Potentially dumb question about Christine leaving the band

[Matt Lucas]

Hello all---

I appreciate all of the comments. After I posted my initial message, I got over my own laziness and tracked down a few links myself:

BBC RADIO 2 INTERVIEW JULY 2004
http://www.fleetwoodmac-uk.com/artic...y2004-002.html

"...[I've] reached the point in my life where I've done forty years... loyal service to Fleetwood Mac and it's just time...I just felt that I wanted to come home and live back in England again."

"We'll they've already done a couple of tours without me, no... they have asked me and sort of tried to...break my arm. Well they asked me to, but I think... I think I just got stage shy in the end I just thought' I haven't done this for so many years I'll probably have a heart attack probably on stage' [laughs] now, you know."

ROCK VILLAGE INTERVIEW, JAN. 1998
http://www.angelfire.com/tx3/emerald...ckvillage.html

RV: So the million dollar question: Will you stay together after this tour?

McVie: "You can only speculate, really. We're taking it one step at a time. We don't really know ourselves yet. We're not taking any note of the managers or record companies or anything. We're concentrating on the five of us at the moment and seeing how we enjoy ourselves. We're doing this for each other and obviously doing it for a lot of fans. It's a coming together and a celebration. We can at least, at the end of this tour, kind of hug each other and put some positive closure to the last 20 years of what has been seeming hell and also the most uproariously wonderful times, too. But this way it's going to be a positive closure. And who knows? It may not be a closure."

Those comments at least give you an idea of Christine's mindset. She felt like she'd more than done her time in FM. Can't blame her there. Personality-wise, it sounds like she's not really a "rock star" kind of person, anyway, which makes me respect her even more.

This is a completely different issue, but with another anniversary coming up next year, people have talked in another thread about the idea of a more comprehensive boxed set. Part of me wishes the Rumors band would get back together one more time and record a few final songs together...perhaps songs that got away, like "Temporary One."

As much as I liked parts of SAY YOU WILL, the more I listened to it, the more I missed Christine, which is hard for a Lindsey fan like me to admit...!

And, since none of the band members are getting any younger, it would seem like a more fitting finale for FM. The likelihood of them reuniting once more seems pretty slim. That's my two cents, anyway.

mattl

[PsychCat]

Originally Posted by Matt Lucas

As much as I liked parts of SAY YOU WILL, the more I listened to it, the more I missed Christine, which is hard for a Lindsey fan like me to admit...!

As a long time Christine fan, her absence was deafening to me on SYW. Not to mention the live shows..... just. not. the. same.
She really did add a balance to the Buckingham & Nicks work. Even on "Time" her songs and contributions to the others are the identifying "Fleetwood Mac" mark.

I thought she was on SYW in a much smaller, non-credited way?

[SteveMacD]

Originally Posted by PsychCat

I thought she was on SYW in a much smaller, non-credited way?

She was actually credited. She's on, that I know of, "Bleed To Love Her" and "Steal Your Heart Away." While it would have been nice to have Christine on the album, I can't say that it suffers because she's not on it in any significant role. The biggest problem I had with SYW is that there were too many songs, some of which were better suited to solo projects than a Fleetwood Mac album or were just bad songs. I could say the same of "Mask" and "Time." There's a great FLEETWOOD MAC album in there, with the help of a CD player programmer. (I emphasize FLEETWOOD MAC, because I think Mick and especially John have their fingerprints all over this album.)