Nostalgia, cash and a tale of two divas named Stevie and Lindsey
 

Fleetwood Mac '09: Nostalgia, cash and a tale of two divas named Stevie and Lindsey


Chicago Tribune

As the relationship between Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham goes, so goes Fleetwood Mac.

The band, formed as a British blues-rock outfit in 1967, has a history that reads like a soap-opera script. Band members have literally gone crazy. Some have gone AWOL. Others have slept with one another. Marriages were broken. More than 73 million records have been sold. And still the quarrels continue. Even a 2004 tour that raked in $22 million ended in acrimony, with a fed-up Nicks saying she was through and Buckingham returning to his solo career.

But now, on the eve of another Mac tour, the biggest problem facing Nicks is a sore arm. While being interviewed, she mentions that a physical therapist is working her over. “I strained my right arm doing arm curls, which I never do, so I’m trying to get it back so I can comfortably and enjoyably play tambourine.”

Such are the rigors of being a multimillionaire icon in a band that defined mainstream pop in the ‘70s. Mac is commanding as much as $149.50 per ticket (plus service charges) for a national tour that includes two concerts March 5-6 at the Allstate Arena. They promise few surprise; just a show with more than two hours of greatest hits --- just the way their fans presumably like it. “The songs we’re playing are the tapestry of not only our fans’ lives but our own lives,” Nicks says.

Buckingham has long detested the idea of doing a nostalgia tour, but he says he’s “just trying to ride the machine.” Part of Mac’s on-off existence the last three decades has been due to Buckingham’s creative restlessness; he’s maintained a solo career defined by adventurous albums in between Mac projects. As one of the band’s primary songwriters as well as its producer and arranger, Buckingham is first among equals, and his word goes a long way in determining Mac’s fortunes. This time, he agreed to do a hits tour to promote a box-set release of the band’s best-selling 1977 “Rumours” album.

“There’s still a push-pull inside me that says I need to redefine myself creatively, but I did two solo albums in the last three years, so it allowed me to feel a little more relaxed about doing something like this,” he says. “I am very consciously going into this not wanting to drive anyone in the band crazy if I can help it --- and sometimes it doesn’t take a lot for me to do that. My priority is working on the interaction within the band, especially between me and Stevie. I’m doing a tour that the industry and the listeners and the rest of the band want, and maybe sow some seeds of stability for once.”

That sounds like a man compromising his artistic instincts in the name of peace, harmony and cash. Buckingham laughs.

“Why am I doing this? It’s a good question… let me see, why am I doing this? Well, we’ll probably make a ton of money, and that’ll make everything a bit easier. But the other reason is that there’s unfinished business with Fleetwood Mac. Stevie left the last tour saying she wasn’t going to do this again, and that’s not right. It’s been a difficult road, we’ve been through a lot, and I want to see it play out and come out the other side in a bit better place than we were last time.”

Mac’s last tour followed the release of a 2003 studio album, “Say You Will.” That’s where the troubles began. Buckingham had interrupted his solo work to make the album with Mac, and brought finished songs into the recording session. Christine McVie had retired from the music business, leaving Buckingham and the founding rhythm section of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie to focus on Nicks’ songs. Buckingham and Nicks already had a long, fractured history; they were former lovers and old tensions would resurface whenever new conflicts emerged.

“It felt weird, working for nine months in a Bel Air mansion on just my songs,” Nicks says of the Los Angeles recording sessions. “It started to grate on everyone. It started to grate on Lindsey. It ended up not being our happiest album. Then we went on tour, and it was just a continuation of something that had already gone off track.”

Nicks says the departure of Christine McVie had a huge impact on band chemistry: “She was the voice of reason.” Nicks hunted for another female foil after the tour ended. “I vowed not to do it again unless we had another person who could act as a buffer,” she says. She recruited Sheryl Crow, but the singer backed out when she realized how big the commitment would be.

“She just had a baby, and once you’re in Fleetwood Mac, you don’t have a life of your own,” Nicks says. “It’s like joining the National Guard and being deployed to Iraq in two weeks.”

Well, no, it isn’t, actually. But melodrama is as much a part of Fleetwood Mac as hit songs.

Nicks says she agreed to hit the road with Buckingham and risk opening up old wounds again because she sensed a change in her old sparring partner. “He has little girls who are 8 and 4 years old, plus a wife, and he has been living in girl land since coming off the road in 2005. It’s softened him up. Instead of treating me as a miserable ex-girlfriend, he’s looking at me more like a beloved daughter. He’s been very nice and loving to me. This is the guy that I met and fell in love with when I was 17, and I hope it stays that way. No one could come in and make peace between us. Lindsey and I had to.”

