On With the Show Tour

[ironman_01701]

[FuzzyPlum]

WOW!
Great pics ironman.
Loving the pic of Lindsey going ballistic at Chris' keyboard.
cheers

[jkmaletic]

Lord have mercy those photos are good!!! Thanks so much for sharing! !

[jwd]

WOW is right! Those photos are excellent. AND they all look good that close up!! AMAZING!!

[bethelblues]

I love LOVE how close Christine and Stevie are for "Everywhere" in that picture. I guess that's one thing that's bugged me about their staging, just how far apart they are and how they interactions mostly consist of looking at each other rather than jamming together.

If I ever staged an acoustic section for one of their concerts, they would all be center stage and very close. Do they, meaning Chris or Stevie, ever hold a mic? I just have this image in my head of them all singing "Honey Hi" to each other, with Lindsey on guitar. Very informal, relaxed, sitting on stools or chairs, maybe Chris and Stevie slightly above Lindsey who's in the middle. It's kind of weird, but that's how I see an acoustic portion.

[michelej1]

Yes, that's a neat angle of seeing Lindsey at Christine's keyboards. Most of the photos are from the other side, so this one is really nice to have.

Michele

[StreetAngel86]

more pics of Lindsey's butt please

that pic of Chris and Lindsey is AWESOME

[SteveMacD]

God, my (adopted) mother said "That Lindsey is sure a cutie-pie. He's like 50 or something, right?" I said "No, he's 65" and she said "That's even better." Ewww....

(BTW, I'm 40, aka too old for this sh*t...)

[bethelblues]

General question: Does anyone else think that FM ends a few of their songs too early/quickly? I know I'm watching videos and then when Lindsey turns and heads toward Mick that he's signaling to end the song. I just feel that he should let a few of the songs breathe a little more. I love the end of Over My Head, the instrumental light jam they do; that should definitely go on for one more repeat. The end of Little Lies, another jam, his guitar solo doesn't end naturally and I don't like the note they're ending the song on. Of course, there's Sisters of the Moon, which still just abruptly ends. Any others? Do you feel the same way and would like those instrumentals/jams/solos to continue a little longer?

[Macfan4life]

Originally Posted by bethelblues

General question: Does anyone else think that FM ends a few of their songs too early/quickly? I know I'm watching videos and then when Lindsey turns and heads toward Mick that he's signaling to end the song. I just feel that he should let a few of the songs breathe a little more. I love the end of Over My Head, the instrumental light jam they do; that should definitely go on for one more repeat. The end of Little Lies, another jam, his guitar solo doesn't end naturally and I don't like the note they're ending the song on. Of course, there's Sisters of the Moon, which still just abruptly ends. Any others? Do you feel the same way and would like those instrumentals/jams/solos to continue a little longer?

I agree. The long extended jams are missing on a few songs especially Sisters of the Moon. But it is a new era for live performances. The list could go on. Why do they need backup singers especially since it takes away from the amazing Mac harmonies. Why do they need a supporting band? Its just not the songs are shorter, everything about their live performances has changed from 1982 to 2014.

[michelej1]

Irish Independent IE, October 19, 2014 by Ed Power

http://www.independent.ie/entertainm...-30669113.html

Mc back in the Mac - Rockers' blossom on star return

When Christine McVie rejoined Fleetwood Mac for the first time since the late 1990s, it was a reminder a great band is more than the sum of its parts

In September 2013, Fleetwood Mac gathered backstage at Dublin's O2 arena. Several hours later the multimillion-selling soft rockers were to perform the first of two sold-out shows at the 14,000 capacity venue.

But Ireland wasn't on their minds at that moment. Instead, the group were tentatively renewing acquaintances with Christine McVie, the dulcet-voiced keyboard player who had authored some of their biggest hits before leaving the band - fleeing it, really - in 1997.

