post-work beverage, because everybody around us was drinking beer (sloppily, like pigs in the muck) and eating pizza and chicken fingers and something that looked like nachos but was probably a new NoCal sushi thing that hasn’t hit SoCal yet. And a lot of that beer and food(?) ended up on the floor around us. The eminent Phil Jackson once labeled this market “Cowtown” during an intense NBA playoff series between the Lakers and Kings back in the early 2000s. I thought he was just being a jerk. Until last night.

3) Okay, I could keep writing all day about what we saw and heard last night, but you don’t have time, so, cutting to the chase, five things:

3a) Remember those signs you used to see at concerts? “No Cameras Allowed” Well, they’ve been replaced by new signs. “Cameras Required” You woulda looked stupid last night if you weren’t waving your iPhone or Galaxy around above your head all night and snapping pictures and videos of anything that moved.

3b) Regarding anything that moved—time to mention Stevie and Lindsey. We spent most of the concert debating which one is nuttier. Lindsey grabbed the lead, for good I thought, during his pre-Big Love monologue, followed by, of course, Big Love, followed by, of course, thespian-like motions and bows and kisses blown to the crowd and, well, he charged into the lead. Definitely the nuttiest.

3c) Then Stevie sang Gold Dust Woman, and that was okay until the big long instrumental bridge where she proceeded to sort of waddle/shuffle/swoon/fly across the stage in her grandmother’s black shawl and granny dress and then pirouetted into a Black Swan kind of curtsy followed by a flip of her too-long hair back over her shoulder in a move more reminiscent of 1977 than 2014. This didn’t happen quickly. It took her about 7 minutes or so to accomplish all of those moves. Lindsey ran out of creative bridge licks and just started repeating the ones he’d already played. We looked at each other and agreed: She’s ahead now. She’s the nuttiest of the two.

3d) Then Lindsey cut loose on I’m So Afraid. Which was great, the guy can play that guitar like nobody else, no guitar pick, nothing but his God-given hands, each one moving around that guitar fret like a high school kid getting his first grope and actually getting all the way to third base. Mesmerizing stuff. And so Stevie was still in the lead, but then Lindsey went absolutely crazy-tunes with the big guitar finish, and that was cool too, until, the crowd in a frenzy, he puffed out his cheeks like he’d just run a marathon and proceeded to huff and puff and apparently tried to blow the whole arena down. Followed by several long, low bows, the blown kisses, the “I know, I’m an icon” facial contortions and the guitar over his head and Christine McVie, the normal one, off to the side nodding her head, appreciatively, while no doubt thinking to herself: “I didn’t have to come back, but hey, it’s a great paycheck. And they let me sing Everywhere and Little Lies. Just play along. Just play along.” And probably also noticing the two people in row 8 debating who’s nuttier, Stevie or Lindsey, and psychically sending us the answer: “Hey you two. It’s a tie. Lindsey just tries harder.”

Go Your Own Way was the final song before the two encores, and it made the whole night worth it. Stevie and Lindsey glared at each other, and when they sang the line “shackin’ up’s all you wanna do,” they both looked like they were accusing the other one, and that’s when I decided that they are equally nutty, fruitier than the fruitiest of fruit cakes, and they should never have broken up. We can only imagine the great songs that never got written because they went their separate (nutty) ways.

3e) The not so new phenomenon, but still worth noting. In the crowd, the cigarette lighters, held high in the air as a sign of approval, have been permanently replaced by the Flashlight App. Still looks pretty cool, but somehow it’s not the same.

[elle]

^^ enjoyed reading this nut-review while observing never-ending Harry Styles tweets go by in the FM twitter search.

[PenguinHead]

Originally Posted by elle

^^ enjoyed reading this nut-review while observing never-ending Harry Styles tweets go by in the FM twitter search.

Yes, a very entertaining review!