Vancouver: Roll Call, Interviews, Reviews, Photos

[michelej1]

Rumours redux
Elaine Corden, Special to the Vancouver Sun

http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/...tml?id=1589258
Published: Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Fleetwood Mac

Friday, 8 p.m.

GM Place

In an age when the neighbourhood record store has given way to the digital download site, where listeners can cherry-pick their songs and never bother with a B-side, the incentive for musicians to make albums as events is fading fast.

Arguably, the democratization of music distribution has been a good thing for both artists and fans, removing the gatekeepers that traditionally stood between them. But what is lost, perhaps, amidst this revolution is the idea of a capital-A Album, a body of work to be consumed as a whole.

Anyone attending this Friday's sold-out Fleetwood Mac concert will likely see this as a tragedy. From their blues-y beginnings, to their forays into prog rock, to their most famous incarnation - the chart-topping band that released Rumours and Tusk - Fleetwood Mac have always had more to say than just singles. With some 17 members coming and going since the group started in 1967, this is a band that is more than the sum of its parts.

The iteration of the 'Mac performing at GM Place is almost certainly the most well-known, save the absence of one member. Of the five musical powerhouses that gave the world the triple-assault of Fleetwood Mac (1975), Rumours (1977) and Tusk (1979), four are back to rekindle the magic. Founding member Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks are all in for the group's first tour since 2004. Only Christine McVie, seemingly still gun-shy of the group's infamously difficult interpersonal relations, has opted out - a disappointment, to be sure, but not an insurmountable challenge.

Speaking on a conference call in late February, the foursome about to head out as Fleetwood Mac sounded excited to hit the road throughout the United States and Canada on their Greatest Hits Unleashed Tour. With no new album to promote, save a remastered edition of Rumours, the quartet of legendary musicians bubbled with enthusiasm at the idea of playing what they pleased.

"This is truly a new experience for Fleetwood Mac," said Fleetwood, clearly in the mood to wax poetic. "To go out and truly go and play songs that we believe and hope that people are really going to be familiar with and love to do. We haven't done this. Some bands, which is fine, go around doing this year after year, year in, year out."

This translates, practically, into something of a greatest hits tour, though the group is hesitant to look at it that way. While reviews so far have proved that audiences are going to hear their favourites, there's also clearly a mission among the group to really dig in to the "experience" of Fleetwood Mac.

"It takes a little pressure off not having to kind of reinvent anything this particular time," said Buckingham, in his reedy California accent. "And I think because of that we are actually able to just look at the body of work and choose from that [so we can] have a little bit more fun with it than we would normally be able to have."

Chatting to each other between questions from a phalanx of North American journalists, the band members sound like they are getting along famously. But part of the Fleetwood Mac legend is the romantic tensions between members of the group, with Nicks and Buckingham (and the now-divorced McVies) notorious for having group-melting fallouts.

"Lindsey has been in incredibly good humour since we started rehearsal on the fifth of January," said Nicks, with remarkable candour. "And when Lindsey is in a good humour, everybody is in a good humour. When he's happy, everybody is happy."

Both Buckingham and Fleetwood concur (McVie barely says a word during the whole interview), and indeed it's fairly amazing that the group is able to discuss personal issues so openly, without stepping on any toes. Indeed, the only time anyone in the group prickles is when the subject of Tusk comes up, with one brazen journalist suggesting that the record, at the time the most expensive album ever made, constituted an indulgence on the part of the five musicians who created it.

"We never looked at it as some sort of opulent indulgence," insists Fleetwood, sounding galled by the idea.

"I might absolutely add it was paid for by the individuals that you're talking to, in order, in our world, to present something that was going to be more meaningful and more special . To me it doesn't personally feel like any form of indulgence at all . It's really about the integrity of what we do. And we've always taken the responsibility to make the very best effort to do that . .

"It was a privilege, and in truth everyone you're speaking to paid for that privilege . You can actually be in the studio for, you know, nine months, but you have to pay for it. And the fact that we didn't go in there and say, 'Well, it's been three weeks, get the hell out of here and just shove something out,' I think actually speaks well of where this band puts its mettle."

[michelej1]

The Province, May 14, 2009

http://www.theprovince.com/entertain...511/story.html

In concert
Fleetwood Mac
Where: GM Place
When: Tomorrow night at 8
Tickets: $49.50, $85.50 and $199.50 plus service charges at Ticketmaster

No rumour, Fleetwood Mac's back
Old is new again as '60s stars unleash a show they're happy to do

By Tom Harrison, The Province

This time, Fleetwood Mac isn't touring because it has to; it wants to.

There is no new album to promote and fret about, no new songs to fit into a set list, no pressure.

