Why Christine Came Back To Fleetwood Mac (The New Yorker)

[nicole21290]

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/19/play-2

The Musical Life. January 19, 2015 Issue

Play On
By Rachel Syme

By the time Christine McVie arrived at the Morrison Hotel Gallery, in SoHo, she had been up for sixteen hours and was dying to remove her false eyelashes. “They’re so heavy,” she said, as she tilted her head onto her clasped hands for the benefit of her manager, who had promised her an early exit. McVie, who had recently decided to reunite with her old bandmates in Fleetwood Mac for a tour, was in a makeshift V.I.P. room in back. Out in the gallery, a throng of Fleetwood Mac fans were looking at an exhibition of Polaroid self-portraits taken by the band’s Stevie Nicks. (“These are, like, the original selfies,” one woman, dressed in witchy layers, in homage to Nicks and McVie, said.)

“I’m only here for Stevie,” McVie said. At seventy-one, she was dressed like an off-duty rock star: narrow jeans, pointy boots, a gauzy scarf. Shaggy blond bangs nearly covered her eyes. “Everyone thinks this is quite the glamorous life, but it’s axe-grinding. Like this opening—I was dreading it. I’m so tired, I’m barely human. And I thought there might be old pictures of me, God forbid.” (There weren’t.) She scooped up a small white Maltese named Rodney, the property of Nicks’s manager. “Oh, I miss my pups,” she said, burying her face in the fluff.

Mick Fleetwood, the band’s drummer, put a glass of white wine in McVie’s dog-free hand. She nodded at a colorful scarf that hung around his neck. “Is this cut from a kimono you used to own?” she asked. “I recognize this fabric.” She and Fleetwood have an ease with each other, which, she says, is what brought her back to the band after sixteen years away.

Earlier that afternoon, lounging in her suite at the Trump International Hotel (“It’s such a diva thing, but I need one room for my suitcases and one for me”), she talked about her decision to rejoin Fleetwood Mac, despite years of drama (divorces, addictions, solo ventures, illnesses). “I went for years without seeing Stevie or Lindsey”—Buckingham, the band’s lead guitarist—“but Mick was always just there, on my shoulder,” she said.

“I left the band because I developed a terrible fear of flying,” she explained. “I wanted to restore an ancient house in Kent, and that’s what I did. It was a heap—this Tudor building with the beams painted lime green, so hideous. And I had this idea that I’d love the small village life, with the Range Rover and the dogs and baking cookies for the Y.W.C.A. But then it got so boring. You couldn’t walk down the road without meeting two people related to each other. I missed the songs. And I missed the audience.”

Before rejoining Fleetwood Mac, McVie asked permission of each band member. They were thrilled to have her back at the piano—with a few caveats. “Stevie told me I had to get in shape, because the road was gruelling, and I said, ‘Stevie, you must recall that I was in the band before you were. I know how hard the road is.’ And then Lindsey said, ‘You cannot just waltz in and waltz back out. You have to be in it for the whole nine yards.’ ” She continued, “So I found a psychiatrist and got over my flying thing.”

She toyed with a silver chain on her wrist, looking out over Columbus Circle. “Stevie gave me this chain. It used to have a diamond feather on it. It’s a metaphor, you know. That the chain of the band will never be broken. Not by me, anyways. Not again by me.”

She added that she had one stipulation of her own for coming back. “I wanted it to be fun. That sounds like a hollow word, but, with this group, that is not a given. I didn’t want to go back into the Dark Ages and into the negativity and the gloom and the exhausting melodramas that have gone on in this band for years and years.”

On the tour so far, the mood seems bright. “We are all smiling ninety-nine per cent of the time,” she said. “Which, by this band’s standard, is phenomenal.”

She described the band’s pre-show ritual, which it will be performing before its gig at Madison Square Garden on January 22nd: “Before shows, we rub elbows and growl. It started once when someone had a cold, and we didn’t want to hug each other. So we started rubbing elbows. And we don’t kiss. We just go, ​Grrrr!”

[teedeerocks]

Originally Posted by nicole21290

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/19/play-2

The Musical Life. January 19, 2015 Issue

Play On
By Rachel Syme

By the time Christine McVie arrived at the Morrison Hotel Gallery, in SoHo, she had been up for sixteen hours and was dying to remove her false eyelashes. “They’re so heavy,” she said, as she tilted her head onto her clasped hands for the benefit of her manager, who had promised her an early exit. McVie, who had recently decided to reunite with her old bandmates in Fleetwood Mac for a tour, was in a makeshift V.I.P. room in back. Out in the gallery, a throng of Fleetwood Mac fans were looking at an exhibition of Polaroid self-portraits taken by the band’s Stevie Nicks. (“These are, like, the original selfies,” one woman, dressed in witchy layers, in homage to Nicks and McVie, said.)

