The Province, May 14, 2009
http://www.theprovince.com/entertain...511/story.html
In concert
Fleetwood Mac
Where: GM Place
When: Tomorrow night at 8
Tickets: $49.50, $85.50 and $199.50 plus service charges at Ticketmaster
No rumour, Fleetwood Mac's back
Old is new again as '60s stars unleash a show they're happy to do
By Tom Harrison, The Province
This time, Fleetwood Mac isn't touring because it has to; it wants to.
There is no new album to promote and fret about, no new songs to fit into a set list, no pressure.
This time, Fleetwood Mac simply can enjoy a long legacy. Although that legacy goes back to 1967 and has endured several permutations, the one people know best is that of Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks and Christine Perfect. This was the band that relaunched itself in the mid-'70s with hits such as "Rhiannon," "Don't Stop" and "Go Your Own Way," the band whose Rumours LP became symbolic of many different things and is about to be reissued with extra tracks and DVD footage.
Perfect dropped out of the band in 1998, but the other four have stayed together and recently joined in a teleconference call to discuss their Greatest Hits Unleashed tour, their first tour in five years.
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Stevie Nicks: "We've been apart for four years. Now we're back together and we're having a blast. It's like terrific. Had we been working every single year for the last four years and we were going out to do yet another tour this year, we would all be going like, 'Uh, OK.' So this makes it very, very different and we're all excited and we're all happy to be doing it and we all feel really, you know, blessed to be in each other's company and we're getting along great and it's fun."
Mick Fleetwood: "This is the first time that we've gone on the road without an album. So, it's a refreshing thing to do in terms of selecting a whole lot of really emotively connected songs. So this is truly a new experience for Fleetwood Mac to go out and truly go and play songs that we believe and hope that people are really going to be familiar with."
Nicks: "It stays fresh because we never stop playing. Basically, what we are is entertainers. If, even if this band had never made it, you know, big, we would still be, we'd be playing all the clubs, we'd be playing the clubs in Europe, we'd be still doing that. Because what we really are is entertainers. So when we go on stage we're performers."
Lindsey Buckingham: ". . . We are going out this time without a new album. And it, what it does is, it kind of frees you up to kind of enjoy each other a little bit more as people. And, you know, the dynamic between band members is still, to some degree, something which is a work in progress and is being crafted. And so you know it takes a little pressure off not having to kind of reinvent anything this particular time. And I think because of that we are actually able to just look at the body of work and choose from that. And then you know just have a little bit more fun with it than we would normally be able to have."
Nicks: "Unleashed, to me, meant unleashing the furies, unleashing us back into the universe. Unleashed, to me, was an edgy term of throwing this amazing musical entity back into the world that we had been away from for four years. I never looked at it as [us] being leashed. I looked at it as unleashing a fury which is what Fleetwood Mac is a lot of the time. It is one of the world's greatest furies in my opinion. And that was my idea. Fleetwood Mac Unleashed just meant Fleetwood Mac thrown back down to the universe."
Buckingham: "When things happen within the ranks of Fleetwood Mac that are less than ideal on an interpersonal dynamic kind of level, it's never anyone's intention for that to happen. We are a group of great contradictions. The members don't necessarily have any business being in a band together because the range of sensibilities is disparate.
"But that's, in fact, what makes Fleetwood Mac what it is, you know. It's the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. It's the kind of energy that is created from that kind of contrast in personalities."
Fleetwood: "I get a sense of, within the players that are on the phone right now, about getting out and playing the songs that we truly hope are special songs, that may be aren't considered the massive, massive hits but are truly emotionally connected to Fleetwood Mac.
"And so all of the energy is really about just getting out there and putting on a show that really resonates emotionally. And that's really important for us.
"For my experience, when we walk into a room and we haven't played actively for, you know, two or three years or sometimes a little more than that, the bottom line is immediately everything is stripped away and I always see, as Lindsey mentioned earlier, these very odd couples or couplings of people. In truth, the chemistry and the joining of those people is immediate and you turn around and go, 'That's what this is about.' But, for me, my observation and my feeling is that it is stripped away usually within 30 or 40 seconds of playing the first song. And you go, 'That's it.'
"And there is no way of really truly analyzing what that is. It's a glorious accident that hopefully and seemingly was meant to happen because it's gone on for so long that those people make the music that we make. And it is like second nature, it takes but a few minutes to re-plug that biorhythm, chemistry, whatever you want to call it, with those individuals doing what they do.
"And it's remarkable. I find it's totally fascinating. We'll probably never have some analytical explanation to it ever. And in truth, I always prefer that it will never because that's the magic of people being together and doing something, especially under the heading of doing something creatively, where you find your place, you know your place and you add to each other as it's happening in real-time."
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If it's true, as Buckingham contends, that Fleetwood Mac is more than the sum of its parts, then Fleetwood Mac has become a separate entity, a kind of concept, different from each member's solo endeavours.
It's also intuitive. It's something that is not easy to explain but there is this separate entity known instinctively by its members: 'This is Fleetwood Mac.'
Fleetwood: "Well, that's a good phrase, 'This is Fleetwood Mac.' And it is because certainly myself and Lindsey joke about it. It's the worst-run franchise in the business."