1978 Concert Review

[David]

Rolling Stone
In Performance

Fleetwood Mac/Steve Miller
July 30, 1978
JFK Stadium, Philadelphia

They might as well have called it a pop-blues festival. Fleetwood Mac and the Steve Miller Band, the two headliners, started out as blues bands and gradually extended their interpretations of the medium to embrace a larger, pop audience.

Yet even after all the hits, it's obvious in live performance that both bands still base their deliveries on the blues.

The audience packing JFK Stadium to the limits was older than most concert crowds. They sat and waited peaceably through the Sanford-Townshend Band's watery set and through Bob Welch, who might have sounded good if he hadn't been victimized by feedback from the stadium's sound system.

Miller, ever the capable technician, didn't do much to incite the crowd's enthusiasm while delivering a near-perfect show, marred only by occasional vocal lapses when either he stopped singing or the PA system failed. The biggest response Miller pulled was at the mention of Philadelphia in "Rockin' Me," but his clever manipulation of blues-based hooks and excellent guitar playing maintained interest even in the least-inspired moments. He flashed some brilliant playing at the end of the set, carving out a ringing, trumpetlikesolo on "The Joker" and finishing with a blues instrumental. The encore, his early trademark "Living in the USA," drew a nostalgic response but clearly didn't match previous live performances of the song.

Fleetwood Mac tapped the audience's energy more efficiently, channeling the opening applause into a rhythmic element of the first song. The group's great rhthym section was working overtime, with Mick Fleetwood slamming away the infectious drum backbeat while John McVie pinned down the arrangements with his loping, precision-punch bass playing. Lindsey Buckingham was in good form vocally and instrumentally, playing a letter-perfect guitar part on the classic "Oh Well" and a brilliant slow-blues intro to "The Chain," which provided a high point early in the set. The latter song, which seems the weak link on Rumours, becomes a tour de force onstage, where it is stretched out into a long, intense instrumental.

Despite the commercial success Stevie Nicks has helped bring Fleetwood Mac, the band is better off in concert when she shuts her mouth and whirls around the stage. Nicks sounded consistently weak vocally and apparently uninterested in the old material. Whole sections of the show, especially the one starting with "Dreams," were ruined by her lackluster vocals. She had to be saved repeatedly by Christine McVie's backup harmonies, which were embarrassingly more tuneful and responsive to the arrangements than Nicks'.

Nicks sang so poorly she even threw off the rhthym section, forcing Fleetwood to check and change tempos repeatedly during several tunes. By contrast, when Christine McVie took over lead vocals on "Monday Morning" and "You Make Loving Fun," the band sounded magnificent and everything feel into place. Nicks sang like she meant it only on the one new song the group played, "Sisters of the Moon," leading one to suspect her poor performance was due to boredom than ineptness.

Despite Nicks, the Mac pulled off a red-hot finale, churning through bright versions of "Go Your Own Way" and "Second Hand News" that gave the fans what they came for.

John Swenson

[MacMan]

Originally Posted by David

Despite the commercial success Stevie Nicks has helped bring Fleetwood Mac, the band is better off in concert when she shuts her mouth and whirls around the stage.

Well wasn't that nice!?

[David]

Originally Posted by MacMan

Well wasn't that nice!?

Remember what the Rolling Stone critic said about her for the June 29, 1977, show at the Garden? "twirled with all the grace of a drunken sailor"

Can you post that review?

How come these reviews aren't in the blue letter archives? They should be there.

[macfan 57]

Originally Posted by David

Remember what the Rolling Stone critic said about her for the June 29, 1977, show at the Garden? "twirled with all the grace of a drunken sailor"

Can you post that review?

How come these reviews aren't in the blue letter archives? They should be there.

David, I'll add this review to the Blue Letter Archives. Do you know the date of this Rolling Stone issue? July 30th was the date of the show. Do you have the date of the RS magazine?

By the way, I did add all of those other reviews/articles that you posted a while back to the Blue Letter Archives.

[strandinthewind]

I listen to the 70's boots and while they all had their off nights, the FM FM and Rumors shows were IMO really good and often great. I listen with awe to Stevie's live Silver Springs and Rhiannon's. I also think LB had a far better voice then than now a la I'm So Afraid in that live outdoor concert on the Disney special - I mean WOW hardly covers it for him and really all of them on that. CM, IMO, could tend to wander off key, but like Billie Holiday and Bonnie Raitt, that just made it better. So, when I read reviews like the one above, I weight that against my own experience with the boots and tend to think it was a bad night or the guy just didn't like her, which certainly was a problem at that time when the pretty, flowery girl singing of dreams and witches took over rock and roll for awhile.

