Carol Ann Harris

[CADreaming]

Originally Posted by mezzoforte

Mick's version of the kicking incident is actually very consistent with Carol Ann's book, from what I remember. Carol Ann didn't actually witness it (she missed the Australian tour--illness, I think), but Sara Recor (later Fleetwood), her best friend, called Carol to explain how Lindsey fell apart and turned violent on stage. The story was essentially identical to Mick's. Neither of them made it sound like it was a casual flicking thing, as in the video. I'd type it up, but the book's at my parents' house.

I don't think anyone but Stevie has talked about a guitar incident, though. I think Michele's idea has legs: he may have thrown the guitar, just not on stage at that particular concert. If it happened, it would have been a totally different incident.

I have the book. I just didn't bother to read most of it. Persued it. I was just pointing out that the kicking was also simultaneously described as "flicking" and in various descriptions, it was never clear if he actually kicked her or just kicked AT her.

Anything can happen when people are wasted.

[David]

Originally Posted by mezzoforte

Mick's version of the kicking incident is actually very consistent with Carol Ann's book, from what I remember. Carol Ann didn't actually witness it (she missed the Australian tour--illness, I think), but Sara Recor (later Fleetwood), her best friend, called Carol to explain how Lindsey fell apart and turned violent on stage. The story was essentially identical to Mick's. Neither of them made it sound like it was a casual flicking thing, as in the video.

Did you hear how Mick described the "kick" on "The Inside Track with Graham Nash" TV show in 1990?

[mezzoforte]

Originally Posted by CADreaming

I have the book. I just didn't bother to read most of it. Persued it. I was just pointing out that the kicking was also simultaneously described as "flicking" and in various descriptions, it was never clear if he actually kicked her or just kicked AT her.

Anything can happen when people are wasted.

*shrugs* Agree to disagree. IMO, both accounts sounded basically horrified, so I'm assuming that even if his leg didn't actually make contact, it was considerably more threatening than the current, sober incarnation. But you're right that Mick's story doesn't specifically state that he physically harmed her on stage.

Originally Posted by David

Did you hear how Mick described the "kick" on "The Inside Track with Graham Nash" TV show in 1990?

Nope. Do tell!

[Nikolaj]

Originally Posted by David

Why didn't the 1990 book (which was the very first mention ever of the New Zealand incident) mention the guitar being thrown?

It certainly wasn't because Mick & Stephen Davis were holding back.

I think that's a good point you raise, David.
I'd say that you would know as well or better than anyone (me) who reached conclusions from the old war stories.
Come to think of it; had SN been kicked on stage by LB, and had a guitar thrown at her, I don't think a 'show must go on' mentality would have kept her performing along, what a giving performer. Human nature would have had to factor in- I think she'd have grabbed a handy SOTM triangle or a tambo or just given a high kick to his lower regions with those nutcracker boots. SN doesn't uh - strike me- as someone who would just take it.
Maybe David and others- notafraid, I think it was- are right. Even with the band on the other side of the world, it likely would have made news, somewhere.
And no-one at the NZ concert seemed to "notice" a kick or a flying guitar?
It is possible that the 'Rhiannon impersonation' which seems for sure to be true, was embellished to include a kick and a tossed guitar.
Maybe that was the point of David and others- just saw that this CAH thread kept coming back to near the top of the Rumours forum, so read a bit of it last night, but not all of it. Not the best way to approach leaving an informed reply of any substance. I'm sorry.
'Rumours' don't convict a person, and the proof does seems vague.

[michelej1]

The Graham Nash interview that David mentioned is on You Tube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDgt3wcmhk0

[jellyman10]

Originally Posted by mezzoforte

I think Michele's idea has legs: he may have thrown the guitar, just not on stage at that particular concert. If it happened, it would have been a totally different incident.

I agree with this, too.

