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-   -   London - promises, promises... (http://ledge.fleetwoodmac.net/showthread.php?t=58710)

Murrow 06-16-2019 07:57 PM

London - promises, promises...
 
I wasn't at the London show but I heard something about how the band had some older numbers planned for London that hadn't been done on the rest of the tour.

Looked down tonight's list on setlist.fm - same old same old. They better come up with something at the next one...

button-lip 06-16-2019 08:15 PM

https://metro.co.uk/2019/06/17/fleet...sound-9973482/



Fleetwood Mac fans leave Wembley Stadium concert early after complaining about ‘horrendous’ sound

Becky Freeth, Monday 17 Jun 2019 12:20 am

Some Fleetwood Mac ticketholders were asking for a refund after the first of the legendary band’s two London shows on Sunday night. In certain parts of the Wembley Stadium venue, fans praised the ‘amazing’ and ‘unbelievable’ show, while for others, the sound was described as ‘unbearable’.

It prompted ‘hundreds’ of the 90,000-strong crowd, who paid up to £150 for tickets, to leave the venue early, saying it had ruined their night.

‘Sound is horrendous – Wembley staff can’t do anything about it,’ one fan wrote on Twitter.

‘Can’t hear anything but echo – £150 a ticket – annoyed doesn’t cover it and they’ve moved as few people as they can. Shocker.’

Yet, many fans found quite the opposite, one with replying: ‘Ours was brilliant I was up front – I guess the engineer didn’t walk to the back – as I front of the desks it sounded amazing!’

Some ticketholders said they were ‘unable to hear a single word’ complaining that the audio was ‘muffled’ in some areas of the venue.

Others found it so ‘unbearable’ they said they walked out and footage from inside the venue shows many seatholders heading for the exits.

One fan said: ‘We left, the sound was honestly unbearable. Really feel for everyone there tonight, especially Fleetwood Mac. How can I claim a refund?’

Another suggested: ‘Please turn off the repeaters, they are ruining the sound. @Fleetwoodmac’.

Defending the band, others argued that video of fans leaving their seats actually showed fans grabbing refreshments during the notoriously long World Turning instrumental.

Representatives for Live Nation and Wembley Stadium have been approached for comment.

Despite the technical issues in some parts of Wembley Stadium, for some Fleetwood Mac fans, the show was described as ‘amazing’ and ‘brilliant’

It’s the first of two shows this week that forms part of the legendary band’s 28-date around the world tour.

Macfan4life 06-17-2019 04:39 AM

Stadium sound sucks even in the best of conditions. All rock concerts should be confined to an arena.
90,000 people? Is that a record for a Mac concert? That's insane.

button-lip 06-17-2019 08:08 AM

Sound was ok the day before at the Spice Girls concert and The Pretenders before FM was also ok. People at the stadium are blaming FM sound people, as it should be. And fans are asking for refunds.

button-lip 06-17-2019 01:39 PM

https://www.ft.com/content/1bf28374-...1-2b1d33ac3271



Fleetwood Mac at Wembley Stadium — has the chain been broken?


After 52 years the band can still sell out Wembley Stadium but the latest line-up change may be a rupture too far


Ludovic Hunter-Tilney

A tour by one of the biggest bands in rock history is always notable, but “An Evening with Fleetwood Mac” might have been particularly special. When it was conceived, there were suggestions that it could have been Fleetwood Mac’s swansong. A new album was in the offing too, a final recording. But the band’s penchant for volatility has once again intervened.

It is the second tour since Christine McVie officially rejoined their ranks in 2014. The keyboardist-singer played a key role writing some of their biggest hits, and the new Fleetwood Mac album was to have been written by her and guitarist-singer Lindsey Buckingham. But singer Stevie Nicks did not want to record a new Mac album, so instead it appeared under McVie’s and Buckingham’s joint name in 2017.


