Memories of early Mac

[windjammer]

As a fairly new (but rather elderly) member of the Peter Green Forum I thought that you folks might be interested in my early memories of Fleetwood Mac. In 1967 and 1968 I used to frequent the Thames Hotel in Windsor, where every Wednesday night in the side room the blues bands of the day used to play. The likes of John Mayall (Mick Taylor era), Savoy Brown, Ten Years After, Chicken Shack etc were regulars. Not forgetting the mighty Mac, these were the days of the 4 piece, Greeny, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie and Jeremy Spencer, before Danny Kirwan joined. Here are the notes from my diary of that era.
Jan 31st 1968
"In the evening I went to the Thames Hotel where I saw Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac. They were good, hard well played blues. Also 4 rock numbers with McVie raving all over the floor, kneeling, crawling etc. They fooled around between numbers and occasionally threatened to do Cream, Hendrix or Mayall numbers. They would start and then Fleetwood would wreck his drums. When they played properly they played well, little Jeremy Spencer good on slide guitar and Peter Green good on lead. Quite a few 4 letter words as well"
Feb 28th 1968
"Saw Peter Green and co at the Thames Hotel again.Really superb, brilliant, it really got thru' to me. No fooling around or rock numbers as on Jan 31st, no obscenities either. Peter Green did some slow moving blues with brilliant sympathetic guitar work from him. Jeremy Spencer great on slide. Slower numbers all round, best gig I've seen".
March 27th 1968
"Fleetwood Mac again, the group were superb as usual. Jeremy Spencer was supposed to have been sick before the gig so he wasn't feeling too grand but you wouldn't have known it, he still managed 1 or 2 dubious comments! Jeremy and Peter great guitarists while John and Mick provide a good solid backing".
This sums up the Mac of those days, great music and a very ribald sense of humour, great for a 19 year old with a few pints inside him!
I saw the Splinter Group in Reading a few years back, when they toured with John Mayall, while it was great to see Peter back on stage after all his troubles, the group did seem to be more of the Nigel Watson Group. We all know that Nigel was a great help to Peter but eventually that help seemed to suffocate him. The albums slowly went down hill, the excellent "Destiny Road" eventually ending with the mediocre "Cold 100". Hopefully Peter can find someone to encourage him and help with HIS music. I was playing some of his late 70s and early 80s stuff today and contrary to some reviews there is some good stuff on there. While he can never be the Green God of the Mac days, a mixture of Mac classics and his later solo stuff would let us see the TRUE Greeny.
Thanks for all the info on his situation today, let's hope it's resolved soon.

[amber]

Amazing. Thank you for sharing. And welcome It was quite a thing to read someone's diary pages from the nights of them playing...

[ThePenguin]

Windjammer, Thank you so much for sharing those memories. How incredible to have seen them back then and to have kept such a good record of it! One question, in the first show, why was John McVie 'all over the floor'-- too much booze?

Also as a side note, the Thames Hotel is somewhat significant as it's where John first asked Chris out to dinner. (I'll assume he wasn't crawling around the floor that night.)

-Lis

[sharksfan2000]

What a way to introduce yourself to the forum - fantastic notes, windjammer!!

You really should post these on the "Pre-Rumours" forum as well - I think more people tend to check out that forum, and it's certainly relevant. Welcome to the Ledge, and hope to hear more of your memories of early Mac.

[Gwillaker]

Very interesting stuff! Thanks a lot for posting that, its always great to hear some real memories!