[MissLadyLoki]

Originally Posted by Nikolaj

I think that's a good point you raise, David.
I'd say that you would know as well or better than anyone (me) who reached conclusions from the old war stories.
Come to think of it; had SN been kicked on stage by LB, and had a guitar thrown at her, I don't think a 'show must go on' mentality would have kept her performing along, what a giving performer. Human nature would have had to factor in- I think she'd have grabbed a handy SOTM triangle or a tambo or just given a high kick to his lower regions with those nutcracker boots. SN doesn't uh - strike me- as someone who would just take it.
Maybe David and others- notafraid, I think it was- are right. Even with the band on the other side of the world, it likely would have made news, somewhere.
And no-one at the NZ concert seemed to "notice" a kick or a flying guitar?It is possible that the 'Rhiannon impersonation' which seems for sure to be true, was embellished to include a kick and a tossed guitar.
Maybe that was the point of David and others- just saw that this CAH thread kept coming back to near the top of the Rumours forum, so read a bit of it last night, but not all of it. Not the best way to approach leaving an informed reply of any substance. I'm sorry.
'Rumours' don't convict a person, and the proof does seems vague.

That right there seals it for it probably not having happened. if it had happened, it certainly would've been on the news in at least NZ or have heard accounts from somebody who saw it go down (for example, CAH talks about Lindsey spinning on his back while playing a solo is true in that someone once spoke about seeing it and talking about how it topped off the awesomeness of their first Mac show and Spinal Tap even made fun of it), but the fact that it coincidently came out when Mick's book was written and was never heard about before does make a me a little suspicious.

[Sapphire Girl]

Originally Posted by MissLadyLoki

That right there seals it for it probably not having happened. if it had happened, it certainly would've been on the news in at least NZ or have heard accounts from somebody who saw it go down (for example, CAH talks about Lindsey spinning on his back while playing a solo is true in that someone once spoke about seeing it and talking about how it topped off the awesomeness of their first Mac show and Spinal Tap even made fun of it), but the fact that it coincidently came out when Mick's book was written and was never heard about before does make a me a little suspicious.

Is there anyone else who is also highly suspicious of this New Zealand story after all these years?

Originally Posted by CADreaming

LOVE IT!!

"It's Not THAT Funny, Is It?" starring Bill Hader from SNL as LB, who never speaks. He just sits around and doodles on the guitar, humming and making funny facial expressions while Carol Ann dresses up like Stevie all the time, wandering from room to room, in flowing black chiffon proclaiming her birthday is May 26th and how she should be a model since she looks just like Stevie Nicks. Wanda Sykes could play Desi...



Oh yeah? I would bet the lawyers had been all over that book like white on rice forever....the really good stuff may have been left out...



Bwaaa! About that ocean front property in Arizona...

Or how about Christine?

[nicole21290]

Originally Posted by Sapphire Girl

Is there anyone else who is also highly suspicious of this New Zealand story after all these years?

Besides Mick's books, these are the accounts:

Stevie: Up Close New Zealand, 2005 [x]

We all think back to our trip to New Zealand, you know, its an amazing story, it was the fight of all fights, and I think there was thirty thousand people there, that had come form buses all around New Zealand to see us. We were on the last song, of the set, and Lindsey threw his Les Paul guitar at me. I ducked so it didn’t hit me, but i was so mad that he had endangered my life. He then stormed off the stage - and we all stormed off the stage after him. The bodyguards and everyone had to physically separate all of us, and we didn’t do an encore that night, and that is the first and only time we have not done an encore. He was mad at me probably because he… it was okay for me to be the performer that i was when we were a couple, but when we broke up, he hated that fact that i was such a lead singer. And I’m sure when we left New Zealand, we were not even on the same plane.

Rolling Stone, 1997 [x]

That wasn’t the only psychodrama Australia would see; one evening, as Nicks performed her patented witchy dance on “Rhiannon,” twirling under her hooded poncho, Buckingham wrenched his jacket over his head and began dancing in a crude, crowlike imitation of her. “Lindsey was angry - just mad at me,” recalls Nicks. “That wasn’t a one-time thing. Lindsey and I had another huge thing that happened onstage in New Zealand. We had some kind of a fight, and he came over - might have kicked me, did something to me, and we stopped the show. He went off, and we all ran at breakneck speed back to the dressing room to see who could kill him first. Christine got to him first, and then I got to him second - the bodyguards were trying to get in the middle of all of us.”

