Published Thursday May 7, 2009
Fleetwood Mac's back, having a 'good time' on the road
BY KEVIN COFFEY
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
After a lengthy time in the studio and a long tour, members of Fleetwood Mac chose to go their own way.
Now, after several years off, the group (Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood, Buckingham and John McVie) is together and touring again for its “Unleashed” tour, which stops tonight at Qwest Center Omaha.
The band last performed in Omaha at a sold-out show at the arena in 2003, one of the first concerts after the Qwest Center opened its doors. Last time the band was in town, it was promoting the release of its album “Say You Will.” Because Fleetwood Mac hasn’t released an album since then, this year’s tour has a greatest hits theme.
Many of those hits came from the band’s “Rumours” album, recently released as a CD/DVD box set. One of the best-selling albums of all time, it includes songs like “Go Your Own Way,” “Dreams” and “The Chain,” and won the band a Grammy Award for album of the year in 1977. It’s ranked No. 25 on Rolling Stone’s 500 best albums of all time.
Personal drama amongst the group at the time — including a rotating cast of band members, marriages, relationships, divorces and breakups — fueled the creation of the album. In a recent phone interview with band members, Buckingham downplayed the drama.
If you go!
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What: Fleetwood Mac
When: 8 tonight
Where: Qwest Center Omaha, 455 N. 10th St.
Tickets: $149.50, $79.50 or $49.50
• For tonight's concert, tickets are available as a two-for-one offer. Tickets through the offer are $38.75 for two, plus applicable fees. “I don’t believe that we felt that the songs on ‘Rumours’ in particular were so starkly autobiographical,” Buckingham said. “(It) was, to some degree, revealed to us by our audience, you know, after the fact.”
At the time the songs were being written and recorded, the band also didn’t realize that the songs on the album would touch so many people.
“You know we saw that we had this destiny, and we saw that we had to rise above the personal difficulties,” Buckingham said. “And we saw that the music could actually be, have redemptive power, you know, for us and could be a symbol of that for other people.”
Fleetwood said band members have been discussing making a new album, but they have to get through the tour first. The group is excited to get together and work on this tour, even without a new album.
“We’ve been apart for four years, now we’re back together and we’re having a blast. It’s, like, terrific,” Nicks said.
“What it does is it kind of frees you up to kind of enjoy each other a little bit more as people,” Buckingham said. “The mantra is really more ‘Let’s just have a good time’ and value, you know, the friendships and the history that really underpins this whole experience that we’ve had over these years.”
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