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Jazz Fest Day 6: Fleetwood Mac Still Has Issues
More than 30 years later, they're still working things out onstage.
Posted May 5, 2013
Thankfully, the conditions stopped being a story at Jazz Fest Saturday. Yes, a drainage trench near the Fais Do-Do Stage created an island of the hardcore near the stage while the timid watched from afar, and there were a few boggy no-man's lands, but the track was firm enough that walking didn't require more than casual attention. Thankfully, the music was once again the story starting with Fleetwood Mac, who drew a crowd that was as large if not larger than Bruce Springsteen's, and definitely larger than Bon Jovi's. By Little Big Town's mid-afternoon set, the track was down to one walking lane each way around the Acura Stage, with chairs set up not only in spots with a limited view of the video screen but places with obstructed views. An enclave staked out spots by the Acura Display Tent behind the stage.
The band didn't disappoint. For two and a half hours, they covered most of the hits (I'm sad about the omission of "Seven Wonders"), two songs from the new Extended Play EP, and a handful of album tracks. But the show was more than just an exercise in nostalgia. The songs and the act of performing them clearly still feed something in the members, particularly Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. Both clearly still physically feel the drama in their songs, Nicks with signature hand and arm gestures that never felt rote Saturday, and Buckingham with such an intense physical engagement that he was winded after the extreme guitar workout on "I'm So Afraid" from 1975's Fleetwood Mac. He ended a hard, rocking "Not That Funny" from Tusk with an exuberant "Yeah!," and often stomped or froze, hunched over, as if he was working to stop the song's momentum. Nicks complained at times of a bug in her throat, but she gently caressed her songs, while Buckingham's vocals, like his in-song demeanor throughout, threatened melt down or rage out.
There were caricature-ish elements to the set - Nicks' graduated shade a la Jackie Collins, Buckingham's Professor Frink-like "subvert the axiom" speech introducing songs from Tusk - but there were also charming moments such as Nicks doing her version of the Camel Walk in black suede boots to mirror Buckingham's self-absorbed pacing during solos, along with them coming out for the encore holding hands.
The question the show presented is whether the personalities presented on the Acura Stage led to the mayhem that became their personal lives, or if they were a product of it. Whatever the case, the set was more vital than we've been conditioned to expect from reunion tours.