OOTC Tour 1992

[SteveMacD]

Originally Posted by elle

as you said somewhere above - we don't have any proof of that. it's just a calculation that may or may not pan out if tried. i can almost guarantee you they would have been arena band. BuckVie without the name brand recognition were touring sheds, so FM brand?

Maybe bigger sheds, or maybe completely fill the sheds they played, but not arenas. The band has largely become synonymous with Stevie (which I’m not happy about).

of course they can tour arenas. many other bands of their era are touring without their best known members and still filling arenas, just on the brand alone.

Except the missing best known member, in most cases, isn’t actively working or is dead. Lindsey put a solo tour together after getting sacked that had zero impact on the Fleetwood Mac tour. If they had parted ways with Stevie, she could have easily put a solo tour together that would have completely derailed a Fleetwood Mac tour.

however, you are right that Mick and promoters didn't want to risk the unknown, just in case. they didn't want to in 2011/12 and didn't want to in 2018. and apparently you are similarly risk averse, or you think you'd be..

Again, there was no guarantee that a Fleetwood Mac tour would be successful without Stevie, but it was guaranteed that it would be with Stevie. Fleetwood Mac was a weaker brand in 1990 than in 2018, but they still managed to pack arenas without Lindsey, but with Billy Burnette and Rick Vito.

In any case, it’s not my band. I don’t know any of them. As for risk, if it had been up to me, they would have fired Dave Mason in ‘96 and gone on as a quartet with Bekka and Billy for at least one or two more albums. But, just as in 2018, money called.

what do you do? in their situation? when they already made millions on millions? you disband and keep the peace in the family. you keep the only legendary band with all classic-era members still around and able to perform intact. you don't break it up into pieces.

Or, they could just get two highly respected musicians and get the bag of money one last time. And, it’s hard to take the “keeping the classic lineup in tact” argument seriously when a lot of people, including Lindsey, thought of who they could get in place of Stevie during the 14-15 tour.