Buckingham says if they pull off the tour without any meltdowns, there may be yet one more Fleetwood Mac studio album down the road. But he makes no promises. He has left the band in the past, and he says he will again if he feels things are growing stagnant.

“We all want this to work,” he says, “but there are only 45 dates scheduled. I’m sure there are people in back rooms somewhere talking about more dates in America and elsewhere in the world, but nothing is in the books, nothing has been agreed to. In this band, it’s best not to plan too far in advance.”

At this point, personally, I don't really care whether they come to Europe -I'm from Germany-. It would be nice if they did, but I'm going to have my Mac weekend in Phoenix and that's that.

Good for you GypsyGirl15!!:]

I'm sorry. Good thing I wasn't sucking down cornflakes or something because they'd be all over the computer monitor.
Stevie is one of a kind. Beloved daughter. ha! Beloved daughter born one year before the beloved father. She couldn't choose "beloved sister he once fornicated with?"
These articles are pure comedy.

Stevie was in that mansion in Bel Air (as opposed to one in Newark) for 9 months working on those songs? How? Is that new math?

At this point I'm trying to remember why I want to see this concert. Stevie's always been in her own little make-believe world, but Lindsey basically stating that this is a cash grab leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Many of us who support their solo careers also attend Mac shows, they would be wise to remeber that.

I can sympathize with Lindsey. He hasn't had a big payday since 2004, and he has most likely lost tons of money between recording, promoting and touring behind his last two solo albums. Plus he's got three children and his wife's career to support... And given all of the paper wealth that has evaporated from the economy over the past six months, I am sure the bottom line at the Buckingham estate is lower than it has been since the 1970s.

So true..... ssssooooo true! True Dat! For all of them! None of them have had to look at prices since '70s!

I begin to feel sorry for Will, living in that girl land Stevie described. Actually, this is a good article. Thanks Peter.

Actually, Stevie said the same thing about Lindsey in 2003, how he was much softer and handled her in a much gentler fashion. Apparently that didn't last. I'm alarmed by the way he keeps softening and hardening, back and forth. Can't be healthy.

Michele

Interesting.
The end of this tour couldn't come fast enough for me.


__________________
Lindsey SOLO! :]

Great article. You've got to love Lindsey's honesty, "...why am I doing this? Well, we'll probably make a ton of money...", and "I am very consciously going into this not wanting to drive anyone in the band crazy if I can help it---and sometimes it doesn't take a lot for me to do that."

Teeheehee. :o


Anyway, who knows if his attitude toward her really does change all that much, or if it's her royal highness' perception that does. :cool:

Great, now she's elaborating on this long-offensive cliche by providing a contemporary example to drive home just how repressive Fleetwood Mac is. STFU Stevie, just STFU.

I thought the honesty was refreshing. I mean, everyone *knows* that this whole tour is a cash-grab (it couldn't be more blatantly obvious). It would be disingenuous and more offensive (Miss "I wish we could play for free!" Stevie Nicks) if he said otherwise.

I'm sorry but I don't feel sorry for Lindsey. I think he has plenty of money as do the rest of them. I already knew they were doing this for money but to come out and say it so blatantly is unecessary, IMO. Try to feign a little interest. At least appear to enjoy playing together. That's all I'm asking for!

I think he did much more than feign interest. I think he made it clear that he's also doing this for emotional satisfaction and with the hope that they can have a good time together on this tour with no one leaving feeling unhappy.

He said: He put the money out there first, because that's the pink elephant in the room and then he went on to explain his other personal motivations and hopes about the relationships he wants to be made whole and fruitful.

Michele

"But the other reason is that there’s unfinished business with Fleetwood Mac. Stevie left the last tour saying she wasn’t going to do this again, and that’s not right. It’s been a difficult road, we’ve been through a lot, and I want to see it play out and come out the other side in a bit better place than we were last time.”

So he's not saying it's all about the money. He at least wants something positive to come from it.

I like what Stevie says here. It emphasizes to me how the recording sessions probably grew fraught with anger or boredom. Lindsey & John may like a dab of Stevie Nicks here & there, but not all the time (musically speaking).

I like this view, too, & I think it makes a lot of sense. It also -- probably unbeknown to Nicks -- echoes Lindsey's reason for jumping ship back during tour time in 1987. I think a lot of fans probably always thought that his reason was hooey, but I never did. I appreciated the seriousness & the truth of it. I bet he was so anxiety-ridden over the prospect of touring with FM that year -- after having suffered throughout the sessions -- that he was literally throwing up or coughing up blood from the stress. There was no way he could have agreed to do that tour at that time.