The next twist came with Buckingham’s exit from the group, reportedly after reigniting his long-running feud with his ex-lover Nicks. He stomped off to play solo shows in the US last year, where his setlist included a pointed rendition of the Fleetwood Mac song “Never Going Back Again”. Meanwhile, his septuagenarian former bandmates are touring the world with a nostalgia-circuit setlist and no talk of farewells.

Two Wembley Stadium shows mark the end of the European leg, with Australia next up. The first night opened with the Mac and their touring musicians walking on stage without razzmatazz, the very image of a working band. The sound was a steady-as-she-goes drumbeat, played by Mick Fleetwood, the bearded, ponytailed, affably piratical mainstay who has been in every line-up of the band over the course of its convoluted 52-year history




By his side in white flat cap was bassist John McVie, the “Mac” of the band’s name. He stood rooted to the spot, thrumming out a muscular passage of notes during opening track “The Chain”, but otherwise content to play a background role. However, he seemed to sway forwards, almost uprooting himself, during Nicks’ turn in “Black Magic Woman”, as though magnetised by her inimitable stadium-rock version of the feminine divine. She stood out front, flanked by Christine McVie, John’s ex-wife, who played keyboards. Across the stage from them were Buckingham’s dual replacements: lead guitarist Mike Campbell, formerly of Tom Petty’s backing band, and vocalist and rhythm guitarist Neil Finn of Crowded House.


There were complaints about the sound quality, although it was fine from where I was sitting. High ticket prices had not translated into a large-scale production: the staging was basic, even routine. Fleetwood’s old-school 10-minute drum solo with second percussionist Taku Hirano was the most elaborate moment.




Christine McVie sang her vocal parts with appealing clarity, although she was the least forceful of the various vocalists. Nicks was in great voice, warm and amber in tone, smoothly going through the gears as songs such as “Rhiannon” grew in volume. She kept her whirligig dancing to a minimum, only going full West Coast shaman during “Gold Dust Woman”. Perhaps the absence of her frenemy Buckingham had an oddly inhibiting effect.

Campbell did the missing Mac man’s guitar solos efficiently, while Finn sang gamely and leapt about in willing approximation of Buckingham’s outré stage energy. But it lacked a spark. In their heyday, Fleetwood Mac, the band of cocaine and divorce, had a gift for turning complicated emotional scenarios into persuasive and exhilarating soft-rock. But the sight of Buckingham’s stand-in singing “Someone has taken my place” in “Second Hand News”, a track written by Buckingham about an ambivalent relationship at a time when he was in one with Nicks, was a rupture too far.


★★☆☆☆

FuzzyPlum 06-17-2019 01:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Macfan4life (Post 1253194)
Stadium sound sucks even in the best of conditions. All rock concerts should be confined to an arena.
90,000 people? Is that a record for a Mac concert? That's insane.

I think it was discussed on her that 90000+ people saw them at the old Wembley Stadium for the Behind the Mask tour in 1990. It might have held more people back then as I'm sure the floor would have been general admission but now its all seated.


This chap's not very happy;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivLJhSYPcUg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glnPNQ7NQVE

FuzzyPlum 06-17-2019 02:11 PM

Financial Times

Fleetwood Mac at Wembley Stadium — has the chain been broken?

https://www.ft.com/content/1bf28374-...1-2b1d33ac3271

After 52 years the band can still sell out Wembley Stadium but the latest line-up change may be a rupture too far

https://www.ft.com/__origami/service...next&width=700

A tour by one of the biggest bands in rock history is always notable, but “An Evening with Fleetwood Mac” might have been particularly special. When it was conceived, there were suggestions that it could have been Fleetwood Mac’s swansong. A new album was in the offing too, a final recording. But the band’s penchant for volatility has once again intervened.

It is the second tour since Christine McVie officially rejoined their ranks in 2014. The keyboardist-singer played a key role writing some of their biggest hits, and the new Fleetwood Mac album was to have been written by her and guitarist-singer Lindsey Buckingham. But singer Stevie Nicks did not want to record a new Mac album, so instead it appeared under McVie’s and Buckingham’s joint name in 2017.

