Dance Appreciation Thread

[chiliD]

Originally Posted by mylittledemon

Hey CHILId...didnt they do like 7 or 8 songs on the SYW tour from that album...?

If their material was supposedly the "best ever", don't you think they would've played 10-11? Of an 18 song album, that's NOT asking a lot.

How many of those "7 or 8" tunes did they play once or twice then they disappeared from the set the rest of the tour?

The show I saw, they played 5. "Say You Will", "Peacekeeper", "Come", "Say Goodbye" & "Goodbye Baby".

They did 7 from Rumours...that album had 12 songs (counting "Silver Springs") with 4 from a songwriter no longer in the band...and they STILL did 7 songs from it. 58% of the album.

So, if their thinking was that the SYW material was BETTER than Rumours, then why play only 28% of the better album and 58% of the "lesser" album??

[mylittledemon]

Originally Posted by chiliD

If their material was supposedly the "best ever", don't you think they would've played 10-11? Of an 18 song album, that's NOT asking a lot.

How many of those "7 or 8" tunes did they play once or twice then they disappeared from the set the rest of the tour?

The show I saw, they played 5. "Say You Will", "Peacekeeper", "Come", "Say Goodbye" & "Goodbye Baby".

They did 7 from Rumours...that album had 12 songs (counting "Silver Springs") with 4 from a songwriter no longer in the band...and they STILL did 7 songs from it. 58% of the album.

So, if their thinking was that the SYW material was BETTER than Rumours, then why play only 28% of the better album and 58% of the "lesser" album??

Point taken, I'm just arguing that out of their extensive catalogue of songs they gave a good proportion of the set to SYW. Out of the 3 shows I saw, 2 of them they did Peacekeeper, Say You Will, Come, Whats the World Coming To, Say Goodbye, Goodbye Baby...and then on the 3rd show, 2nd leg of the tour "Red Rover" made it in there. I think they did Destiny Rules & Running Thru the Garden on numerous occasions too. I think they should have included Bleed to Love Her as well. Great song.

You, of all people, being a touring musician know that you have to include the old string of material for the non-hardcore-fans. Stuff like Eyes of the World, Red Rover, and I'm Know I'm Not Wrong got put in there for "us".

[ReFleetwoodMac]

Originally Posted by chiliD

If their material was supposedly the "best ever", don't you think they would've played 10-11? Of an 18 song album, that's NOT asking a lot.

How many of those "7 or 8" tunes did they play once or twice then they disappeared from the set the rest of the tour?

The show I saw, they played 5. "Say You Will", "Peacekeeper", "Come", "Say Goodbye" & "Goodbye Baby".

They did 7 from Rumours...that album had 12 songs (counting "Silver Springs") with 4 from a songwriter no longer in the band...and they STILL did 7 songs from it. 58% of the album.

So, if their thinking was that the SYW material was BETTER than Rumours, then why play only 28% of the better album and 58% of the "lesser" album??

Granted they could have easily balanced it out a bit better, but the reason is that obligation to the fans that they always talk about. The fans come to hear the Rumours stuff. You talk like the band wants to play the old stuff and doesn't want to play the new stuff. I think it has a lot more to do with their complete obedience to casual fans.

[Brwn_eyes0511]

Originally Posted by mylittledemon

Stuff like Eyes of the World, Red Rover, and I'm Know I'm Not Wrong got put in there for "us".

They should have left Don't Stop OUT...THAT would have been for ME!

[chiliD]

Originally Posted by mylittledemon

You, of all people, being a touring musician know that you have to include the old string of material for the non-hardcore-fans.

Not necessarily. Neil Young, for example. Bob Dylan, for another. Allman Bros Band, a third. Little Feat, as yet a fourth. and, the mother of all "not catering to the audience" set list bands...the Grateful Dead.

[mylittledemon]

Originally Posted by chiliD

Not necessarily. Neil Young, for example. Bob Dylan, for another. Allman Bros Band, a third. Little Feat, as yet a fourth. and, the mother of all "not catering to the audience" set list bands...the Grateful Dead.

And none of those bands/artists sell close to what Fleetwood Mac does in terms of ticket sales. Granted playing the shows the way they do is "safe," but if it pulls in some new 13 year old fan who recognizes "Dreams" or "Tusk," then that's the pay off from the sacrifice.