I'm getting the feeling you all think I hate Lindsey, or something, which is far from the case. I just don't like the way either Stevie or Lindsey come off sounding in these interviews. I'm not buying the whole we still need to resolve our feelings crap. At this point I wish they'd stop giving interviews. All a matter of interpretation, I suppose.:shrug:

:rolleyes: Oh Stevie, don't you realize how foolish and out of touch with reality you seem when you make statements like this? Not to mention the insensitivity of comparing the dangers of war and the death of thousands of soldiers to performing on stages around the world and earning millions in the process. Shame on you, woman.

I was seconds away from posting the same thing. That comment was very unsettling.

Please say it aint so, Stevie didn't actually say this did she...
 

[QUOTE=MacMan;799116][B][SIZE="4"]

Nicks says. “It’s like joining the National Guard and being deployed to Iraq in two weeks.”

QUOTE]

Please tell me that Stevie never actually spoke the above words in that order,

please please please.

g....:angel:

Maybe they misquoted her and omitted her next sentence...."That is, if being deployed to Iraq included 5-star accommodations, personal assistants, nannies, limousines and private jets."

Fleetwood Mac Unleashed

"He’s been very nice and loving to me. This is the guy that I met and fell in love with when I was 17, and I hope it stays that way."

This is very nice. I hear a song in there too.

Regarding her army statement. She obviously means that it is a very regimented and disciplened environment. She is using the army to emphasize her point.

Come on people lighten up on her, she is not condoning the slughtering of kittens or anything.

WE all know she's compared FM to being in the army many times...and I get that. And we all know how she has supported the troops. But the average person on the street knows none of those things. So when Stevie makes statements like this, it only reaffirms her airy-fairy, spacey image that most of the general public already have about her.

Yes, that was once the (lame) excuse that her defenders used to rationalize her insensitivity. However, this time, she went out of her way to elaborate on her generalization to show exactly what she has meant by it all these years.

You see, its not just the regimented/disciplined environment that comes by being a professional in general... but also the frightening, uncertain scenario of going to faraway lands (touring), putting yourself in a potential combat scenario (Lindsey the meanie) for who knows how long (read the damned contract next time).

Forget "costs a gazillion times more", "we wish we could play for free", "why bother recording"- those lines, more than anything, just present her as the relatively clueless person we can all pretty much concede her to be. She lives in a different world of celebrity and doesn't have a real idea on what the world is like around her, and who her fans truly are. As fans, we accept this as a necessary flaw, or even something that might even make her more charming (as I've seen suggested on these boards in this past week).

The army/Iraq analogy, however, reeks of pure idiocy and insensitivity. Its completely indefensible, and not something that can be excused (before anyone brings up the iPod's/Walter Reed/etc- a gesture can never override an overarching belief) Unless she was misquoted the dozens of times she's used this general analogy, this is how she believes.

I'm tellin' ya, that Stevie is such a heartless bitch.

Stevie's words here reminded me so much of what she said about him when TISL came out. I can see why Lindsey believes in the power of cycles!

Michele

:rolleyes:

that is such a silly mischaracterization of what people are saying.

ignorant and out-of-touch bitch is more like it.

And you like Trisha Yearwood... Talk about out of touch...

OOOOH BURN!

Pulling out the Trisha Yearwood card was a devastating blow. *eyeroll* times a hundred

Leave the "Your mama!" type personal slights out of this, kennation. No one here is a troll, so negative opinions are allowed just like positive opinions.

As I read more information, I can now really understand why Christine is completely done with them. Hell she needed an ocean to separate from them...

I get tired just reading their interviews, imagine having to work with those two idiots...

Of course they're doing this tour for the money. That's why any performer goes on tour. If you think they're doing it because they just love to perform the same songs that they have song a "gazillion" times and they just love seeing their fans. Please. I just can't believe that Lindsey said it. :cool: Not cool.

Side note: I can just see Stevie doing an arm curl with her dainty little 2 lb. weight sitting on her sofa, while getting a pedicure and having her neck massaged :laugh:

I must say the hostility on this board is quite comical.

Regarding the topic at hand, I agree that Stevie is out of touch. Her biggest fault is not thinking before she speaks. But as was mentioned earlier, she lives a life of cloistered celebrity and has for many, many years. She's not living in the real world, so why would anyone expect her to make statements that do not reflect this?

Stevie does not believe that being in Fleetwood Mac is like being in the army. I think there are millions of reasons to fault the gal, but in this instance she was intentionally exaggerating for humorous effect. Was it tacky? I'm not one of those people who thinks any of her charitable endeavors make her Mother Theresa. But I do believe that when you have gone to Walter Reed and seen that degree of injury and pain (both mental and physical) that you are hardly oblivious or uncaring.

