The Dance issues?

[Ensorcled]

While reading some articles about Christine's comeback I saw a few articles mention the band having issues during The Dance Era. Backstage fighting etc...Anyone have details about what was happening during this time?

[nicole21290]

Not sure about the backstage fighting but certainly, I don't think Christine was in the happiest place that tour, tbh. And this was happening at the time, it seems, which may have been a little bit of a sticky situation...

He fell for her again, she watched it happen
Every day-- day by day
But more important-- night by night
She watched it all come into play
He held her hands, she listened to what he had to say

Thrown down... like a barricade
Maybe now he could prove to her
That he could be good for her
And they should be together

[Ensorcled]

Not sure about the backstage fighting but certainly, I don't think Christine was in the happiest place that tour, tbh. And this was happening at the time, it seems, which may have been a little bit of a sticky situation...

He fell for her again, she watched it happen
Every day-- day by day
But more important-- night by night
She watched it all come into play
He held her hands, she listened to what he had to say

Thrown down... like a barricade
Maybe now he could prove to her
That he could be good for her
And they should be together

I honestly thought that was just wishful thinking on the part of fans. I never thought it was true. Have they spoken about it? I'm obsessed now...need to do some googling.

[nicole21290]

I honestly thought that was just wishful thinking on the part of fans. I never thought it was true. Have they spoken about it? I'm obsessed now...need to do some googling.

That's one way of looking at it, especially as he was with Kristen at the time. She, of course, didn't have anyone...

Sandra Bernhard & Kurt Loder talk about Stevie, December 1997

Sandra: You know, Stevie’s a little fragile after the tour and I’m sure a little lonely, you know.

Kurt: Probably. Well, don’t you think you has some, like, hot guy?

Sandra: No, she told me backstage - she told me and Anna Sway that, um, Lindsey Buckingham said “Are you not seeing anybody at all?” She goes “No, I can’t. There’s no way I can go on tour with you and be seeing anybody. I couldn’t have anybody in my life.” I was like -

Kurt: Woah.

Sandra: - let’s sit down with a big cup of Chinese tea and pour it, Stevie, because you are going to that magic place.

As for the 'wishful thinking', this at least, has basis in fact. Stevie takes her songs from her journals and Destiny Rules makes it fairly clear this isn't some fictitious song. Of course, it COULD be written about a different period. It isn't 'helped' by more than one report from fans that Lindsey was sighted on her solo tour the very next year, tbh...

S: Well, actually, this song was written on the last Fleetwood Mac tour, on The Dance tour, and it was really, in it's own kinda strange way, written about my relationship with Lindsey and how the barricades of time have always gotten in our way. You know, at some point in life, you start write on these things philosophically. And so, Lindsey and I are like, you know, amazed that we can actually write stuff that is about each other and was about each other and means stuff to us now.

L: It's odd sitting here singing all this stuff about myself, you know. It's, uh, you sort of learn to disassociate and to sort of be 'professional' about it but, you know, it's pretty amazing. All this time later, that there would still be those subjects being dealt with in a really deep manner.

L: When you sing 'and now you're going home', who are you talking about?
S: I'm talking to you.

L: I just thought it was, because it's not as abstract as what Bob Dylan would write in those situations. It's not a, it's a fairly literal narrative.

The waiting outside the door and dedicating her pain to him is one of my favourite parts, if only because I find this from over a decade later, quite interesting, especially as it's a song by Lindsey about his wife.

"And the same old dream, she was hiding outside my door
She used to come from time to time but not any more"

[bombaysaffires]

and then Kristen got pregnant, and well….. that door shut permanently.

I can't even imagine what that conversation was like when he told her….

[nicole21290]

and then Kristen got pregnant, and well….. that door shut permanently.

I can't even imagine what that conversation was like when he told her….

"A decision no one made
And now you're going home"

as many like to interpret it. Stevie did say that it was when his first child was born that she knew it was over for good. Honestly, though, the door shut permanently? I think they left it a bit ajar, at the VERY least emotionally, judging by certain songs of theirs, lol. Wonder if they've told Kristen that they'll probably both move back to San Jose one day because they miss it so much, haha. Another house (or more) to decorate, yay!

[bombaysaffires]

well, shut in terms of ever hooking up again.

now that that door is closed, it seems like that has allowed them to really process everything that's gone between them all these years.

I have to imagine, at least on some level, seeing him with his family made her think about that parallel universe where he has all that with her. And she could have…. he wasn't the one who ended it. No regrets, maybe, but certainly a fair bit of what-if on her part, at least for a while there.