“I’m only here for Stevie,” McVie said. At seventy-one, she was dressed like an off-duty rock star: narrow jeans, pointy boots, a gauzy scarf. Shaggy blond bangs nearly covered her eyes. “Everyone thinks this is quite the glamorous life, but it’s axe-grinding. Like this opening—I was dreading it. I’m so tired, I’m barely human. And I thought there might be old pictures of me, God forbid.” (There weren’t.) She scooped up a small white Maltese named Rodney, the property of Nicks’s manager. “Oh, I miss my pups,” she said, burying her face in the fluff.

Mick Fleetwood, the band’s drummer, put a glass of white wine in McVie’s dog-free hand. She nodded at a colorful scarf that hung around his neck. “Is this cut from a kimono you used to own?” she asked. “I recognize this fabric.” She and Fleetwood have an ease with each other, which, she says, is what brought her back to the band after sixteen years away.

Earlier that afternoon, lounging in her suite at the Trump International Hotel (“It’s such a diva thing, but I need one room for my suitcases and one for me”), she talked about her decision to rejoin Fleetwood Mac, despite years of drama (divorces, addictions, solo ventures, illnesses). “I went for years without seeing Stevie or Lindsey”—Buckingham, the band’s lead guitarist—“but Mick was always just there, on my shoulder,” she said.

“I left the band because I developed a terrible fear of flying,” she explained. “I wanted to restore an ancient house in Kent, and that’s what I did. It was a heap—this Tudor building with the beams painted lime green, so hideous. And I had this idea that I’d love the small village life, with the Range Rover and the dogs and baking cookies for the Y.W.C.A. But then it got so boring. You couldn’t walk down the road without meeting two people related to each other. I missed the songs. And I missed the audience.”

Before rejoining Fleetwood Mac, McVie asked permission of each band member. They were thrilled to have her back at the piano—with a few caveats. “Stevie told me I had to get in shape, because the road was gruelling, and I said, ‘Stevie, you must recall that I was in the band before you were. I know how hard the road is.’ And then Lindsey said, ‘You cannot just waltz in and waltz back out. You have to be in it for the whole nine yards.’ ” She continued, “So I found a psychiatrist and got over my flying thing.”

She toyed with a silver chain on her wrist, looking out over Columbus Circle. “Stevie gave me this chain. It used to have a diamond feather on it. It’s a metaphor, you know. That the chain of the band will never be broken. Not by me, anyways. Not again by me.”

She added that she had one stipulation of her own for coming back. “I wanted it to be fun. That sounds like a hollow word, but, with this group, that is not a given. I didn’t want to go back into the Dark Ages and into the negativity and the gloom and the exhausting melodramas that have gone on in this band for years and years.”

On the tour so far, the mood seems bright. “We are all smiling ninety-nine per cent of the time,” she said. “Which, by this band’s standard, is phenomenal.”

She described the band’s pre-show ritual, which it will be performing before its gig at Madison Square Garden on January 22nd: “Before shows, we rub elbows and growl. It started once when someone had a cold, and we didn’t want to hug each other. So we started rubbing elbows. And we don’t kiss. We just go, ​Grrrr!”

Three words - I LOVE CHRIS

[nicepace]

Before shows, we rub elbows and growl. It started once when someone had a cold, and we didn’t want to hug each other. So we started rubbing elbows. And we don’t kiss. We just go, ​Grrrr!

That is so funny! Fans ought to start doing that, too. Can you imagine 10,000 people in an arena all rubbing elbows with their neighbors and growling, just as the musicians arrive on stage? What an image.

[jbrownsjr]

“Stevie told me I had to get in shape, because the road was grueling, and I said, ‘Stevie, you must recall that I was in the band before you were. I know how hard the road is."

God I love this woman.

[vivfox]

Christine looked so happy and relaxed in the pics from the Morrison Gallery.

So she doesn't like to kiss any of them before a show? Just onstage in front of the audience, she won't catch a cold that way, ey?

Not wanting to return to the drama in the band? I guess she was never part of that, huh?

[jbrownsjr]

She never threw that drink at Lindsey!