Nerves were in the air. McVie had barely spoken to the rest of the line-up in the intervening decade and a half. Now, after a gruelling divorce and a spell of depression, she was contemplating a comeback. She'd flown to Dublin to rehearse, with a view to joining Fleetwood Mac on stage in London later in the tour. Deep within the concrete labyrinth that constitutes the O2's backstage area, the tension was palpable: would the old chemistry still endure? What of old enmities? Fleetwood Mac's history was notoriously fractious. Was the band broken, impossible to repair?

Thirteen months later we have our answer. At 71, McVie has reconnected with Fleetwood Mac for their North American tour and the reviews are unanimous: with McVie on board, the final part of the jigsaw has clicked into position and, for the first time since the Clinton-era, "the Mac" are operating at the height of the powers. A 2015 European trek is rumoured and will inevitably include at least one Dublin date. Coming back to Ireland, there would surely be a sense of things moving full circle - of the band returning to the place their renewal began.

You don't have to be a Fleetwood Mac devotee (though it nowadays seems as if most everyone is) to be struck by their reinvention. On paper, McVie's contribution was peripheral. Yes, she was responsible for such wistful perennials as 'Little Lies', 'Everywhere' and 'You Make Loving Fun'.

Then, the group contained a multitude of writers and she was some way down the pecking order. It is impossible to imagine Fleetwood Mac without singer and guitarist Lindsey Buckingham (he briefly left in the late 80s, calling the group's future into question) or the ethereal Stevie Nicks - or, for that matter, without drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie (the warhorses from whom the outfit takes its moniker).

If anyone was disposable, surely it was McVie (briefly married to the bass player, she kept his name). On tour, she seemed reflexively wary; her vocals, breathy and understated, never vied for the spotlight with Buckingham's tortured yelp or Nicks' Enya-goes-to-California rasp. And yet, she brought a vital quality, in the absence of which Fleetwood Mac just weren't Fleetwood Mac. For sure they were a fine rock group - nonetheless, without McVie, Buckingham's intensity overpowered the band's live shows and they were the poorer for it.

This says a great deal about Fleetwood Mac but even more about the inscrutable nature of musical chemistry. There are countless other examples. Who'd have imagined, for instance, that the departure of REM's drummer, Bill Berry, in 1997 would plunge the group into a slow death spin. Granted, they slogged on and released some decent(ish) LPs before calling it quits in 2011. Nevertheless REM after Berry was never the same - when, tired of the touring, he announced his departure, it was the end of the band as we knew it.

Similarly, it was not generally understood that the loss of drummer 'Reni' was a death-knell for influential "Madchester" group The Stone Roses. He was the percussionist - however, that was merely the beginning of his significance. With his free-wheeling grooves and lack of ego, he embodied the Roses' best qualities: after he walked with the completion of their second LP, the band collapsed in on itself. The original line-up returned in 2012 and it was a reminder how important every wheel on the wagon can be: reviewers singled out Reni's contribution as a saving grace in a patchy comeback.

With a background in the British blues revival of the late 60s, Christine McVie was a talented player. That wasn't why she mattered. Consider, Oasis, who cheerfully shed three-fifths of the squad behind Definitely Maybe and (What's The Story?) Morning Glory and were much reduced. Similarly, surely it is no coincidence Larry Mullen Jr - a mere drummer - graces the cover of the new U2 album. Would U2 be U2 were he or Adam Clayton to walk away? Could The Rolling Stones continue calling themselves The Rolling Stone minus Charlie Watts, the quiet man in a gang of well-heeled rogues?

Of course, few of these bands have a history as complicated as that of Fleetwood Mac. As has been chronicled endlessly - indeed constitutes virtually a mini industry on to itself - during the making of their defining album, 1977's Rumours, the five members were tied together via a series of messy romantic entanglements. Buckingham and Nicks had joined Fleetwood Mac as a musical and romantic couple, eventually breaking-up under the strain of working and living together: Christine McVie had split from John, fed up with his drinking (they refused to discuss non-musical matters in the studio). And Fleetwood, father of two young children, was recently divorced (for good measure he had conducted a fling with Nicks).