[dontlookdown]

it's funny to me how people think of The Dance and "look back" in a nostalgic way. it still feels relatively new to me.
for me it was sort of like answered prayers. and i don't pray much.
i'll never forget how i reacted when i saw the small article in the LA Times announcing that Lindsey Buckingham was reuniting with the bad for a few shows on a soundstage in LA. of course my first thought was how do i get tickets. but a part of me also worried that they wouldn't be able to pull it off.
i remember hanging on every note as i watched it on PBS (or was it VH1) and breathing a sigh of relief as each performance was a slam dunk.
although - in hind sight, most of christine's songs feel really phoned in.
i was surprised how great stevie sounded (and looked). you could tell she worked really hard for those shows. she had something to prove and she certainly did so - and then some. silver springs blew me a way as did dreams.
considering all they were up against, i think the album is pretty spectacular.
they redeemed themselves with this record and gained a lot of credibility that had been lost with Behind The Mask and Time (and some of Stevie's solo work).
Remember how dreadful the peformance was at Clinton's inauguration?
that was really embarassing...
So nice to have them back.

[Jyqm]

Originally Posted by JazmenFlowers

this doesn't make sense to me.

keep the hits and have wildcards? isn't that what they did? played the hits and threw in Beautiful Child and Sara and Blue Letter, etc.

No. The argument that was made in the older thread was that the reason Fleetwood Mac plays its stagnant hit parade every night is because if they didn't, the casual fans would revolt. I said that nobody was saying FM needed to completely do away with all of their hits - but there's no reason to play so many of them, every single night. My suggestion was that the band start mixing up their setlist from night to night by simply rotating some of the big hits out - instead of playing both "Go Your Own Way" AND "Tusk" every night, just play one or the other. Ditto "Rhiannon"/"Silver Springs." Ditto "Gypsy"/"Dreams." Ditto "Second Hand News"/"Never Going Back Again." This way you've still got four out of those eight getting played every night, and now you've got four "wildcard" spots to start spicing things up.

Then I suggested, what the hell, let's just start swapping out everything in the setlist except "Don't Stop." Instead of "The Chain," play "Monday Morning" sometimes. Instead of "Landslide," do a "Crystal" duet. Instead of "Stand Back," do SDMHA with Lindsey on Petty's vocals. And so on.

In the end, I came up with two almost totally different potential Say You Will tour setlists that contained plenty of hits for the casual fans, and plenty of "Holy ****!" moments for us. If they had swapped out these setlists every other night, or started mixing and matching, it would have been a very exciting and fun tour:

Setlist #1:
The Chain/Angel/I Know I'm Not Wrong/Peacekeeper/Never Going Back Again/Say You Will/Book Of Love/Silver Springs/Come/Dreams/Trouble/Landslide/Say Goodbye/Red Rover/Beautiful Child/Gold Dust Woman/Tango In The Night/What Makes You Think You're The One/Running Through The Garden/Stop Draggin' My Heart Around/Tusk//Frozen Love/Don't Stop/Goodbye Baby

Setlist #2:
Monday Morning/Sara/Eyes Of The World/Miranda/Second Hand News/Thrown Down/The Ledge/Rhiannon/Murrow/Gypsy/Big Love/Crystal/Steal Your Heart Away/What's The World Coming To/Storms/Seven Wonders/I'm So Afraid/Blue Letter/Sisters Of The Moon/Stand Back/Go Your Own Way//World Turning/Don't Stop/Everybody Finds Out

[Jyqm]

Originally Posted by mylittledemon

Hey CHILId...didnt they do like 7 or 8 songs on the SYW tour from that album...? That's not too bad.

They played six a night, which in itself isn't all that bad, but it was the same six every night. We'll call it seven since "Red Rover" replaced WTWCT for the second leg. "Destiny Rules" and "Running Through The Garden," however, don't count, having been played no more than two or three times and then dropped like yesterday's breakfast.

But even if you do count those two, at the end of a nearly two year tour, half of the new album - nine songs! - including two so-called "singles"! - were never played. That's just pitiful.

Most bands that have that kind of catalogue don't include more than 3 songs from their "newer" albums.

