Stevie took Rick out on the Street Angel Tour so I would think out of loyalty she would've pushed for him to be in the 97 reunion.

Mick took Bekka out on two tours. Mick and John both recorded Billy’s songs on their solo project and put him back in the band for a tour.

Bekka and Billy went on Zoo Tours, right?

It would have been nothing. The spectacle around The Dance was pretty earth shattering at the time and the story was all around how it was the first time in 15 years that this specific incarnation of the band was playing together (live). It's hard to think now given how much media has changed, but they were EVERYWHERE in 1997. It was massive. They crossed generations - it wasn't just the boomers that got reinterested. Their kids (I was 16 when it was filmed) jumped on board. That concert was EVERYWHERE on TV that fall. In the days before social media and the internet being very usable, it was incredible how much that reunion was in your face. That tour could have gone on a lot more and likely continued to sell out across the world throughout 1998 if Christine didn't leave. And the template was surely Hell Freezes Over. The difference was with FM, you need the "couple drama" on stage to really sell it. You needed the five with their history of breakups and heartache and Stevie sleeping with Mick and Lindsey....all of that had to be there. Rick and Billy would have been blahsville as far as the soap opera aspect, not to mention their own songs with Fleetwood Mac were limited and relatively unknown. Stevie singing Silver Springs to Billy would have been beyond lame. For example, her harmonizing on GYOW while staring down Neil Finn was just...what?

The Lindsey/Stevie crap that we now lament was a huge piece of the sales pitch. Landslide with just the two of them. Silver Springs being unearthed in a legendary way and that clip of her singing to him at the end...a reunion with the 1987-90 band would have gone nowhere. Maybe if Behind the Mask was popular, but it wasn't. There's no way that reunion would have been 1/10th as successful as The Dance.

Stevie and Rick did have the flirting acting onstage, with their heads touching, and I think she did dance over by Billy's microphone. So there was chemistry.

Not at all. There was no demand for that reunion and only a normal market for a usual tour with the Mac name. Nicks would have put them into arenas (instead of spas, county fairs, and supermarket parking lots). Otherwise, no MTV or TV shows, no magazine covers, no Billboard #1, no adulation from other pop stars — and certainly no Grammy or Hall of Fame nominations.

Yep. As I recall, when VH1 did their Behind the Music show on FM, they completely skipped the years 1988-1995 and made it sound like Behind the Mask and Time never existed, or that Rick, Billy, Bekka, and Dave had never been in FM.

How many people walked away after a Mac or Nicks show gushing, “I just loved the way Stevie and Rick flirted!”?

That’s a nonstarter.

Rick was also on her record label, and I think he was only the second person ever, besides Stevie, to be on that label, so Stevie and Rick were definitely close. But I really doubt Rick would have rejoined anyway, even if Stevie had asked. I think he felt burned by FM, and I think he was, too.

Rick chose to leave Fleetwood Mac though. Billy stayed.

They've always done that. What about Bob Welch? Never in the band!:mad:

$tevie is the QUEEN of revisionist history.

Fun fact: Stevie started doing that on the Tango tour with Billy. Bekka also did that on the “Another Link in the Chain” tour.

I know. That’s why I don’t think Rick would have returned to FM ever. Whereas I believe Billy would go back in a heartbeat.

Even though Stevie was doing big amphitheaters and state fairs, I guess she went along with the reunion because Howard Kaufman thought her touring career needed a boost.

And it worked because in 98 she played the venues that The Dance performed in.

If I’m not mistaken they skipped everything from Tusk to the Clinton inauguration. I haven’t seen it in forever but I swear there was a line like “after Tusk there were some other albums, some did well, some did not..”. Lol. There was absolutely ZERO interest in the non-Rumours Mac