This being the music industry in the 1970s, drugs and alcohol were conspicuous too. "Until then, Fleetwood Mac hadn't had much experience with this Andean rocket fuel," Fleetwood recalls in his autobiography. "Now we discovered that a toot now and then relieved the boredom of long hours in the studio with little nourishment.

'We weren't just singing to each other but screaming, and everything was enlarged by the intake of illegal substances," was how Christine recollected the time. "I used to go onstage and drink a bottle of Dom Pérignon, and drink one off-stage afterwards. It's not the kind of party I'd like to go to now."

Rather than drive Fleetwood Mac apart, the madness acted like a glue, holding together five exhausted, occasionally unhinged, individuals who, under normal circumstances, might have found it difficult to be in the same room.

Indeed, it was telling that McVie would exit Fleetwood Mac not amid the mania and decadence of the Rumours era but in a period of relative calm. In 1997, circa the release of their comeback live LP The Dance, she developed a chronic fear of flying. Given Fleetwood Mac were gearing up for a mammoth world tour, this obviously created difficulties. There was too much cash at stake for anyone to contemplate cancelling - instead, McVie walked, taking with her the underdog vim so crucial to the band's make-up.

"Well, I initially developed a great fear of flying. It was a real phobia. I also bought a house in England and decided, to a degree, I was really tired of the road," she said later. "I wasn't just burned out . . . I was tired of traveling and living out of a suitcase. I'm quite a domestic person by nature and the nomad thing had got a bit stale on me, really," she said later.

"It was never anything personal between the five of us. It was just that I felt my time had come and I just thought that I really wanted to leave Los Angeles and make a home in England. That was the root of it, really."

Her perspective changed with the break-up several years ago of her marriage. Living alone in rural Kent her sense of isolation calcified into depression. So she reached out to her former-band mates.

"I went over to Dublin," said McVie. "and it was decided that I would go on stage and do 'Don't Stop' with them at the [London] O2. We rehearsed it in Dublin and everyone was looking over at each other smiling thinking this was fantastic. For me, I was looking over at my family again and it was effortless."

[jbrownsjr]

Great article!

[michelej1]

Newsweek, Breaking the Silence: Fleetwood Mac is Back Intact
By Paula Mejia
Filed: 10/19/14 at 4:01 PM [click for video of Chris and Lindsey being interviewed]

http://www.newsweek.com/breaking-sil...8396?piano_t=1

Stevie Nicks may have invented the selfie.

I’m standing next to the gold-dust woman herself, admiring a room of faded self-portraits in a New York City gallery space at the Morrison Hotel Gallery. The blown-up Polaroids, which Stevie Nicks dug up from the ‘70s, feature the artist in all her witchy glory. In some her eyes are at half-mast, long past closing time. Others depict her cloaked in shawls and lounging in empty hotel rooms, a penetrating glare boring through the lens. The most transfixing images feature Nicks as she sees herself: vulnerable yet tough, both the subject of and a mediator for the madness that defined — and almost destroyed — Fleetwood Mac.

The exhibition’s opening party on a gusty Thursday night was appropriately opulent, featuring a spread of crostinis, crystal-clad guests and a specialty “24 karat gold” drink for the occasion. When I ask Nicks which image is her favorite, she softly shrugs and tells me she has none. Instead she describes her aversion to being photographed in a pool, and how it felt to find these prints again.

The exhibit coincides with the release of other treasures Nicks recently unearthed from the vault; namely, 24 Karat Gold, a collection of songs she wrote then tucked away in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Fleetwood Mac was at its most notorious then, with tales of hard partying, wife- and husband-swapping, indulging in too much nose candy, and struggling for a connection onstage and off. While the notoriety has followed them throughout the many years of break-ups and disagreements, solo careers and hiatuses, it wasn’t enough to break them.

24 Karat Gold, which dropped on October 7th, was released just in time for the ‘Mac’s glorious return to the stage. The band’s five members —Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, Christine McVie, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood — kicked off a massive “On With the Show” tour late last month that will take them across the globe.