"I think he’s the only person I ever, ever slapped," says Christine McVie. "I actually might have chucked a glass of wine, too. I just didn’t think it was the way to treat a paying audience. I mean, aside from making a mockery of Stevie like that. Really unprofessional, over the top. Yes, she cried. She cried a lot."

Without quite denying such incidents, Buckingham looks genuinely a bit puzzled to hear them played back. “What I do remember,” he says, “is a show where I purposely sang much of the set out of tune. We got offstage, and everyone was irate, obviously. They were talking about firing me and getting Clapton. Very well founded, because it was not a professional thing to do.”

Mojo, 2003 [x]

In March 1980, playing to 60,000 in Auckland, New Zealand while loaded with whisky (according to Fleetwood), he pulled his jacket over his head in grotesque imitation of Nicks’s drapes and started to ape her twirling moves. Then he ran across the stage and kicked her. Nicks carried on like a trouper.

In the dressing-room, head hung in shame, he was confronted by Christine McVie who slapped him and threw a glass of wine over him: “Don’t you ever do that to this band again! Ever! Is that clear?”

Buckingham can’t remember the events, but says, with bemusement: “Oh, I wouldn’t doubt that I mimicked Stevie on-stage. And kicked her? That could have happened too.”

…

And when Nicks rejoined Fleetwood Mac for the intriguingly Tusk-like Say You Will – he found her ready to forgive – and not forget, but laugh about “the time you threw that Les Paul at me” and such.

And The Daily Fail duly rehashed the story in 2013 [x]

‘I was dancing on stage,’ begins Nicks, now 65, in the salon of her rented Parisian pied-à-terre.

‘It was the Tusk tour, 1980, Auckland, New Zealand. I was doing my thing with my shawl and Lindsey pulled his jacket up over his head and started mimicking me, behind my back.

'I thought, “Well, that’s not working for me.” But I didn’t do anything. This must have infuriated him, because he came over and kicked me.

'And I’d never had anyone be physical with me in my life. Then he picked up a black Les Paul guitar and he just frisbee’d it at me. He missed, I ducked – but he could have killed me.’
I’m not sure that happened,’ Buckingham, 64, states flatly at his gated LA estate.

‘Oh, it happened, all right,’ asserts Christine McVie, 70, drinking in a glorious view of the Thames. ‘I threw a glass of wine in his face.’

CAH’s version in 'Storms'

Four days later I received a phone call from Sara. Things were not good, she told me. As I listened in stunned disbelief she told me about what had just happened in Auckland, New Zealand. At a concert in front of thirty thousand people, Lindsey totally lost it on stage. The show was being simulcast over radio to all of New Zealand, which only added to the horror of what she was telling me. I sank down onto the floor as I listened to her story.

The band had only been playing for a little while, she said, when Lindsey suddenly pulled his jacket over his head - once again mimicking Stevie and her shawl-draped stage persona. He followed her around in grotesque imitation, intentionally playing the wrong parts on his guitar song after song. And then, before anyone could even try to stop him, he started kicking out at her with his heavy cowboy boots, doing his best to land blows on her unprotected legs - and when he did, the kick seemed to stun her.

The audience was also stunned, Sara said. Stevie frantically tried to stay away from his steel-toed cowboy boots and the whole show fell apart. And it all happened in front of thirty thousand fans in the audience and untold thousands listening on their radios.

Afterward, when the band headed back to the dressing room, Christine walked up to Lindsey and slapped him hard across the face as she screamed, “Don’t you dare do that to us again, do you hear me? How dare you do that to the band and Stevie?” She then threw a drink in his face.

