CityLife

Fleetwood Mac: Autumn Arena Tour 2009

Fleetwood Mac
MEN Arena
October 27, 2009

WALKING on stage hand in hand, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham set the crowd-pleasing tone for the evening.

“This is for fun, we’ve no new album to promote – yet,” Buckingham said in a fairly big hint that there may be more to come from the group that’s been around in one form or another since the mid-sixties.

So thanks to the success of this Unleashed world tour the ’Rumours’ line-up, minus Christine McVie, have actually enjoyed playing together and could record again soon?

Anyone familiar with the changing cast of Fleetwood Mac over the years: the arguments, the addictions and the revolving bedroom doors of its key members, will know how unlikely this once seemed.

There was even a wry smile from Buckingham as he referred to the band’s ’complex and convoluted emotional history’ but as he and former lover Nicks embraced warmly halfway through a greatest hits set the capacity crowd cheered with joy. A little staged? Possibly, but this was what they wanted. Fleetwood Mac couldn’t set a foot wrong and they didn’t.

With John McVie and the now white-haired Mick Fleetwood providing a typically energic rhythm section, Nicks and Buckingham gave a lesson in how to stage a comeback.

Well-preserved

From a boom boom barnstormer of The Chain early on through Mac standards of Dreams, the haunting Gypsy, Sara and Rhiannon the connection between the two singers was clearly evident.

Then came Landslide, Second Hand News and Tusk followed by more nods to their blues/rock past.

The incredibly well preserved pair took turns to lead, Nicks swaying hippyishly in gold and black shawls behind her mic stand, traditionally draped, like her tambourine, with her trademark long ribbons, Buckingham commanding the stage with the raw intensity of a musician half his age.

Yes, Nicks backed off a little on the highest notes early on in the set but at 61 that’s to be expected and in the main that ethereal, sexy voice, blending and harmonising with Buckingham’s note perfect vocals, was fantastic to hear.

Buckingham, always one of the guitarists’ top guitarists, nearly stole the show with a revelatory solo Big Love.

But it was Go Your Own Way, for which Nicks donned that famous top hat once again, that had ’em up on their feet, arms in the air.

So Fleetwood Mac are back, older and wiser perhaps, but just as good as before.

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