The next twist came with Buckingham’s exit from the group, reportedly after reigniting his long-running feud with his ex-lover Nicks. He stomped off to play solo shows in the US last year, where his setlist included a pointed rendition of the Fleetwood Mac song “Never Going Back Again”. Meanwhile, his septuagenarian former bandmates are touring the world with a nostalgia-circuit setlist and no talk of farewells.

Two Wembley Stadium shows mark the end of the European leg, with Australia next up. The first night opened with the Mac and their touring musicians walking on stage without razzmatazz, the very image of a working band. The sound was a steady-as-she-goes drumbeat, played by Mick Fleetwood, the bearded, ponytailed, affably piratical mainstay who has been in every line-up of the band over the course of its convoluted 52-year history.

By his side in white flat cap was bassist John McVie, the “Mac” of the band’s name. He stood rooted to the spot, thrumming out a muscular passage of notes during opening track “The Chain”, but otherwise content to play a background role. However, he seemed to sway forwards, almost uprooting himself, during Nicks’ turn in “Black Magic Woman”, as though magnetised by her inimitable stadium-rock version of the feminine divine. She stood out front, flanked by Christine McVie, John’s ex-wife, who played keyboards. Across the stage from them were Buckingham’s dual replacements: lead guitarist Mike Campbell, formerly of Tom Petty’s backing band, and vocalist and rhythm guitarist Neil Finn of Crowded House.

There were complaints about the sound quality, although it was fine from where I was sitting. High ticket prices had not translated into a large-scale production: the staging was basic, even routine. Fleetwood’s old-school 10-minute drum solo with second percussionist Taku Hirano was the most elaborate moment.

Christine McVie sang her vocal parts with appealing clarity, although she was the least forceful of the various vocalists. Nicks was in great voice, warm and amber in tone, smoothly going through the gears as songs such as “Rhiannon” grew in volume. She kept her whirligig dancing to a minimum, only going full West Coast shaman during “Gold Dust Woman”. Perhaps the absence of her frenemy Buckingham had an oddly inhibiting effect.

Campbell did the missing Mac man’s guitar solos efficiently, while Finn sang gamely and leapt about in willing approximation of Buckingham’s outré stage energy. But it lacked a spark. In their heyday, Fleetwood Mac, the band of cocaine and divorce, had a gift for turning complicated emotional scenarios into persuasive and exhilarating soft-rock. But the sight of Buckingham’s stand-in singing “Someone has taken my place” in “Second Hand News”, a track written by Buckingham about an ambivalent relationship at a time when he was in one with Nicks, was a rupture too far.

★★☆☆☆

onlynow 06-17-2019 10:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Murrow (Post 1253192)
I wasn't at the London show but I heard something about how the band had some older numbers planned for London that hadn't been done on the rest of the tour.

Looked down tonight's list on setlist.fm - same old same old. They better come up with something at the next one...

Where did u hear they might add different songs, and did they give specifics?

guillamene 06-18-2019 03:12 AM

There won't be any surprises in the set!

Macfan4life 06-18-2019 04:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FuzzyPlum (Post 1253199)
I think it was discussed on her that 90000+ people saw them at the old Wembley Stadium for the Behind the Mask tour in 1990. It might have held more people back then as I'm sure the floor would have been general admission but now its all seated.