We all remember when she said Lindsey was the Ayatolla Khomeini and they were his hostages. I myself am always comparing things that happen at work to Gitmo and I don't really believe -- well, actually I am tortured and humiliated frequently, so bad example -- but the most Stevie can be accused of is making a joke some find in bad taste. She doesn't believe there is any truth or valid comparison in what she said any more than we do.

Michele

i guess i need no more information to know that your musical/artistic opinion means absolutely zilch. thanks!

however i am curious to know why you trisha yearwood is "out of touch." or maybe i'm the one who's out of touch for listening to her?

if you've ever listened to one of her records, you would know that she has more vocal talent and class than stevie ever did, even in her heyday.

bitter old crone that i am, i give stevie her due. i think bella donna is a masterpiece and i just listened to it again last night. i think rumours is top notch. and her tusk songs are incredible. but overall, as an artist, her success had more to do with timing and sex appeal than "genius."

musically, her songs are almost painfully simple. the woman knows like 5 chords - C, G, F, Am, and Em. maybe a handful of others. but none that enable her to think outside the sonic box and create a chord structure that isn't the same old same old. and her seeming allergy to the concept of having a bridge seriously cripples her writing.

lyrically, stevie belongs to the "throw some sh*t at a wall and see what sticks" school of writing. for every "bella donna" and "beauty and the beast" there are 10 songs in her catalogue of released and unreleased songs that mean absolutely nothing. "gate and garden"? "bell flower"? what on earth do these songs mean? i am not a tori amos fan, so someone stringing together a list of "pretty words" does nothing for me. silly me, i actually expect words to tell a story. sometimes stevie's do, but i would venture to say that most do not. she changes person, number, and tense so often, who can keep track?

and vocally? jesus. stevie had a handful of good years. stevie had a pretty nice instrument, but she didn't know what to do with it, so she shredded it. she wanted to be janis joplin, but she never had the chops for it. she got about 6 good years out of her voice and that was it. she sounded excellent on the street angel and dance tours, but she had lost the reedy, almost oboe-like quality that gave her voice such beauty back in the 70's.

trisha, on the other hand, does not write her own songs. however, she has unimpeachable taste at choosing material. she has covered artists as diverse as melissa etheridge, emmylou harris, and rosanne cash - all esteemed songwriters and performers.

and vocally, there is just no contest. trisha has the ability to oversing and really go over the top, but she has the intelligence and control not to. i challenge anyone to listen to "down on my knees," "i don't paint myself into corners," and "the dreaming fields" and not come to the same conclusion.

i suspect, kennation, that you have not spent much time listening to trisha and therefore write her off as a stupid radio country artist. you couldn't be more wrong.

You hit the nail on the head, as far as I see it.

Is it the best possible analogy she could make? No. But it seems pretty obvious to me that she's not trying to belittle the sacrifice of the men and women in the army (she's seen that first-hand), or literally compare what Fleetwood Mac does to what they do.

If you do this in any written composition class at a high school level, it's an automatic F!!! I often wondered if Stevie realized that this is a HUGE blunder in writing.

Also... "For You and I", drives me crazy. You would get major points off for that blunder as well....

totally.

and wasn't stevie studying to be an english teacher or something before she joined FM?

You the the nail on the head, too, Stew. Melodramatic Stevie speaks in hyperbole. It's sort of a campy hyperbole -- "It's faabulous" she often says. And we should all be used by now to taking what she says with a grain of salt & making the necessary interpretive adjustments. We're all Patrick Dennis & Stevie is Auntie Mame. We're patient & loyal & we sometimes roll our eyes at our batty old aunt, but we love that aspect of her style, too.

But here's the nail whose head you hit for me, Stew. You've made me able to verbalize my indifference to her songwriting: I don't believe the tropes in her songs any more than I believe the rhetorical embellishments in her speech.

In my distress
I wanted someone to blame me
In my devastation
I wanted so to change
In my way
Disaster was the only thing I could depend on
_____
The promise has been broken
As you walk through the shadow of death
You try to see no evil
But you are heartbroken
You say, "Dear God, make it stop"
_____
The tragedy of one's own soul
_____
There is no fire burning
It's just a soul crying

All these sentiments seem like bunk to me. I don't believe the writer means any of this deeply. I think it's all dressing things up in narcissistic & phony drama. Most of Stevie's songs -- lyrically -- strike me as hooey. I still like them (I like the horse**** Stevie speaks, too). I just can't consider her a great songwriter & liken her to other great writers.