80% FM is 100% Lacking (Delaware on CM)

[michelej1]

Delaware Online, April 10, 2009

http://www.delawareonline.com/articl.../ENTERTAINMENT

If it's 80 percent Fleetwood, it's 100 percent lacking

We here at Nightlife would like to issue the following two statements before moving forward.

Statement No. 1: We like and respect Fleetwood Mac and its entire catalog except for the song "Big Love" from the 1987 album "Tango in the Night."

Statement No. 2: We have no problems with bands soldiering on after one or two original members go their separate ways.

But we simply cannot let this quartet version of The Mac go through Philadelphia without saying whoa, wait a minute, this is a stinking pile of horsebleep (There is actually disbelief here that this column never dealt with this. Anyway).

Christine McVie wrote some of the band's best and most memorable songs. If Paul McCartney was a chick, he would have written "Everywhere." Beatle or no Beatle, the dude version of McCartney wishes he had written "Say That You Love Me." And although it's now eternally linked to Bill Clinton and his presidential victory lap after the 1992 election, "Don't Stop" deserves a place on the top-shelf of all-time classic rock anthems next to "Born to Run" and "Baba O'Riley."

Add in the fact that her keyboard parts have been integral to the band's sound since it went from blues to pop rock in the early 1970s and you're talking about an integral member, not just some Bill Wyman or Dave Abbruzzese (Pearl Jam's original drummer).

But McVie will not be a part of the "Fleetwood Mac Unleashed" tour. It's just Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. That's it.

This is not unprecedented. In fact, we can think of three times as many bands who have gone on without a key cog than those who did the right thing and hung up their guitars.

R.E.M. should have gone to sleep when drummer Bill Berry retired in 1998, because: A) the band lost its stones and hasn't put out a decent album since 1996's "New Adventures in Hi Fi," and B) the band has only seemed to play with gusto on the rare occasions when Berry got back behind the kit for a spot appearance, including one in 2007 when R.E.M. was inducted into the Hall of Fame.

(2 of 3)


For some reason, Genesis thought it could succeed without Phil Collins in the 1990s, and Journey continues to dilute itself by thinking it has a reason to exist without Steve Perry.



And in this case, yes, you could make an argument -- as the rest of the Mac has -- that now they can focus more on the tunes by Buckingham and Nicks. And now we'll get more awkward googly eye moments like when the pair sings to each other during "Landslide."

But we say Fleetwood Mac without Christine McVie is no Fleetwood Mac at all.

If you disagree, you can be one of the tens of thousands who show up for the band's gig at 8 p.m. Wednesday at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia.

Tickets range from $49.50-$149.50, and are available at www.livenation.com.