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Old 08-25-2009, 02:14 PM
michelej1 michelej1 is offline
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Default Stuff.Co.NZ article on FM

There are also lots of reader comments to the article by Simon Sweetman

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment...s-return-to-NZ

Fleetwood Mac's return to NZ

By now many of you will be aware that Fleetwood Mac is playing in New Plymouth before the end of 2009. You may also be aware of my love for this band. Or should I say bands.

My love for Fleetwood Mac (and you can click on that link to get the full soap-opera behind the band if you don't already know it) started when I was about five years old.

And then, a few years on from that - maybe I was nine or ten? - I watched a documentary which alerted me to the previous blues band Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac.

Next thing I was obsessed with the early years. I knew Albatross - I just didn't know it was the same group that did Say You Love Me - and of course it's not really the same group, but you know what I mean...I knew Albatross but just from hearing it on the radio; I didn't know who played it. Didn't really care at that age.

But this documentary had me obsessed with Fleetwood Mac. I loved the stories of the drinking and drug-taking that had meant some members had disappeared to join cults; moved to Africa and wanted to give all their money away; started having affairs with the partners of other band members (this practice would continue for years in the band); and - very sadly in the case of Danny Kirwan - were sent to a home for the mentally ill.

When I say I loved these stories, I was just fascinated with the soap-opera of Fleetwood Mac. And of course when the band created its second permanent lineup in the mid-1970s - the one that would go on to become global superstars - the soap-opera kicked up a few gears.

Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham were a couple; they had been drafted in to the band as a pair - a songwriting duo and a romantic duo. Christine Perfect, as she was known when she left Chicken Shack, had become Christine McVie having married John McVie and gained fulltime employment as a Fleetwood Mac member. Mick Fleetwood was married to Jenny, the sister-in-law of George Harrison.

From there bed-hopping, bed-swapping, much drug-taking and several affairs with members of the road-crew as well as other band members (Fleetwood and Nicks got it on for a while) did nothing to stop the band from creating mega-selling pop hits across three albums in particular - and then on into the 1980s with Mirage and Tango in the Night.

Lindsey Buckingham quit in the late 1980s - and had a decade away from the band. The albums they made without him were not embarrassing but they did not do well. Stevie Nicks then dipped out for 1995's Time - which is not a bad record, but it never really stood a chance, given that it only featured the McVies and Fleetwood from either of the prominent lineups.

The return of Nicks and Buckingham saw the band embark on a tour and there was the live album The Dance.

And then Christine McVie decided she'd had enough and didn't want to tour. So it became a four-piece.

It's still a four-piece. There was the album Say You Will (in 2003), which can best be described as one Stevie Nicks album and one Lindsey Buckingham album jammed together. It's not bad - parts of it are very good - but it does miss Christine's sound (she played on parts of the album but none of her songs appear). She was always a presence - or had been since 1970. McVie's songs are crucial to the albums from the early 1970s: she carried the band through its transitional sound, post-Peter Green and while Bob Welch was establishing himself. She also had huge hits through the 1970s and 1980s.

Derek Smalls might describe her as the lukewarm water between the fire and ice of Nicks and Buckingham.

So, I am excited that Fleetwood Mac is playing New Zealand.

Yes they are old. Sure, Christine McVie won't be there so there'll be no Songbird - and we'll miss out on plenty of her classic songs. But it's still Fleetwood Mac! And considering the band has had about two dozen members, across 40 years, and Christine has been gone for more than a decade, I don't think it should come as any huge shock.

The tour is a Greatest Hits celebration. And songs from Fleetwood Mac, Rumours and Tusk will dominate.

In celebration of Fleetwood Mac playing here at the end of this year I give you:

My Top 7 Fleetwood Mac Moments:

* The song Oh Well - click there for the Peter Green version. Or here for a mid-70s version that shows Lindsey Buckingham holding his own (expect the 2009 version of the Mac to let rip with this blues-rocker).

* Mick Fleetwood's autobiography - an early favourite of mine in the wider music-book genre and full of juicy stories. It was also the start of bargain book-hunting for me; a habit that has caused as many issues with space in my flats/houses and holes in my bank accounts as record collecting.

* Rhiannon - sure it's been as overplayed on radio as Hotel California or Stairway To Heaven but I still think the song is magic. Every time I hear that shadowy guitar and driving drum beat that frame up Nicks' story about a witchy woman I am transported.

* Big Love (live and acoustic) - I liked the original track on Tango In The Night. But Buckingham's solo live rendition (played with the band and as part of his own solo shows) is amazing. Check out that clip highlighted above.

* Tusk (the album) - I know that Rumours is the classic - sure. But for me Tusk is the best thing Fleetwood Mac ever did, especially The Ledge, Think About Me, Storms, Sara, What Makes You Think You're the One, Not That Funny, Angel, Sisters of the Moon, Over & Over, Walk a Thin Line, Beautiful Child, Brown Eyes and - yes - the song Tusk.

* The documentary that started it all for me. Fleetwood Mac at 21 was a made-for-TV BBC production that skipped across the late-60s, 70s and through to the mid-80s. I have watched it more than any other music documentary. It is, in many ways, to blame for me spending time obsessing over bands, feeling like I need to capture the entire discography and read tomes dedicated to the band in question.

* December 19, New Plymouth? (I certainly hope so).

So, are you interested in seeing the band live? Are you booking tickets as soon as they go on sale? Or are you not a fan? Do you have Top Fleetwood Mac Moments? Favourite songs/albums? Did you like one period of the band more than others? Or are you, like me, a fan of parts of every incarnation of this blues/soft-rock/pop band?
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