This time, Fleetwood Mac simply can enjoy a long legacy. Although that legacy goes back to 1967 and has endured several permutations, the one people know best is that of Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks and Christine Perfect. This was the band that relaunched itself in the mid-'70s with hits such as "Rhiannon," "Don't Stop" and "Go Your Own Way," the band whose Rumours LP became symbolic of many different things and is about to be reissued with extra tracks and DVD footage.

Perfect dropped out of the band in 1998, but the other four have stayed together and recently joined in a teleconference call to discuss their Greatest Hits Unleashed tour, their first tour in five years.

- - -

Stevie Nicks: "We've been apart for four years. Now we're back together and we're having a blast. It's like terrific. Had we been working every single year for the last four years and we were going out to do yet another tour this year, we would all be going like, 'Uh, OK.' So this makes it very, very different and we're all excited and we're all happy to be doing it and we all feel really, you know, blessed to be in each other's company and we're getting along great and it's fun."

Mick Fleetwood: "This is the first time that we've gone on the road without an album. So, it's a refreshing thing to do in terms of selecting a whole lot of really emotively connected songs. So this is truly a new experience for Fleetwood Mac to go out and truly go and play songs that we believe and hope that people are really going to be familiar with."

Nicks: "It stays fresh because we never stop playing. Basically, what we are is entertainers. If, even if this band had never made it, you know, big, we would still be, we'd be playing all the clubs, we'd be playing the clubs in Europe, we'd be still doing that. Because what we really are is entertainers. So when we go on stage we're performers."

Lindsey Buckingham: ". . . We are going out this time without a new album. And it, what it does is, it kind of frees you up to kind of enjoy each other a little bit more as people. And, you know, the dynamic between band members is still, to some degree, something which is a work in progress and is being crafted. And so you know it takes a little pressure off not having to kind of reinvent anything this particular time. And I think because of that we are actually able to just look at the body of work and choose from that. And then you know just have a little bit more fun with it than we would normally be able to have."

Nicks: "Unleashed, to me, meant unleashing the furies, unleashing us back into the universe. Unleashed, to me, was an edgy term of throwing this amazing musical entity back into the world that we had been away from for four years. I never looked at it as [us] being leashed. I looked at it as unleashing a fury which is what Fleetwood Mac is a lot of the time. It is one of the world's greatest furies in my opinion. And that was my idea. Fleetwood Mac Unleashed just meant Fleetwood Mac thrown back down to the universe."

Buckingham: "When things happen within the ranks of Fleetwood Mac that are less than ideal on an interpersonal dynamic kind of level, it's never anyone's intention for that to happen. We are a group of great contradictions. The members don't necessarily have any business being in a band together because the range of sensibilities is disparate.

"But that's, in fact, what makes Fleetwood Mac what it is, you know. It's the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. It's the kind of energy that is created from that kind of contrast in personalities."

Fleetwood: "I get a sense of, within the players that are on the phone right now, about getting out and playing the songs that we truly hope are special songs, that may be aren't considered the massive, massive hits but are truly emotionally connected to Fleetwood Mac.

"And so all of the energy is really about just getting out there and putting on a show that really resonates emotionally. And that's really important for us.

"For my experience, when we walk into a room and we haven't played actively for, you know, two or three years or sometimes a little more than that, the bottom line is immediately everything is stripped away and I always see, as Lindsey mentioned earlier, these very odd couples or couplings of people. In truth, the chemistry and the joining of those people is immediate and you turn around and go, 'That's what this is about.' But, for me, my observation and my feeling is that it is stripped away usually within 30 or 40 seconds of playing the first song. And you go, 'That's it.'

"And there is no way of really truly analyzing what that is. It's a glorious accident that hopefully and seemingly was meant to happen because it's gone on for so long that those people make the music that we make. And it is like second nature, it takes but a few minutes to re-plug that biorhythm, chemistry, whatever you want to call it, with those individuals doing what they do.

"And it's remarkable. I find it's totally fascinating. We'll probably never have some analytical explanation to it ever. And in truth, I always prefer that it will never because that's the magic of people being together and doing something, especially under the heading of doing something creatively, where you find your place, you know your place and you add to each other as it's happening in real-time."

- - -

If it's true, as Buckingham contends, that Fleetwood Mac is more than the sum of its parts, then Fleetwood Mac has become a separate entity, a kind of concept, different from each member's solo endeavours.

It's also intuitive. It's something that is not easy to explain but there is this separate entity known instinctively by its members: 'This is Fleetwood Mac.'

Fleetwood: "Well, that's a good phrase, 'This is Fleetwood Mac.' And it is because certainly myself and Lindsey joke about it. It's the worst-run franchise in the business."

