Stuff.co.nz March 29 2016
http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment...coming-to-town
The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band is coming to town
This week New Zealand audiences have the chance to see The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band.
And this chance arrives just a few months after Fleetwood Mac played two shows in Auckland. The stadium-filling pop supergroup has just wrapped a 15-month world tour.
So what does the band's drummer/leader do?
Hits the road with his small combo playing the music he grew up on, the music he loves.
He's expert across so many styles, he plays for the song and there's a great joy expressed when he plays. Here is a guy, a towering presence, who even after all these years of fame and money, looks like he still – and always – wants to be there. On the stage. Playing for an audience.
This version of The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band features Rick Vito, an important component. Vito was a member of Fleetwood Mac in the second run of "lost years" (1987-1991).
He had the unenviable task of replacing Lindsey Buckingham. The band didn't really succeed with anything new at this time – Vito and his friend Billy Burnette (also a hell of a player) were both in Fleetwood Mac for the one studio album (Behind The Mask – it's not great, but I'm a fan so I still like it, there are a couple of great songs hiding on it) and a few tours.
The two of them took the band back towards its original blues sound, paying tribute in the live shows to Peter Green, the leader of the original Fleetwood Mac, one of England's most influential blues guitarists.
So to have Vito touring with Mick Fleetwood, paying tribute to the band's early years and the music that helped to inform that great love and understanding of the blues makes sense. It also means audiences are in for a treat.
I've always understood Mick Fleetwood's solo/side-project focus as being about paying tribute to Peter Green, and to the spirit of what has afforded him one hell of a ride, a life like very few others.
Fleetwood has always been the one holding the olive branch, reconnecting with Peter, aiming to get him back in the band, seeking his blessing, checking in on Green.
At a Mick Fleetwood Blues Band show you just might see exactly why I still consider Mick Fleetwood to be one of the greats too. His passion and enthusiasm, for starters. But also this is nearly the antithesis of what the Fleetwood Mac show has become.
To be clear, I love all facets of that band – I'm a lifelong fan. But this seems to be about the having fun and making music side of things, the Fleetwood Mac World Tour is the money-maker.
Now, for a couple of nights at least, Mick Fleetwood gets to shake that money-maker off his back, and send fans back to the source.
I'm excited at the chance to see Mick Fleetwood a bit closer, and to hear those songs that turned so many of us onto the blues.