That's the stereotype, but it's an exaggeration, and it's not true in a lot of cases. There are people out there with much more impressive catalogues than BN-Fleetwood Mac's who mix things up and play new material a whole lot more than they do.

[Jyqm]

Originally Posted by mylittledemon

You, of all people, being a touring musician know that you have to include the old string of material for the non-hardcore-fans. Stuff like Eyes of the World, Red Rover, and I'm Know I'm Not Wrong got put in there for "us".

And this is why Fleetwood Mac don't bother to mix things up. They know that if they throw in one or two bones, most of the big fans will be incredibly grateful just to have something - anything - to chew on. "We'll be taking a short reprieve from the Rumours hit parade right now to play three songs out of twenty-four for our big fans who have supported us all these years! They mean so much to us, we thought we'd dedicate twelve percent of the concert to them!"

[Boots]

Originally Posted by mylittledemon

I agree..but she can still sing "Sara" pretty well. They might not be able to pull off "That's Alright" or "Book of Love" with what's left of their vocal range. Take "2nd Hand News" for example...I HATE the Say You Will tour version of that. It's wretched. I was very pleased when they threw "Eyes of of the World" and "Sara" into the mix. I am keeping my fingers crossed that they do "Oh Well" again on the next tour instead of "World Turning."

You're so right about "2nd Hand News"!! I did see the performance of that song on DVD, and it was pretty disappointing.

Good point, mylittledemon. Perhaps they can't pull off the same songs that they used to sing so well on record.

[Brwn_eyes0511]

Originally Posted by dontlookdown

although - in hind sight, most of christine's songs feel really phoned in.

[mylittledemon]

Originally Posted by Boots

Good point, mylittledemon. Perhaps they can't pull off the same songs that they used to sing so well on record.

Very rarely do I garner praise of any kind around here. Well ok...maybe a little. That's what I'm here for! And booty.

ROFL j/k

[Jyqm]

Originally Posted by mylittledemon

And none of those bands/artists sell close to what Fleetwood Mac does in terms of ticket sales.

You know who sells a hell of a lot more concert tickets than Fleetwood Mac? Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Over the course of the Rising tour in 2002 and 2003, they played well over a hundred shows in arenas, stadiums and baseball parks. They played 150 different songs on that tour, including every song off The Rising. Of those 150 songs, 31 were covers, and only 44 were played just once. There were staples which were played on most nights (and of the 8 songs which were performed at every show, 6 were from The Rising - the other two were "Born To Run" and "Badlands"), but the setlist changed substantially from show to show, especially if there were multiple nights in the same city.

You want stats?

In 2003, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band played 47 shows and grossed $115.9 million. Fleetwood Mac played 71 shows, 51% more than Bruce. They grossed $69 million, 40% less than Bruce.

Granted playing the shows the way they do is "safe," but if it pulls in some new 13 year old fan who recognizes "Dreams" or "Tusk," then that's the pay off from the sacrifice.

At the prices Fleetwood Mac charges, you think they're trying to lure in new teenage fans? You think many teenagers are going to these concerts at those prices?

I honestly do not understand the desire some people have to defend the band on this level. They play the same stale setlist every night because they don't really care enough to change it up and because they (erroneously) think if they do, they'll lose concertgoers (i.e., cash). They don't do it out of generosity to casual fans, they don't do it to bring in new fans. They do it because they're greedy and lazy. End of story.

[mylittledemon]

Originally Posted by Jyqm

You know who sells a hell of a lot more concert tickets than Fleetwood Mac? Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

At the prices Fleetwood Mac charges, you think they're trying to lure in new teenage fans? You think many teenagers are going to these concerts at those prices?

I honestly do not understand the desire some people have to defend the band on this level.

#1 I think Springsteen appeals to a wider audience than Fleetwood Mac does...so that could account for the larger crowds. I'm also under the impression that they tour a helluva' lot less than Fleetwood Mac does. Weren't the "broken up" for a long time?

#2 I didnt say they were trying to lure in new fans...but if some kid recognizes and old song, well guess what, then they're pushing old catalog material as well as the new CD. I was implying that it was about money.

#3 Hey, I like Fleetwood Mac. They're my favorite band. I'm not entirely happy with the set list either...but there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. Other than to boycott, and simply not go to shows. Which I wont do, because some Fleetwood Mac is better than none.