[Moz]

Originally Posted by michelej1

Fleetwood, John McVie, Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks and Christine Perfect.....

Perfect dropped out of the band in 1998

How odd. I wonder why they used her maiden name.

[Hawkeye]

Originally Posted by michelej1

The Province, May 14, 2009

the band whose Rumours LP became symbolic of many different things and is about to be reissued with extra tracks and DVD footage.



."

AGAIN with that danmed reissue bull****. I refuse to believe that even exists until we get some further developments. I'm really pumped for that too. Whats the danmed hold up.

[wewerefrail]

I'm going! And hopefully the band is too. It's my first FM show, I'm going alone. I have a floor seat, and I'm really short. Will I be able to see anything at all?

[belladonnadream]

Any news??? How did the show go? Did it happen?

[MacMan]

It happened alright.... Silver Springs was dropped! Show ended with the one normal encore. Last song Don't Stop.

Aside from that - the show looked and sounded pretty normal to me based on what I've seen and heard online. Sounds way better in person mind you and as good as some of these boots of the tour sound, they don't fully capture it. You have to experience it live.

But anyway, if multiple people were ill you wouldn't have none it... Stevie if anything looked a little rough... There is something definitely going on with her... I don't know what it is. It's the eyes, and like I said before, it's either her foot/feet or her hips. She looks to me like she has a bit of a limp... I don't know. No boots, just boks. But with the eyes she looks half asleep up there - maybe it's the lights. During Gold Dust Woman near the end of the song her eyes were closed for so long - I kept thinking, you better open your eyes before you fall over, cause she was swaying around with the mic at the same time as she was singing... But vocally, she's very strong. If she was the one that was sick it didn't affect her voice at all.

Lindsey sounded good vocally too... He ditched the red shirt, wore a black look alike, and blue jeans - same leather jacket. This is for sure the Lindsey Buckingham Show.... But it's well deserved. He's a mad man up there.... He's just awesome plain and simple and the audience ate it up. I would even venture to say that he got more of a crowd reaction on his songs then Stevie did... It's just interesting to see that knowing that Stevie has had so much of the popularity over the years. The place was packed and to me it was a very enthusiastic crowd.... One thing that was kind of cool to see is during GYOW when Stevie was facing the crowd on her side waving her tamborine in the air... she had the crowd all up the side jumping up and down at the same time... It was neat! She started jumping up and down in place on the stage and on her side they followed suit. It just looked pretty cool.

Hi-lights for me were Oh Well & Gold Dust Woman.

Anyway.... a fairly normal show I think... I'm tired though, so excuse this short review.... I'll end it there.

[StandbackStevie]

I see on you tube stevie brough back the rebox platforms again out as well.


here is standback on the 15th sorry is someone already posted this song.Wearing the reebox baby.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRpsf...e=channel_page

[CADreaming]

Originally Posted by Hawkeye

AGAIN with that danmed reissue bull****. I refuse to believe that even exists until we get some further developments. I'm really pumped for that too. Whats the danmed hold up.

That's what I'd like to know.

[wheart]

Well I certaintly hope SS isn't dropped for good. That would suck tremendously. I loved that song as the show closer, I though it was so powerful. If it is gone for good, they need to replace it. One encore doesn't cut it for a FM show, especially at these ticket prices!!

[michelej1]

The Vancouver Sun

http://www.vancouversun.com/Entertai...970/story.html

VANCOUVER - As has been noted countless times since Fleetwood Mac announced their intention to head back out on the road in 2009, Fleetwood Mac: Unleashed is the first tour the band have done without a record to promote. Call it a greatest hits tour, if you must, but the remaining members of the group — Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, John McVie, and the man who started it all, Mick Fleetwood — have been on record as saying they’ll play what they please.


From the opening salvo of Monday Morning as the group hit the GM Place stage Friday night, it was clear that the songs this incarnation of the group prefer are the ones that they wrote themselves. That Morning kicked off the set was likely no accident – the track opened Fleetwood Mac’s self-titled album (a.k.a. The White Album), the first marking the appearance of Buckingham and Nicks. Yes, the evening would draw on the “mega-band” era of the Mac, absent the songs of Miss Christine McVie, who for reasons known only to her still hasn’t come back to the fold


Morning was followed up by The Chain, laying waste to any doubt that the group would stray too far from their musical explorations at the top of the charts.


In short order, Nicks announced “Let’s get this party started!” before segueing into a somewhat anti-climactically loping version of Dreams. From the rasp in her already somewhat bleating voice, it was clear that Nicks is not yet fully recovered from the illness that caused the group to postpone its Calgary and Edmonton dates earlier last week. Though Nicks was clearly doing her best to “unleash the furies” as she’s so often been quoted as saying, the back-up singers did most of the heavy lifting, and the black-clad icon stayed well clear of the high notes.