This chap's not very happy;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivLJhSYPcUg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glnPNQ7NQVE

Wow that is still an impressive gig.
The Mac is not a flashy band with stage technology. I understand some flaming them for not adding some flash to such a huge stadium gig.
90,000 are Rolling Stones kind of numbers :eek:

FuzzyPlum 06-18-2019 12:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Macfan4life (Post 1253209)
Wow that is still an impressive gig.
The Mac is not a flashy band with stage technology. I understand some flaming them for not adding some flash to such a huge stadium gig.
90,000 are Rolling Stones kind of numbers :eek:


The only time I can say I was blown away by a stadium gig was Rolling Stones at Wembley on the Voodoo Lounge tour in the mid 90's. That was a real experience.
Difficult to comment on the recent Mac gig but it looks like a pretty poor atmosphere to me. Aside from the Tom Petty tribute are there any rear screens to add some extra aesthetic interest (other than band close-ups)?
That said, comments from attendees generally seem to be favourable aside from those with the sound issues.

button-lip 06-18-2019 02:55 PM

Review from The Times :rolleyes:

So many things to highlight here! :)

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/r...dium-zj2zl30xl


Review: Fleetwood Mac at Wembley Stadium

With no Lindsey Buckingham, what should have been a celebration of a huge band’s enduring power felt like an empty spectacle.

The sound was muddy, Stevie Nicks’s vocals veered towards flatness and the band stomped when they should have swung
MARILYN KINGWILL

★★☆☆☆


And so the soap opera continues. The story of Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 album Rumours is enshrined in soft-rock history: new recruits Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham inject California pizzazz into moribund British blues rockers, their relationship crumbles and the result is the divorce classic of the 1970s, with Buckingham lacerating his former lover on Second Hand News and Go Your Own Way and Nicks offering the gentler Dreams.

Forty million album sales certainly helped the band members to see past their emotional entanglements and keep the show on the road, but it all got too much last year when, according to their manager, Irving Azoff, Buckingham failed to suppress a smirk during a speech by Nicks at an awards ceremony. That was the last straw. After 43 years he got the boot. Now the band were carrying on regardless, with Neil Finn of Crowded House and Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers hired to fill Buckingham’s shoes, and what should have been a celebration of a huge band’s enduring power felt like an empty spectacle.

Unsurprisingly at this Wembley gig there was no Tusk, Buckingham’s experimental masterwork from 1979, and no Never Going Back Again, his folky acoustic moment from Rumours, but also no mention of him at all.Had there been a Rumours-era photograph of Fleetwood Mac shown on the screen with Buckingham cut out and Finn stuck in his place, it wouldn’t have been surprising. Yet the inescapable fact is there was chemistry between Buckingham and Nicks, even if they disliked each other, and no amount of gushing about how wonderful this new line-up was could replace that.


On top of that the sound at Wembley was muddy, Nicks’s vocals veered towards flatness, the band stomped when they should have swung and there were some highly questionable musical interludes. A ten-minute drum solo from Mick Fleetwood is one thing. A drum solo with vocal commentary (“Nice and slow! Don’t be shy!”) proved close to unbearable. The sight of Finn spinning about with his guitar was not a welcome one, and did a Fleetwood Mac crowd really need a rendition of Don’t Dream It’s Over by Crowded House? “This is a song of unity,” Finn claimed, apparently without irony.

At least we could sing along to the old favourites. The Chain remains one of the greatest songs about troubled affairs and Don’t Stop, the keyboardist/songwriter Christine McVie’s message to her bassist husband John McVie as they split up, never fails to lift the spirits.

There were creative moments too. Nicks, a hippy vision in black gown and gold shawl, offered interpretive dancing and some expert moaning for her cocaine lament Gold Dust Woman. And Oh Well, a stop-start blues-buster from Fleetwood Mac’s late-1960s, Peter Green-led era, brought searing guitar from Campbell. In the main, though, dealing with the loss of Buckingham by simply pretending he never existed made this plodding show feel like a glum reminder of departed joys.

