The Dance

[michelej1]

New York Daily News, November 30, 1997


Section: NEW YORK VUE


HALL OF A YEAR FOR FLEETWOOD MAC


DAVID HINCKLEY

What has happened with Fleetwood Mac this year might be described as a peculiar sort of delayed reaction.

The band got back together after a partial breakup, releasing a new album and launching a tour that, so far, has been quite successful.

Probably not by coincidence, then, Fleetwood Mac was simultaneously remembered by the music business. Among other things, it will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in January.

It had been eligible for several years, but this was the first year it was even nominated a strange omission considering how many tens of millions of records this group sold in the '70s and '80s.

Musically, the same lineup that made those records, most notably "Rumours," is part of this year's reunion: Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Christine McVie, Mick Fleet-wood and John McVie. Buck-ingham had been the first to leave, in 1987, while Nicks and Christine McVie followed a couple of years later.

Fleetwood and John McVie never let the group lapse, however Fleetwood in particular because he has seen many musicians come and go since Mac was launched in England in 1967 as a blues band (and a very good one).

The five musicians who are back together all worked on various solo and other-group projects over the past few years, none with any enduring level of success.

So they look like a reasonably happy bunch onstage now, and fans can see the evidence Friday night at 10 when WNET/ Ch. 13, as part of Pledge Week and its "In the Spotlight" series, airs "Fleetwood Mac: The Dance," a 90-minute concert taped in May and already shown on MTV and VH1.

The program takes the group through all the popular years, with a sturdy song selection that includes "Rhiannon," "Say That You Love Me" and "Go Your Own Way," plus presidential favorite "Don't Stop (Thinking About Tomorrow)."

Not all the songs sound as recorded, but there's nothing unrecognizable.

Even the new songs have that full-bodied Mac gloss and as if to underscore that point, "Don't Stop" is performed with the 85-piece University of Southern Cali-fornia Trojan Marching Band.

Yes, the Mac is back.