I think on one hand he feels he's come out on top and life worked out well for him after many years of being still messed up over her. But I think the side of him that loves her (not IN LOVE but loves her as a part of his life forever now) kind of worries about her… being alone, having given everything else up for her career. At some point, not that far away now, they won't be touring, and they'll have health issues, and become dependent and frail, and….. he has a younger wife and his kids. She has the family she's built around her, but…. I think he'll worry about her a lot (and vice versa).

[michelej1]

I honestly thought that was just wishful thinking on the part of fans. I never thought it was true. Have they spoken about it? I'm obsessed now...need to do some googling.

No, they haven't publicly spoken of it. It's fan speculation, bolstered by their respective song lyrics -- and cute video from before The Dance -- wherein Lindsey looks quite flirtatious.

Michele

[nicole21290]

I have to imagine, at least on some level, seeing him with his family made her think about that parallel universe where he has all that with her. And she could have…. he wasn't the one who ended it. No regrets, maybe, but certainly a fair bit of what-if on her part, at least for a while there.

Well, you're not wrong about that. How often does she admit a mistake? Yeah, I thought so. And it's prompted by seeing him with his children. Even on the Dance tour, she discusses feeling physically sick seeing him with another woman in the breakfast room and that 'it's exactly the same'.

“Now I just adore him,” says Nicks, with ravishing candour. “He is my love. My first love and my love for all time. But we can’t ever be together. He has a lovely wife, Kristen, who I really like, and they are expecting their third child. The way he is with his children just knocks me out. I look at him now and just go, Oh, Stevie, you made a mistake!” She leans forward. “But when we go on-stage together we are able to experience our love affair again - and again and again! For two and a half hours, four times a week…There isn’t really anybody in my life - it wouldn’t be good for me now anyway, I’m always away. But when hard times come over the next 20 or 30 years, when people we love die, he’ll be the first person I’ll call. Knowing that now, I think he has been able to let go of all the nasty things that happened and realize that, like I said to him, Lindsey, you’ll always have me. I’m always a phone call away. So you get it all.”

I think on one hand he feels he's come out on top and life worked out well for him after many years of being still messed up over her. But I think the side of him that loves her (not IN LOVE but loves her as a part of his life forever now) kind of worries about her… being alone, having given everything else up for her career. At some point, not that far away now, they won't be touring, and they'll have health issues, and become dependent and frail, and….. he has a younger wife and his kids. She has the family she's built around her, but…. I think he'll worry about her a lot (and vice versa).

"It all worked out okay. Or not." ;)

I also think there is concern, perfectly expressed in a song like Under The Skin. I find it darling. Every tour they've done his priority stated has pretty much been working on the relationship, making things easier for her, etc.

No, they haven't publicly spoken of it. It's fan speculation, bolstered by their respective song lyrics -- and cute video from before The Dance -- wherein Lindsey looks quite flirtatious.

Michele

QUITE!? He's like an enamoured schoolboy, lol.

http://i1312.photobucket.com/albums/t529/nicolebarker1990/dance1_zpsd827ad11.gif

http://i1312.photobucket.com/albums/t529/nicolebarker1990/dance2_zpsf474108e.gif

http://i1312.photobucket.com/albums/t529/nicolebarker1990/dance3_zps7a9d7e60.gif

http://i1312.photobucket.com/albums/t529/nicolebarker1990/dance4_zps7bdfbf90.gif

"HeartS will break with choices WE must make / So sleep and dream of me"

"Now on the road we’ve had many really good talks. We’ve know each other most of our lives and yet we’re still trying to figure out what’s going on. Obviously, a lot of love as a subtext. But where is that love? How do we get in touch with any of that? For all of us, the decisions we make now are going to determine how we are as people until we die. Stevie and I are trying to look at it…with care."

[bethelblues]

So how does this all have to do with Christine? Do we think she was fed up with the drama and thought it was ridiculous, happening again with Stevie and Lindsey? Or was it just the Lindsey Grammy meltdown...lol

[StreetAngel86]

Not sure about the backstage fighting but certainly, I don't think Christine was in the happiest place that tour, tbh. And this was happening at the time, it seems, which may have been a little bit of a sticky situation...


understatement of the millennium :lol:

imma call is a sticky SWEET sad situation :p

just remember, when one of them dies, the other is going to be alone on a bed :lol:
not her bed. not his bed. *a* bed ... so it might be back in San Jose lol

[nicole21290]