Macfan4life 06-18-2019 03:00 PM

The last line sums it up "Pretending he never existed"

Touring for the money. Not the creativity. Not for the promotion of new or deeper tracks.
Play Don't Stop and Dreams and you can still fill a stadium apparently

MikeInNV 06-18-2019 06:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Macfan4life (Post 1253214)
The last line sums it up "Pretending he never existed"

I'm curious what people actually want to happen when they say this. I mean, I know they want him to have not been fired in the first place, but that's a done deal. To really pretend he never existed, you would have to cut his songs out of the set, but his contributions to the band's legacy are still represented by GYOW, SHN, etc. You can't fire someone and then spend every night talking about him. Once you've made the decision that you can't continue with someone, what more is there to do?

button-lip 06-18-2019 06:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeInNV (Post 1253216)
I'm curious what people actually want to happen when they say this. I mean, I know they want him to have not been fired in the first place, but that's a done deal. To really pretend he never existed, you would have to cut his songs out of the set, but his contributions to the band's legacy are still represented by GYOW, SHN, etc. You can't fire someone and then spend every night talking about him. Once you've made the decision that you can't continue with someone, what more is there to do?

They never admitted he was fired. And they never will.

They spend every night talking and showing pics of someone that was never part of the band. :shrug:

Storms123 06-18-2019 07:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by button-lip (Post 1253217)
They never admitted he was fired. And they never will.

They spend every night talking and showing pics of someone that was never part of the band. :shrug:

OUCH 2 out of 5 stars---that leaves a mark!

elle 06-19-2019 08:14 PM

That “Without Lindsey they were flimsy” review title was amusing. Another 2 of 5 stars review.

Macfan4life 06-20-2019 01:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeInNV (Post 1253216)
I'm curious what people actually want to happen when they say this. I mean, I know they want him to have not been fired in the first place, but that's a done deal. To really pretend he never existed, you would have to cut his songs out of the set, but his contributions to the band's legacy are still represented by GYOW, SHN, etc. You can't fire someone and then spend every night talking about him. Once you've made the decision that you can't continue with someone, what more is there to do?

By pretending he did not exist by stepping into his shoes and singing his songs. It sounds so cover band. And you know what many of the attendees (notice I did not use fan) may have not even noticed it was not Lindsey up there. I don't think they should ever mention his name. I was in the minority on this board but with Lindsey's wife's feelings that its horrific to mention him from the stage after what they did to him. You don't throw someone out the window and then 5 months later pretend to care with 2 statements from the stage. Now they have 2 new members. There are all kinds of older stuff they could do. This would never happen but imagine if Stevie got fired yet the band pretended the new female singer filled her shoes as she sang Stevie's songs. It would go over like a train wreck. I am consistent on both sides of this coin. Imagine if Keith Richards got fired from the Stones. Imagine his replacement coming on state to sing Little T&A. The entire crowd would booo and throw food.
The masses are there for all the hits. Look at the set list. If not from Rumours, they are all commercially released singles. The crowd does not care or notice that Lindsey has been replaced except for a few core fans and music reviewers in Europe.

michelej1 06-20-2019 03:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by button-lip (Post 1253217)
They never admitted he was fired. And they never will.

They spend every night talking and showing pics of someone that was never part of the band. :shrug:

At least the press knows and is saying it: "mercilessly" fired. I laughed.

They can say whatever they want in interviews. The reporters don't buy it.

button-lip 06-21-2019 12:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michelej1 (Post 1253255)
At least the press knows and is saying it: "mercilessly" fired. I laughed.

They can say whatever they want in interviews. The reporters don't buy it.

Loved every minute of those European interviews. They were undoubtedly expressing how flat the band sounded without Lindsey, and how unfair and unclear his firing was. :nod::nod:

Feather Blade 06-21-2019 01:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michelej1 (Post 1253255)
At least the press knows and is saying it: "mercilessly" fired. I laughed.

They can say whatever they want in interviews. The reporters don't buy it.

Ehh, sounds like ticket sales are just fine. Doesn't seem to matter what a few reporters think.

elle 06-21-2019 02:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Feather Blade (Post 1253266)
Ehh, sounds like ticket sales are just fine. Doesn't seem to matter what a few reporters think.

Right. Who cares about art and legacy when you can still make money.