A Journalist Writes, 2009 [x]

Then there’s the worst concert ever. You probably wouldn’t guess who gets my top billing in that category in a million years. A clue: they’re coming back in December, and their tickets for a one-off concert go on sale Monday.

That’s right - supergroup Fleetwood Mac.

It was March 1980 in Wellington, and they were riding high on Rumours (1977) and the recently released Tusk. But in true rock fashion that wasn’t all they were riding high on and the state of their personal relationships - four of the band members had once made two happily married couples - was chaotic.That concert has been on my mind lately because of a couple of texts sent to Hawke’s Bay Today bemoaning the Mission’s Motown act, and the inability to get an act like the Mac. It brought a sly grin to the face as I remembered back to the debacle that night at Athletic Park.

I know Mick Fleetwood has written about it, but the best reference I could find on the internet was the following passage: “(Lindsey) Buckingham finally succumbed to the curse of Fleetwood Mac guitarists.

"At one show in New Zealand, as (Stevie) Nicks sang Rhiannon he pulled his jacket over his head and began performing a grotesque imitation of her. Christine McVie slapped him. ‘I might have chucked a glass of wine over him, too,’ she says. ‘I didn’t think that was the way to treat a paying audience’."

I suspect that incident came just before the band left the stage to temporarily sort out their differences so the show could go on. Legendary New Zealand bluesman Hammond Gamble and his band, Street Talk, was the support act that night and they had played superbly. As Fleetwood Mac deteriorated in front of our eyes, I remember a chant starting up: “Bring back Street Talk.” I joined in. I gave Hammond a call this week to check that my memory hadn’t faded. It hadn’t - his had. “Are you sure it wasn’t earlier than 1980?” he said down the phone from Auckland. But he remembered the important stuff.

"They were arguing among themselves," he said. "We were told to leave them alone and don’t get near them." Hammond said the gig that followed at Western Springs was a good concert but Wellington was most definitely “meltdown night”. After their team meeting, Fleetwood Mac did return to the stage and Nicks used all of her considerable charm in an attempt to win the crowd over and prove she was the rock goddess we had come to see. Somehow, though, it was forced. And 29 years later as the band, minus the delightful Christine McVie, prepare for their first New Zealand concert since that fateful March, it remains my worst live rock experience.

On that night, despite my liking for their music and lusting for Nicks, personal problems won out over the band’s reputation and ability.

[Sapphire Girl]

Originally Posted by nicole21290

Besides Mick's books, these are the accounts:

Stevie: Up Close New Zealand, 2005 [x]

We all think back to our trip to New Zealand, you know, its an amazing story, it was the fight of all fights, and I think there was thirty thousand people there, that had come form buses all around New Zealand to see us. We were on the last song, of the set, and Lindsey threw his Les Paul guitar at me. I ducked so it didn’t hit me, but i was so mad that he had endangered my life. He then stormed off the stage - and we all stormed off the stage after him. The bodyguards and everyone had to physically separate all of us, and we didn’t do an encore that night, and that is the first and only time we have not done an encore. He was mad at me probably because he… it was okay for me to be the performer that i was when we were a couple, but when we broke up, he hated that fact that i was such a lead singer. And I’m sure when we left New Zealand, we were not even on the same plane.

Rolling Stone, 1997 [x]

That wasn’t the only psychodrama Australia would see; one evening, as Nicks performed her patented witchy dance on “Rhiannon,” twirling under her hooded poncho, Buckingham wrenched his jacket over his head and began dancing in a crude, crowlike imitation of her. “Lindsey was angry - just mad at me,” recalls Nicks. “That wasn’t a one-time thing. Lindsey and I had another huge thing that happened onstage in New Zealand. We had some kind of a fight, and he came over - might have kicked me, did something to me, and we stopped the show. He went off, and we all ran at breakneck speed back to the dressing room to see who could kill him first. Christine got to him first, and then I got to him second - the bodyguards were trying to get in the middle of all of us.”