So how does this all have to do with Christine? Do we think she was fed up with the drama and thought it was ridiculous, happening again with Stevie and Lindsey? Or was it just the Lindsey Grammy meltdown...lol

Well, I certainly don't think whatever the hell was happening with SnL would've helped the situation but I believe she primarily was having problems at that point with touring/flying, and so on. Also I think was getting divorced around that time, IIRC. You just get fed up at a certain point and I think she'd reached it.

understatement of the millennium :lol:

imma call is a sticky SWEET sad situation :p

just remember, when one of them dies, the other is going to be alone on a bed :lol:
not her bed. not his bed. *a* bed ... so it might be back in San Jose lol

Understatement is fun! Ha, well, quite. As Lindsey said, by 1997, it was no longer bittersweet, just sweet. He was seeing the girl who used to live with again, if you'll recall. :D

Hahahahaha. She wasn't quite specific enough with that quote, was she? Maybe they can bring back a bed from Wales when they go there together and rent a house and record a second Buckingham Nicks album. That would have nice memories, lol.

1997 was an interesting year though, for sure. She even had marriage on the mind.

"Even if Lindsey and I were to totally fall in love again, get married, and get divorced, we would never let it go to that negative place again. We’re just too wise now."

"Maybe when Lindsey and I are 60 years old, we’ll look around and say, ‘You know what, there just isn’t anybody better around. Maybe we’ll just get married or something.’ But, Lindsey and I are becoming really good friends again. It’s really nice. I don’t think we were all that good of friends before."

Which is funny considering SHE was the one vehemently saying only over her dead body would they get together again, while Lindsey was all:

"I think," says Buckingham, "some people are probably getting the impression that we are back together or something along those lines. Which is certainly not true. Not yet, anyway. You never know. I don't foresee that at all. But, you know, things . . ."

[Ulpian]

So how does this all have to do with Christine? Do we think she was fed up with the drama and thought it was ridiculous, happening again with Stevie and Lindsey? Or was it just the Lindsey Grammy meltdown...lol

I always thought that the lyrics from Stevie's 'Fall from Grace' were about The Dance and about the difficulties they had at the time. I think it's aimed particularly at Christine, and the sense that she abandoned Stevie having not really appreciated the significance of the reunion and wanting to get away from the whole thing so quickly.

[StreetAngel86]

"I think," says Buckingham, "some people are probably getting the impression that we are back together or something along those lines. Which is certainly not true. Not yet, anyway. You never know. I don't foresee that at all. But, you know, things . . ."

WHO even says that :lol:
he kind of seems to expect that they will
even though he then says no they won't ever
and then oh well maybe we will

make up your mind Bucky :p

FFG about Chris ... wow never thought about that.
Stevie said it was about Lindsey though.
but everything's always about Lindsey

[nicole21290]

I always thought that the lyrics from Stevie's 'Fall from Grace' were about The Dance and about the difficulties they had at the time. I think it's aimed particularly at Christine, and the sense that she abandoned Stevie having not really appreciated the significance of the reunion and wanting to get away from the whole thing so quickly.

She began saying it was about the band (=Lindsey) but eventually in 2005/2009 admitted it was a song about Lindsey specifically. I don't think it's aimed at Chris but I think she may be in there.

2001

“Fall From Grace is really about Fleetwood Mac onstage— that’s always mostly going to be about me and Lindsey, just about our energy and what a trip it is to be in Fleetwood Mac and walk up there onstage. It’s just, it’s grand, you know? It’s a very grand thing. It’s nothing like your solo career. “

September 23rd 2001 [Nashville]

Our flight was under an hour tonight, back here to the rooms where the chorus to “Fall From Grace” was written. They have re-done the rooms~
They are nice…

2005 (Jim Ladd interview)

“Fall From Grace was a formal full-on poem…you know ‘maybe I worked this hard just to make sure you survive’…this was something.. and it doesn’t really matter, of course, I wrote that poem about Lindsey and Lindsey knows that and he doesn’t care. He loves being inspirational and he is and I am to him. So we laugh about that. So I write these really really heavy poems. I think I wrote most of that when we were out on the road on The Dance.”