FuzzyPlum 06-21-2019 03:02 PM

QUOTE=Feather Blade;1253266]Ehh, sounds like ticket sales are just fine. Doesn't seem to matter what a few reporters think.[/QUOTE]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Do7-2QdX0AA7wqQ.jpg

Yeah. Who gives a f**k?


many thanks to whoever posted this image on Twitter.

michelej1 06-21-2019 04:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Feather Blade (Post 1253266)
Ehh, sounds like ticket sales are just fine. Doesn't seem to matter what a few reporters think.

You're right and I don't know why they made the Tusk album. Sales of Rumours II would have been just fine and the fact that a few reporters like Tusk is inconsequential.

g. fish 06-21-2019 08:16 PM

There was one musical genius in the band.

There was one big attraction to the band.

And there was one pop writer that really didn't make any difference.

And there were two has beens, who just hung on for the money.

They fired the musical genius.

Enough said.

Feather Blade 06-21-2019 08:16 PM

Well, based on the volume of people attending shows, it sounds like a lot of people are having a good night of fun out. Guess that was plenty of art for them. Enjoy your evening folks.

michelej1 06-21-2019 08:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by g. fish (Post 1253271)
There was one musical genius in the band.

There was one big attraction to the band.

And there was one pop writer that really didn't make any difference.

And there were two has beens, who just hung on for the money.

They fired the musical genius.

Enough said.

The only thing is, I cannot call Christine a pop writer who didn't make any difference. She made a big difference to every album's success, starting with the White album and ending with the Tango album. I mean, I don't say the difference she made was always positive. I think a couple of her songs caused the band to be taken less seriously sometimes. They are sometimes written off as fluff. Well ... they were in the past. Now the millennials are rethinking the band and they're "in" again.

BUT either way her contributions were astronomical overall. First single for that line up, Over My Head was hers and it was a hit and it's still sublime today. And I won't say Little Lies was sublime, but .... First album to last album with this line up, she's anything but forgettable.

And don't forget her once beautiful voice.

Nicks Fan 06-22-2019 10:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Macfan4life (Post 1253252)
By pretending he did not exist by stepping into his shoes and singing his songs. It sounds so cover band. And you know what many of the attendees (notice I did not use fan) may have not even noticed it was not Lindsey up there. I don't think they should ever mention his name. I was in the minority on this board but with Lindsey's wife's feelings that its horrific to mention him from the stage after what they did to him. You don't throw someone out the window and then 5 months later pretend to care with 2 statements from the stage. Now they have 2 new members. There are all kinds of older stuff they could do. This would never happen but imagine if Stevie got fired yet the band pretended the new female singer filled her shoes as she sang Stevie's songs. It would go over like a train wreck. I am consistent on both sides of this coin. Imagine if Keith Richards got fired from the Stones. Imagine his replacement coming on state to sing Little T&A. The entire crowd would booo and throw food.
The masses are there for all the hits. Look at the set list. If not from Rumours, they are all commercially released singles. The crowd does not care or notice that Lindsey has been replaced except for a few core fans and music reviewers in Europe.

That is exactly how I feel. If Stevie had been fired and they brought in a new singer fans would be in an uproar. They could have gotten one of the best singers out there (Tina Turner, Grace Slick , Cyndi Lauper etc) and they still would have bitched and bitched that no one can sing Stevie's songs etc. The same can be said for Lindsey. If her songs are so scared why aren't his? He has a voice and a guitar playing style that isn't easily replicated.

The decade he was gone produced 3 tours a platinum GH album and a new studio album that went gold, a box set that I think went platinum and then a studio album that flopped.

The Tango tour was successful because they had the strength of the hit singles behind them before they hit the road. It wasn't like they toured right after the album's release. There was enough time for multiple hit singles to hit the airwaves.

The BTM tour was successful because they had the 87-88 success not too far behind and you still had SN and CM in the lineup. The album is mostly forgotten by all but the die hard FM fans. The Time era crashed and burned and is not fondly remembered.