[MoonSister75]

I love this article - her personality really comes through, she's so sweet and funny

[Macfan4life]

Originally Posted by jbrownsjr

“Stevie told me I had to get in shape, because the road was grueling, and I said, ‘Stevie, you must recall that I was in the band before you were. I know how hard the road is."

God I love this woman.

Yes, I also loved this quote. Can you imagine if some night Chris came out at the end of the concert and talked like Stevie the way Stevie talks like Chris in calling her in Italy? That would be the funniest thing ever.
In print Chris sometimes can sound harsh but it is her sense of humor. In the 1982 Rolling Stone "Happy at the top" interview Chris comments at the end "Someone actually handed me this stuffed animal.... usually Stevie gets all that stuff." When I read that when it came out, it sounded like a swipe at Stevie but she is just trying to be funny. But a good comedian knows the best and funniest jokes have a ring of truth to them. Chris should have said, .."Dear Stevie, dancing around all night with a tambourine is not work. Try playing keyboards and singing for all 22 songs! Dear Stevie this is not one of your 85 minute solo concerts with 12 songs dear.

HA HA

[jbrownsjr]

You are so right. I believe these two ladies really love each other, but like some fans, we roll our eyes when Stevie answers questions and starts to bloviate away. If you listen to Stevie, most things that Christine, Lindsey, or Mick do are in part about her, or she told them what to do and how to do it.

"Cause I told them, this is how it is." or "I totally believed she was never coming back." Or "I was the only one that knew Lindsey was serious when he left the band."


The list goes on and on...

[teedeerocks]

Originally Posted by jbrownsjr

“Stevie told me I had to get in shape, because the road was grueling, and I said, ‘Stevie, you must recall that I was in the band before you were. I know how hard the road is."

God I love this woman.

I loved the whole article but this is the line that really made me post simply "I LOVE CHRIS".She stood right up and put Mama in her place which I loved. I love Stevie's music,songwriting and everything but I posted way back that lately I can't stand her bloated personality and Chris put her in her place!Stevie needs that alot these days IMO.Did Stevie actually think that Chris was going to let a remark like that slide by?If Stevie sees Chris with a drink in her hand she better duck...I also loved it when she said that she was only there for Stevie and that she dreaded the whole thing.Stevie probably bugged her until she said "Ok,ok I'll go damn it."LMAO

[Macfan4life]

Originally Posted by teedeerocks

I loved the whole article but this is the line that really made me post simply "I LOVE CHRIS".She stood right up and put Mama in her place which I loved. I love Stevie's music,songwriting and everything but I posted way back that lately I can't stand her bloated personality and Chris put her in her place!Stevie needs that alot these days IMO.Did Stevie actually think that Chris was going to let a remark like that slide by?If Stevie sees Chris with a drink in her hand she better duck...I also loved it when she said that she was only there for Stevie and that she dreaded the whole thing.Stevie probably bugged her until she said "Ok,ok I'll go damn it."LMAO

Yes and I love how she said she dreaded and hoped not to see any old photos of herself. Really honest, sincere, and funny!

I love the part in Mick Fleetwood's first book where Stevie complained she did not work enough on Tango and threatened to go to Rolling Stone magazine to say how she had nothing to do with the album. Mick says Chris had a few glasses of wine in her and threw it right back at Stevie..."we wanted you here but you were not here. We wanted your vocals on Everywhere but you were not here".
This is when they added Stevie's vocal dubs on Everywhere...supposedly after this fight.

[ViscountViktor]

I think the "not by me anyway" line is interesting.

Hinting at Stevie's problems with recording?

[SteveMacD]

Originally Posted by ViscountViktor

I think the "not by me anyway" line is interesting.

Hinting at Stevie's problems with recording?

Maybe, but I doubt it. I think she was basically reinforcing that she's in for good.

[jbrownsjr]

Originally Posted by SteveMacD

Maybe, but I doubt it. I think she was basically reinforcing that she's in for good.

I don't think for a minute she wanted to do this for one tour. Which says that it's not about the cash.. She was just bored.

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by vivfox

Christine looked so happy and relaxed in the pics from the Morrison Gallery.

So she doesn't like to kiss any of them before a show? Just onstage in front of the audience, she won't catch a cold that way, ey?

Not wanting to return to the drama in the band? I guess she was never part of that, huh?

She kisses them before the show. I saw her kiss Lindsey backstage on that one video clip they did chronicling the open night.

Michele