Several weeks before the selfie gallery opening, I’m at Madison Square Garden watching Fleetwood Mac burn through “The Chain,” all tormented harmonies and lysergic guitar riffs. In lieu of lighters, thousands of fans held up their cell phone screens to dance in the dark. Strangers to my left hugged each other, jumped up and down, and cried together. The performance felt as intimate as a living room acoustic gig, the audience humming along to Rumours hits and Tusk deep cuts.

Forty-plus years later this band lives up to the hype: Lindsey Buckingham on the lip of the stage, coaxing his cherry-red guitar into a wail; Stevie Nicks next to him, close but far away, shrouded in billowy black. On her right, Christine McVie the group’s secret songbird, holds court over her keyboard. John McVie, the band’s backbone, stands dutifully in the background with his bass, at the right hand of Mick Fleetwood, the group’s impish father figure helming a gold-embellished drum set.

Before Fleetwood Mac became synonymous with chains, gold dust and never going back again, the group was a British blues-rock band co-founded by Peter Green in the late ‘60s. It featured John McVie and Mick Fleetwood, along with Danny Kirwan and Jeremy Spencer in its initial lineup. The band had mild success, and began to amble towards pop territory after Christine McVie, then married to John, joined on the keyboards. Sometime after Green’s departure the group eventually stumbled upon the young couple Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, who had been creating righteous tunes in their duo act Buckingham Nicks, which saw lukewarm initial success with their eponymous album.

While Fleetwood Mac is one of the most successful bands in history, it may also be one of the most dysfunctional. When asked about the band’s, erm, storied reputation, Mick Fleetwood tells me he gets it. “I have to say — for me — [Fleetwood Mac’s legacy] is almost more meaningful than the music. It’s about a bunch of people who had a story to tell, and everyone was pretty damned aware of the pain, the happiness, the grind of working out human conditions,” he says.

That “grind” is the crux of Fleetwood’s forthcoming book Play On: Now, Then and Fleetwood Mac, which will be released later this month. Play On speaks openly about Fleetwood’s various marriages, personal failure and reconciliation. His new memoir is a shift from his 1991 book, Fleetwood: My Life and Adventures in Fleetwood Mac, which confirmed the rumors of the past. Fleetwood is the nucleus of the band and its caretaker, although he wasn’t immune to the heartbreaks and hangups.

So why do people still care so much about this band? And what keeps these five together? According to Fleetwood, they don’t have much of a choice given the ancient history. “We’re all friends, and ex-lovers, and have deep, deep friendships sometimes gone horribly wrong,” Fleetwood says. “If there are issues — there have been, and probably will be! — we have to go through them in order to do what we’re doing. And that is worth a ****.”

Artists often describe their work as a calling. Christine McVie claims that itch was stronger than the tranquility she’d found in the English countryside, during the 18-year hiatus she spent away from Fleetwood Mac. “I thought I fancied being the country lady, da dee da dee da, wearing old Wellington rain boots. I wanted to get away from the intensity of touring,” McVie tells me. “I think it was just burned out, it was never anything personal with the guys. I [then] thought what am I doing here? Am I going to rot here in the country, watching my dogs get older?”

But first, she had to confront the very real fear of airplanes that halted her from leaving Europe for nearly twenty years. With the help of therapy and Fleetwood’s companionship, she traveled to Maui (where he lived at the time). The fear went away. She talked with Nicks about possibly reuniting with the group and after swearing to commit, they tried it out. As she says, it was “the strangest thing, like a time warp. It was as though I’d never left!”

McVie tells me that she and Fleetwood have been involved in intense fitness regimens to prepare for the tour, and as a group they’ve recording new songs. “The songs are very powerful and very beautiful and very rock and roll too,” she says. “They’re different because of the time change, but it’s undeniably Fleetwood Mac.”

[Danielle]

A few pics from Indianapolis here: http://postimg.org/gallery/9v0xuq7g/

[Danielle]

High resolution pictures from Detroit here: http://postimg.org/gallery/82l73jxo/