When Lindsey returned they had their first number 1 album in 15 years and then SYW made top 5 in first week of sales.

I don't care how many tickets they sold this tour it doesn't change the fact that since 2009 we have had 4 GH tour and no NEW album to speak of. It would be different had this tour they threw out many of the staples and focused on lesser known tracks as well as some of the hits they haven't performed either at all or in a very long time ( As Long as You Follow, Love In Store, Save Me etc)

Look at last years Journey / Def Leppard / Peter Frampton tour. Very successful but none of them had anything new to promote and in Journey's case all they played was Steve Perry's hits but with the new singer doing them. Virtually anytime a classic rock act goes on tour they sell tickets regardless of how many original members or classic lineup members are in the band.

Every allegation they made about Lindsey can be thrown right back at them from tour delays , to stale set lists to not playing pre 75 material.

Anyone who thinks this current tour is anything more then a GH cash grab is deluding themselves. There is nothing new , fresh or exciting about hearing 70 somethings play songs they have played over and over for 40 plus years in the exact same way. You may have new members but if they aren't singing new material then what you have is almost like an expensive cover band. SN had a golden opportunity to shake up her FM set for this tour by dropping 2-3 of her hits and doing songs like Angel, That's Alright, Beautiful Child etc) but instead she chose to play the same songs she has done for years and then cover Peter Green on Black Magic Woman.

On one of the FB groups there have been reports that SN will be doing a 2020 tour?. So if you didn't get your fill of Landslide, GDW, Dreams etc then you may have a chance to hear all those songs again next year.

elle 06-22-2019 11:06 PM

2nd Wembley show review
 
https://www.theguardian.com/music/20...box=1561211934

Fleetwood Mac review – all the hits, with a sour aftertaste

Kitty Empire's artist of the week
Fleetwood Mac
Wembley Stadium, London

Lindsey Buckingham’s absence casts a pall over a singalong show, despite sterling work from subs Neil Finn and Mike Campbell

Kitty Empire

@kittyempire666
Sat 22 Jun 2019 09.00 EDT

3 / 5 stars 3 out of 5 stars.

Fleetwood Mac onstage at Wembley

‘Brutal calculation’: Fleetwood Mac onstage at Wembley Stadium, and on screen (clockwise from bottom left): Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Stevie Nicks, Neil Finn, Mike Campbell and Christine McVie. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

There is no arguing with the numbers. Wembley Stadium is brimming with fans, even on a wet Tuesday. A dozen people fill the vast stage, reproducing some of the most opulent harmonies and venomous kiss-offs of the late 20th century. On Dreams, a bittersweet classic written by an enduringly swirly Stevie Nicks, a chandelier descends from the rigging. Amusingly, it goes back up afterwards, reappearing and disappearing with every one of her compositions on the final night of Fleetwood Mac’s European tour.

Superfan Harry Styles has brought his mum, Nicks reveals, complimenting her on what a well-brought-up young man he is. Super-producer Jimmy Iovine (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Nicks’s 1981 solo album Bella Donna) has flown over from the States, she says. The Fleetwood Mac setlist – barely varying from Berlin to London – is replete with peak-period hits and refreshed by a couple of deeper cuts. One, the Peter Green-era blues Black Magic Woman, made famous by Carlos Santana, finds Nicks vamping her way through a female reading of the tune as the chandelier glitters darkly.

You can’t help but wonder, though, what constitutes a quorum in Macworld – a notoriously fickle place, which has seen a number of key personnel go missing. The reunited classic 70s lineup of Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie (back in the fold since 2013) has been touring for a year without guitarist and songwriter Lindsey Buckingham. Fleetwood asked Buckingham to join his band in 1974. Buckingham assented, but only if he could bring Nicks. The results were immediate: two of the biggest albums in rock history, sacks of cash, dangerous liaisons, mucous membranes caked in “booger sugar”.