"I think he’s the only person I ever, ever slapped," says Christine McVie. "I actually might have chucked a glass of wine, too. I just didn’t think it was the way to treat a paying audience. I mean, aside from making a mockery of Stevie like that. Really unprofessional, over the top. Yes, she cried. She cried a lot."

Without quite denying such incidents, Buckingham looks genuinely a bit puzzled to hear them played back. “What I do remember,” he says, “is a show where I purposely sang much of the set out of tune. We got offstage, and everyone was irate, obviously. They were talking about firing me and getting Clapton. Very well founded, because it was not a professional thing to do.”

Mojo, 2003 [x]

In March 1980, playing to 60,000 in Auckland, New Zealand while loaded with whisky (according to Fleetwood), he pulled his jacket over his head in grotesque imitation of Nicks’s drapes and started to ape her twirling moves. Then he ran across the stage and kicked her. Nicks carried on like a trouper.

In the dressing-room, head hung in shame, he was confronted by Christine McVie who slapped him and threw a glass of wine over him: “Don’t you ever do that to this band again! Ever! Is that clear?”

Buckingham can’t remember the events, but says, with bemusement: “Oh, I wouldn’t doubt that I mimicked Stevie on-stage. And kicked her? That could have happened too.”

…

And when Nicks rejoined Fleetwood Mac for the intriguingly Tusk-like Say You Will – he found her ready to forgive – and not forget, but laugh about “the time you threw that Les Paul at me” and such.

And The Daily Fail duly rehashed the story in 2013 [x]

‘I was dancing on stage,’ begins Nicks, now 65, in the salon of her rented Parisian pied-à-terre.

‘It was the Tusk tour, 1980, Auckland, New Zealand. I was doing my thing with my shawl and Lindsey pulled his jacket up over his head and started mimicking me, behind my back.

'I thought, “Well, that’s not working for me.” But I didn’t do anything. This must have infuriated him, because he came over and kicked me.

'And I’d never had anyone be physical with me in my life. Then he picked up a black Les Paul guitar and he just frisbee’d it at me. He missed, I ducked – but he could have killed me.’
I’m not sure that happened,’ Buckingham, 64, states flatly at his gated LA estate.

‘Oh, it happened, all right,’ asserts Christine McVie, 70, drinking in a glorious view of the Thames. ‘I threw a glass of wine in his face.’

CAH’s version in 'Storms'

Four days later I received a phone call from Sara. Things were not good, she told me. As I listened in stunned disbelief she told me about what had just happened in Auckland, New Zealand. At a concert in front of thirty thousand people, Lindsey totally lost it on stage. The show was being simulcast over radio to all of New Zealand, which only added to the horror of what she was telling me. I sank down onto the floor as I listened to her story.

The band had only been playing for a little while, she said, when Lindsey suddenly pulled his jacket over his head - once again mimicking Stevie and her shawl-draped stage persona. He followed her around in grotesque imitation, intentionally playing the wrong parts on his guitar song after song. And then, before anyone could even try to stop him, he started kicking out at her with his heavy cowboy boots, doing his best to land blows on her unprotected legs - and when he did, the kick seemed to stun her.

The audience was also stunned, Sara said. Stevie frantically tried to stay away from his steel-toed cowboy boots and the whole show fell apart. And it all happened in front of thirty thousand fans in the audience and untold thousands listening on their radios.

Afterward, when the band headed back to the dressing room, Christine walked up to Lindsey and slapped him hard across the face as she screamed, “Don’t you dare do that to us again, do you hear me? How dare you do that to the band and Stevie?” She then threw a drink in his face.

A Journalist Writes, 2009 [x]

Then there’s the worst concert ever. You probably wouldn’t guess who gets my top billing in that category in a million years. A clue: they’re coming back in December, and their tickets for a one-off concert go on sale Monday.

That’s right - supergroup Fleetwood Mac.