2009 (Larry Flick interview)

"Angry song. Probably my angriest song ever. But, it has…it’s angry like ‘don’t jump off that cliff, don’t be an idiot.’ But, at the same time it’s like ‘because I don’t want you to be hurt.’ [Interviewer: blah, blah, blah]

"No, that song’s about Lindsey. Oh yeah. That’s after the Dance. I wrote that in 1998, 1998-99 that’s right after the Dance." [Interviewer: So, he still knows the buttons to push.] "Oh yeah, definitely. And he tries not to push them so much now because I really don’t like it and I don’t want to be angry with him now. But he knows how to get to me. But, I’m only saving him in that song." [Stevie quotes song, forgetting some words]

“But it basically says, you know as angry as I am at you, I’m really only trying to help you. So at the end when it comes to the end it basically turns the whole thing around. Almost like he does on Never Going Back Again. when he says you know, “I”m never going back again” and blah blah blah but then he says ‘but come around and see me again.’ So Fall From Grace is kinda like that.”

[Danielle]

Didn't Stevie say that things got really weird when they didn't get a certain award for The Dance (Grammy?) and that upset Christine? I mean, not the fact that they didn't win but the mood it caused. Or am I crazy and inventing things?

[welcomechris]

Didn't Stevie say that things got really weird when they didn't get a certain award for The Dance (Grammy?) and that upset Christine? I mean, not the fact that they didn't win but the mood it caused. Or am I crazy and inventing things?

They didn't win album of the year and Lindsey got super mad

[nicole21290]

Didn't Stevie say that things got really weird when they didn't get a certain award for The Dance (Grammy?) and that upset Christine? I mean, not the fact that they didn't win but the mood it caused. Or am I crazy and inventing things?

Not at all crazy! From her Q&A at the IYD premiere in The Hamptons. It's after midnight so I've just done a quick transcript and haven't checked it over. Hopefully this is correct...

Backstage you were saying you have her piano now because she has retired officially -

Yep.

Can you give me any theory about why she retired and will she ever come back and, like she's such an incredible songwriter, I, I-

I think that, you know what, I, Chris started to get panic attacks in the last couple of years where she didn't want to fly. And when you tour like Fleetwood Mac tours, you can't - we, the band, can't go on a bus because we, we'd be too tired to go onstage. So she got really afraid of flying and, um, she'd been doing this since she was 14. I mean, I started, you know, in my twenties. So since she was 14, she'd been in a band and, uh, after The Dance we went to the Grammys. And, um, it wasn't - we didn't win the Grammy. Which we wanted to win really a lot for The Dance. And Lindsey got kinda mad. And, um, uh, she wasn't really happy with that situation. And basically when it was all over and everyone had gone home and she and I were, uh, doing some press, she said to me 'I quit'. And I'm, um, and I looked at her like 'Really?' Because we had done forty shows, we hadn't left the United States; we could've done, you know, two months in Australia, couple of months in Europe, we could've toured the whole world. We could've been out for another year. And, which would've been multi-million dollars. And so I said 'Reallly?' And she said 'Really'. And the look in her eyes was like when somebody breaks up with you and you know they're not kidding. And you know that there's no reason for you to go but. So I said 'Now? You're done?' and she said 'I'm done'. And I said 'Well, alright. Who's telling them, me or you?' And she said 'No, I'll tell them'. So the band basically broke up for - until the, until the, uh -

Annoucement.

Until we went back together to do, uh, Say You Will.

Right.

We really had to think for several many years whether or not we were going to continue without her. Or if we could. And I think the only reason that we could continue without her was because the stage itself still looked very similar. Because you had crazy Mick in the middle and Lindsey here and me here and John here and the only thing that was missing was Chris who never wanted to be in the spotlight anyway. So she was way over the side behind her big, huge Hammond Organ. And that's how she wanted it. She wanted - Chris always wanted to be one of the musicians. She never had any want to walk out there and be center stage. So because of that we could pretty much replicate the show without her. Otherwise, we wouldn't have been able to continue.

[Danielle]

Thank you Nicole! To think that I just re-watched that last week and had already kind of forgotten. I really am an old lady. :D

[michelej1]

I think Christine left because she was tired of touring and having anxiety attacks.

Of course, I can fantasize other scenarios. Like when Christine wrote that she's "caught in the middle of a lousy love affair" she could have been talking about being in between SnL, rather than being in a bad love affair herself.

Michele

[SteveMacD]

I think Christine left because she was tired of touring and having anxiety attacks.
It's not like she JUST quit in 1998.

She initially quit touring in 1990, after her father died, and made it pretty clear she was done with Fleetwood Mac with her "Time" songs (especially "Hollywood" and "All Over Again"). I always thought of "The Dance" as her way of leaving the band while it was on top. She's said in recent interviews that she made it clear that it was going to be her last tour with the band. Her dedication of "Songbird" to the others on the last night of the tour made it clear she was done. I don't get how Stevie (or anybody remotely paying attention) was surprised.