The Chain is pretty much the only song this schism-prone outfit ever wrote together. As its bass riff booms out across the stadium, keeping the rain at bay, two new links join this fraught concatenation. Loudest to look at is lead guitarist Mike Campbell, a man whose big-hat-and-shades combo nods to Slash from Guns N’ Roses even as his bright yellow raincoat channels Paddington Bear. He is an old friend. Campbell was the late Tom Petty’s guitarist in the Heartbreakers, played on Nicks’s Bella Donna, and, incidentally, also co-wrote Don Henley’s fantastic non-Eagles 80s hit, The Boys of Summer. (Henley and Nicks had a Rumours-era relationship.)

Campbell’s role is to play “maverick lead guitarist” in someone else’s band, unspooling solos and abetting a cover of Petty’s Free Fallin’, sung by Nicks, in the encore. The brightly attired American also provides something for the eye to follow in what is largely a static band. The exception is Fleetwood, the 6ft 5in court jester of British blues-rock, whose open-mouthed “drum-face” is plastered all over the giant screens as he solos at length in the middle of World Turning, the kind of carry-on punk was invented to destroy. For the latter half of the solo, Fleetwood straps on an African talking drum and faces off against percussionist Taku Hirano, prompting a mass exodus to the bar, and air punching in roughly equal measure.

Then there’s Neil Finn of Crowded House, tasked with rhythm guitar and vocals. He sings lead on his own composition, Don’t Dream It’s Over (“this is a song of unity, without a trace of irony”), which gets one of the biggest singalongs of the night, and all of Buckingham’s songs, starting with Second Hand News. “I know there’s nothing to say,” the song goes, resignedly, “Someone has taken my place.”

Last year, just when it seemed the sordid telenovela of Fleetwood Mac could provide no further twists, the band kicked Buckingham out, reportedly at the behest of Nicks. Flashpoints reportedly included Buckingham’s desire to tour his own solo album around the Fleetwood Mac world tour dates, and that he “smirked” behind Nicks as she gave an acceptance speech at a gala performance.

Nicks announced, via the band’s manager, Irving Azoff, that she never wanted to share a stage with Buckingham again, and issued Fleetwood Mac with an ultimatum: him or her. Buckingham sued the band and the spat was settled out of court in December for an undisclosed sum.

Who knows what else lies beneath this drama, but the band’s latterday tensions predate 2018. In 2013, the long-absent Christine McVie began performing with the band again, prompting an EP of new songs. Tonight, she shakes a tasselled maraca, or sits regally behind her massive keyboard, no shirker in the hits department. Her song Everywhere provided this 70s band with one of its most enduring 80s moments, and it remains one of the standing-up moments of tonight’s often sit-down set.

But even with McVie back in the fold, no new Fleetwood Mac album appeared in 2014, or 2015, or 2016. Instead there was a 2017 Buckingham/McVie offshoot record on which all band members appeared except Nicks: something in the reunion had soured even then. Events took a yet more dramatic turn in February, when Buckingham had open-heart surgery. He’s back on his feet, but question marks hang over his voice, potentially damaged by a tube inserted into his throat.

Even by the standards of a band notorious for infighting, Buckingham’s excommunication feels cold. The crowd, though, are perfectly happy to sing along with Finn, the affable New Zealander, rather than fold their arms in protest at the nixing of the prickly Californian author of Go Your Own Way, perhaps Fleetwood Mac’s greatest hit. Coming at the end of the set, it’s one of the songs everyone came to slosh beer to. Yet even though it’s delivered note-perfect, with two incandescent performances on guitar from Campbell and Finn, you can’t help but conclude that Fleetwood Mac have made a brutal if essential calculation in going their own way. The squad could tour the world without Buckingham, but not without Nicks, the face of the band, the one with the most successful solo career, and their most valuable player. This is a band who, after all, never stop thinking about tomorrow.


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