It was March 1980 in Wellington, and they were riding high on Rumours (1977) and the recently released Tusk. But in true rock fashion that wasn’t all they were riding high on and the state of their personal relationships - four of the band members had once made two happily married couples - was chaotic.That concert has been on my mind lately because of a couple of texts sent to Hawke’s Bay Today bemoaning the Mission’s Motown act, and the inability to get an act like the Mac. It brought a sly grin to the face as I remembered back to the debacle that night at Athletic Park.

I know Mick Fleetwood has written about it, but the best reference I could find on the internet was the following passage: “(Lindsey) Buckingham finally succumbed to the curse of Fleetwood Mac guitarists.

"At one show in New Zealand, as (Stevie) Nicks sang Rhiannon he pulled his jacket over his head and began performing a grotesque imitation of her. Christine McVie slapped him. ‘I might have chucked a glass of wine over him, too,’ she says. ‘I didn’t think that was the way to treat a paying audience’."

I suspect that incident came just before the band left the stage to temporarily sort out their differences so the show could go on. Legendary New Zealand bluesman Hammond Gamble and his band, Street Talk, was the support act that night and they had played superbly. As Fleetwood Mac deteriorated in front of our eyes, I remember a chant starting up: “Bring back Street Talk.” I joined in. I gave Hammond a call this week to check that my memory hadn’t faded. It hadn’t - his had. “Are you sure it wasn’t earlier than 1980?” he said down the phone from Auckland. But he remembered the important stuff.

"They were arguing among themselves," he said. "We were told to leave them alone and don’t get near them." Hammond said the gig that followed at Western Springs was a good concert but Wellington was most definitely “meltdown night”. After their team meeting, Fleetwood Mac did return to the stage and Nicks used all of her considerable charm in an attempt to win the crowd over and prove she was the rock goddess we had come to see. Somehow, though, it was forced. And 29 years later as the band, minus the delightful Christine McVie, prepare for their first New Zealand concert since that fateful March, it remains my worst live rock experience.

On that night, despite my liking for their music and lusting for Nicks, personal problems won out over the band’s reputation and ability.

I remember reading anything and everything about Fleetwood Mac in all sorts of publications as early as May 1977. Surely what was alleged to have transpired at that show would have been in Rolling Stone's Random Notes section in either March or April 1980.

Doesn't anyone have a review of this show that was in the local paper the next day?

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by Sapphire Girl

I remember reading anything and everything about Fleetwood Mac in all sorts of publications as early as May 1977. Surely what was alleged to have transpired at that show would have been in Rolling Stone's Random Notes section in either March or April 1980.

Doesn't anyone have a review of this show that was in the local paper the next day?

Yes, we have often remarked that it's strange that there was not a more contemporaneous report of the incident. I think they all remember Christine throwing a drink at Lindsey more than they remember what Lindsey did -- although he obviously did something. And it may not have been obvious to the local audience that anything was amiss on stage at all, so if there was a review in the paper after the show, it may not have said anything about it.

Michele

[kara]

Originally Posted by SmileAtYou

I happily checked Storms out from my public library, pleased that I didn't have to spend my $$$....

I agree with everyone's comments, it was a trashy fun read...

until the parts about Lindsey's seizures.... omg that section of the book was sooo boring and dramatic and looooong.... I never finished the book because I could not get past those boring parts!

I know everyone has their own opinions, but I enjoyed reading the entire book. When she talks about Lindsay seizures it makes me think of me because I also have them. Given that, I do take somewhat of offense to that.

[HomerMcvie]

I have seizures when people can't spell LindsEy. That is all.

[kara]

Originally Posted by HomerMcvie

I have seizures when people can't spell LindsEy. That is all.

I didn't mean to miss spell his name. I use voiceover screen reader's dictation sometimes, which I did yesterday. I am blind, and that is why I did it. Sorry.

[singertobe]

I haven't read the whole book yet. But so far from what Carol has described Stevie sounds like a real snob. I was quite shocked. It seemed so unlike her. Did anyone else get that vibe?