While everyone in attendance expected the best of Fleetwood Mac, it was a little more surprising that the set took some time to highlight songs written outside the group. Buckingham, clad in a leather jacket and a deep v-neck that revealed a leathery California tan, delivered a cracking version of the title track from 1984’s Go Insane, while Nicks disappeared off stage, perhaps to light more incense or have a drink of throat coat.


The tambourine-wielding witchy woman was back in short order for Rhiannon, with Nicks again backing off the high notes. There's a reason this song is impossibly difficult to sing at karaoke, and anyone who ever clammed the high-notes on the chorus while singing along must have been slightly pleased to see Nicks staying in the lower ranges.


As much as the songwriters Nicks and Buckingham were the main attraction (this was made explicit with the pair shown split-screen on the Jumbotron nearly the entire show), McVie and Fleetwood, the group’s namesakes, are still as solid as ever. McVie stood stoically in place on stage, seemingly still clad in his –Rumours-era costume, and Fleetwood shone on the unbeatably catchy Tusk, the first song of the night that seemed to ignite the crowd of boomers.


For those in the crowd who didn’t get to see late‘70s line-up of Fleetwood Mac in their original glory, and know the band only through the pilfered record collections of parents and older siblings, there where a few moments when fidelity wasn’t exactly as hoped. Never Going Back Again. Buckingham’s lilting gem from Rumours started out a slow-ed down acoustic whisper, but, by the end, as the grey-haired tenor belted into the microphone, it brought to mind, again, slightly inebriated karaoke.


What still sticks out the most, however, is absence of Christine McVie. While the balladeering pianist has been gone for over ten years, her absence still made itself known: So Afraid and the monster rock jam of Oh Well drew the male majority of the group into sharp relief, and Say You Will, in particular, seemed patchy without McVie’s posh soprano and bouncy keys. A group of professionals to be sure, the four remaining quickly followed up with Gold Dust Woman a dyed-in-the-wool Stevie Nicks original — the kind that could almost make an audience ask "Christine who?"


To that end, by the time a top-hat clad Nicks and a pogo-ing Buckingham led the crowd through a sing-along of Go Your Own Way, it mattered not that the group showed a few bumps and bruises after 30 plus years. The songs themselves — always the raison d'être of Fleetwood Mac through its many members and four decades — are still fresh and phenomenally catchy, and, if a gleefully dancing house at GM Place was anything got go by, something much greater than the band itself.


As a final note, that Mick Fleetwood took a seven-minute drum solo in the middle of encore World Turning, was a bit of magic. After starting the band in ’67 and overseeing the comings and goings of some 17 members, the 61-year-old band leader certainly deserves to bang his epic kit for as long as he pleases. That it was enjoyable to listen to was merely a bonus, that he looked happiest when introducing the talent around him – backup singers and stars both — is perhaps the magic ingredient that has kept the group a draw for so many years.

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by michelej1

The Vancouver Sun

What still sticks out the most, however, is absence of Christine McVie. While the balladeering pianist has been gone for over ten years, her absence still made itself known: So Afraid and the monster rock jam of Oh Well drew the male majority of the group into sharp relief, and Say You Will, in particular, seemed patchy without McVie’s posh soprano and bouncy keys.

I think the technical name of that song is Say You Will Love Me.

Ok, you singers. So, Christine is like a mezzo-soprano, right? What is Stevie exactly?

Michele

[sjpdg]

Originally Posted by michelej1

The Vancouver Sun

As a final note, that Mick Fleetwood took a seven-minute drum solo in the middle of encore World Turning, was a bit of magic. After starting the band in ’67 and overseeing the comings and goings of some 17 members, the 61-year-old band leader certainly deserves to bang his epic kit for as long as he pleases. That it was enjoyable to listen to was merely a bonus, that he looked happiest when introducing the talent around him – backup singers and stars both — is perhaps the magic ingredient that has kept the group a draw for so many years.

Finally!!!!!! A little respect for Mick!! It's about damned time!!!! Hallelujah!!!!

[wheart]

Anyone know if this show is still on?

[OldTimer]

Originally Posted by wheart

Anyone know if this show is still on?

I was just going to ask the same question -- and about Tacoma Saturday nite as well. There's been surprisingly little heard from the band since the 'illness' report on Tuesday. Assuming they're not all sick and voiceless, I would have expected at least Mick to do a couple of interviews during this unplanned hiatus.

It's oddly quiet on the western front...