Uncut's Earl's Court Concert Review

[golddustwoman77]

I thought this review was so cute and funny; I just had to post it.


Go Their Own Way
Return of the Mac - another crazy episode in the
longest-running soap opera in rock'n'roll.



Fleetwood Mac
Earl's Court, London
Wednesday December 10, 2003

There's a hip young gunslinger of Uncut's acquaintance in the audience tonight who normally writes about futuristic electronic dance music for a well-known weekly music paper. And he is so moved by this performance by Fleetwood Mac, not just a guilty pleasure but his all-time favourite pop group, that he's in tears, with the lowing sounds that accompany proper sobbing.

Fleetwood Mac have the strangest effect on the least likely people. They're MOR with edge. Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, who turned the drama of their disintegrating relationship into one of the best-selling albums ever made (1977's Rumours), are that edge. They flaunt it tonight. Buckingham and Nicks, the Meg and Jack White of dreamy, druggy '70s adult soft rock, act like this is the epilogue to the longest-running soap opera in rock'n'roll. He kisses her hand. They hug. They slow dance. They sing "Say Goodbye", one of the two valedictory ballads that climax the recent Say You Will comeback set, not to the crowd but to each other as if to apologise, right there, in front of several thousand forty-somethings in sensible knitwear, for hurting each other in the name of love. Then - and Uncut nutss you not - during faster number "What's The World Coming To" Stevie plays the bull to Lindsey's matador and, hunched forward, charges across the stage at his invisible cape with her index fingers poking above her head as horns. There is no weirder group in mainstream rock.

And this is odd music for a stadium. Buckingham, pop's most handsome studio nerd, takes center stage for a thrilling version of "big Love" that is vaguely like a speeded-up madigral, with amazing guttural expulsions at the end. Nicks classics such as "Rhiannon" and "Gypsy Woman" [sic!], meanwhile, feature fantastic imagery more suited to a rainswept beach at midnight, or a hippie-chick's candlelit boudoir. Stevie's voice hasn't aged, but then she always did sound world weary. The still sexy couple duet for "Beautiful Child", like Gram and Emmylou with a pop sheen.

Lindsey diffidently introduces two songs from the entirely Buckingham/Nicks-penned Say You Will, but it won't be long before their latest and greatest work achieves the recognition it deserves. The fact that it wasn't persuasively marketed on giant billboards across the globe as RUMOURS II: THIS TIME IT'S CATHARTIC represents something of a missed opportunity on the part of the record company. The blistering "Come", with Buckingham, a much-underrated guitarist, soloing ferociously like Neil Young in Warren Beatty's body, and the breathtakingly adventurous "Everybody Finds Out", should be soundtracking the lives of millions of teenagers who bought Rumours, all grown up now with ruinous affairs and catastrophic marriages behind them.

Never mind, because here comes big Mick Fleetwood - the safe base around whom Stevie and Lindsey whirr madly - lurching towards the front of the stage with synthesizer pads attached to his waistcoat like the percussive equivalent of a suicide bomber. Only instead of blowing himself up, he's going to entertain us with a riot of drum samples. Suddenly he goes all bug-eyed and starts blurting in tongues like some Massai warrior - or something you'd cross the street to avoid at the Edinburgh festival - and, quite unexpectedly, the B&Q brigade roar their approval. Weird band, strange fans, crazy nigt.

Paul Lester

[blinker12]

"Gypsy Woman"? Duet on "Beautiful Child"?
How could a review that's otherwise so insightful and reverential contain such errors? (I guess it's *possible* that "Child" could be considered a duet, using the loosest definition of the word.)
Otherwise, though, a nice write-up. This writer feels exactly the same way I do about the Mac: they're pop with edge. I mean, Stevie and Lindsey are just plain weird. You'd be hard pressed to find two more eccentric personalities in pop, even in supposedly counter-cultural punk bands. And that's why I love them so much.

[Mari]

Oh the memories

great review, thanks for posting!

[bootylicous]

"There is no weirder group in mainstream rock."

I love that!

[Les]

Originally posted by blinker12
I mean, Stevie and Lindsey are just plain weird. You'd be hard pressed to find two more eccentric personalities in pop, even in supposedly counter-cultural punk bands. And that's why I love them so much.

Hehe. I agree with you too. It's weirdness that you come to see in an entirely lovable way. Nice review.

Golddustwoman77 - may I ask you what issue this came from? What month?

[golddustwoman77]

Of course! It was in February's issue of Uncut toward the back of the magazine in the reviews' section.

[Les]

Thank you kindly.

[fastpussy]

Hey guys,

It was the March issue. I typed it up for the Burnish board.
Thanks for posting it here, Golddustwoman. You even left my typos in.

Thea

[Les]

Thanks Thea.

[dissention]

Originally posted by blinker12
[BThis writer feels exactly the same way I do about the Mac: they're pop with edge. I mean, Stevie and Lindsey are just plain weird. You'd be hard pressed to find two more eccentric personalities in pop, even in supposedly counter-cultural punk bands. And that's why I love them so much. [/B]

I loved what Entertainment Weekly said about them:

"...Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, two of pop's great eccentrics..."

I love that line.

[golddustwoman77]

Sorry, Les, about posting the wrong issue. My friend gave it to me out of her Uncut. I thought she said it was the February issue, and the page the review was on didn't say. Thanks for the correction, Thea.