Funny to me that we get two TOTALLY different perceptions of Lindsey's talent. This review is for the Jacksonville, Florida show.
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-onlin...15683254.shtml
Fleetwood Mac's mythology thrives with a limp
By EYDER PERALTA
The Times-Union
Watching Stevie Nicks take the stage Sunday at Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena, you could have easily forgotten what it was that has made her one of the most incredible women in rock. The years have taken their toll: She was helped up the stairs and she ambled around the stage, with a smile that choked on itself and then turned serious.
But then she sang, and the charm was new all over again. It was then that you realized that Nicks is the glue that still holds this band together, that she has gone from a twirling gypsy who rambled about love to a wise matron who admires it from afar.
She didn't play any instruments, as she has always done, and she watched Lindsey Buckingham as he laid down guitar solo after guitar solo. And when they played Landslide or Say Goodbye the energy that once existed between Buckingham and Nicks was there: They stared at each other longingly and everything that could've been was right there on that stage. And even if it was all an act, even if after the show they hiked on two separate buses and never spoke, this was a time when the mythology of rock came to life.
Before Beautiful Child, Nicks explained that it was a song she thought she could never sing live. It's a song about growing up, about disillusion that turns into acceptance.
"I'm not a child anymore," she sang. "I'm tall enough to reach the stars / I'm old enough / to love you from afar / Too trusting? Yes / But then women usually are."
And out of that band, whenever Nicks took centerstage, everyone listened. Maybe she has gained a little weight, and maybe her twirls have become wobbly, but she's become a woman: a woman who sings songs with a deeper understanding than she did when she was young and all coked up.
Buckingham on the other hand, spent the show gliding through the fretboard without any rhyme or reason. He shouted lyrics angrily and dropped solos that were unsettled and uninspired. It was as if he was purposely making it loud and fast to hide the emotions underneath the playing. It was as if he was trying something funny to keep himself from crying.
Even on Big Love, where he stayed on stage alone, he snapped at the guitar strings and he sang as if he was irreparably hurt, as if he was getting back at the audience for something they had done. He stumped off the stage, screaming in an unlikely fury.
The show was at times over the top, perhaps because Buckingham seemed unreasonably angry. But Mick Fleetwood contributed. He worked his way through World Turning with a drum machine on his belly and he screamed an annoying yelp and the energy that once was the biggest rock band in the world was blunted by egos, perhaps, who had to play five minute solos that gave up sincerity for show.
But it was all okay, when they encored with Don't Stop and ended it with Nicks centerstage on Goodbye Baby. And she wore a golden shawl and her voice echoed a deeper shade of her former self, and just as the song ended, she bowed out, gracefully.