[David]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

I listen to the 70's boots and while they all had their off nights, the FM FM and Rumors shows were IMO really good and often great. I listen with awe to Stevie's live Silver Springs and Rhiannon's. I also think LB had a far better voice then than now a la I'm So Afraid in that live outdoor concert on the Disney special - I mean WOW hardly covers it for him and really all of them on that. CM, IMO, could tend to wander off key, but like Billie Holiday and Bonnie Raitt, that just made it better. So, when I read reviews like the one above, I weight that against my own experience with the boots and tend to think it was a bad night or the guy just didn't like her, which certainly was a problem at that time when the pretty, flowery girl singing of dreams and witches took over rock and roll for awhile.

Help me remember here: John Swenson wrote which other famous Rolling Stone stories & reviews of Fleetwood Mac? I know Swenson did something. Most of the staffers at RS in the '70s liked Fleetwood Mac quite a lot. I think I have even gone so far as to say that the band was a critics' pet.

[David]

Originally Posted by macfan 57

David, I'll add this review to the Blue Letter Archives. Do you know the date of this Rolling Stone issue? July 30th was the date of the show. Do you have the date of the RS magazine?

I don't have the date of that issue, unfortunately. I guess it may have been in August or even September. As far as what it said, I'm going totally by memory here. Stevie "twirled with all the grace of a drunken sailor" & during Gold Dust Woman "uttered incantations that rivaled Linda Blair's Regan, only without Regan's exquisite control." The critic added that "Nicks righted herself the following night."

By the way, I did add all of those other reviews/articles that you posted a while back to the Blue Letter Archives.

Thank you & thank you again, Mary Anne. Sometimes I get worried that things aren't being added to the BLA, but are popping up in article archives all over the rest of the Web. The BLA needs continual attention--not just for current press coverage but for historical press coverage that is constantly surfacing.

[macfan 57]

Originally Posted by David

I don't have the date of that issue, unfortunately. I guess it may have been in August or even September. As far as what it said, I'm going totally by memory here. Stevie "twirled with all the grace of a drunken sailor" & during Gold Dust Woman "uttered incantations that rivaled Linda Blair's Regan, only without Regan's exquisite control." The critic added that "Nicks righted herself the following night."

Thank you & thank you again, Mary Anne. Sometimes I get worried that things aren't being added to the BLA, but are popping up in article archives all over the rest of the Web. The BLA needs continual attention--not just for current press coverage but for historical press coverage that is constantly surfacing.

David, I just added this review to the Blue Letter Archives. I thought John Swenson's name was very familiar. Then I remembered that I had added one of his reviews from Creem Magazine. He must have moved from Rolling Stone to Creem. That Creem Magazine review was for Christine's 1984 solo album. It was a rave review too. I can see why he liked Chris at this Philly show. He just must have really liked Christine McVie.

[HomerMcvie]

Nicks sounded consistently weak vocally and apparently uninterested in the old material. Whole sections of the show, especially the one starting with "Dreams," were ruined by her lackluster vocals. She had to be saved repeatedly by Christine McVie's backup harmonies, which were embarrassingly more tuneful and responsive to the arrangements than Nicks'.

Tee Hee.

[strandinthewind]

Interestingly, her harmony is crucial to SHN and GYOW - which they said were great

But, I agree, La Nicks can look bored to death on stage in this era.

[Gailh]

Originally Posted by HomerMcvie

Tee Hee.

Now Homer play nicely

Gail

[SortaSavageLike]

If Arion Berger truly thinks that Gold Dust Woman is the nastiest song Stevie ever wrote, than he obviously hasn't much of her discography.

[Somajoseph]

Wasnt Stevie having problems with nodules and vocal strain by the 78 summer tour? I think that was the cause of her poor performance. I had read another review back then that mentioned she was wrapping hot towels around her throat between songs. It was a bit unfair to attack her when it wasnt something she could help at that particular time.

[Johnny Stew]

Nicks sounded... uninterested in the old material.

Nicks sang like she meant it only on the one new song the group played....

I still find it interesting that the reasons many fans express as to why they've grown disenchanted with Stevie's performances in recent years, mirror complaints made by critics nearly thirty years ago, during what are typically considered to be the "glory days" of her live performances.

Meanwhile, critics seem to review her current live performances in a more consistently favorable fashion than thirty years ago.

Go figure.

[amber]

Wait, The Chain is a weak spot in Rumours?! Hmm, time to go eat my foot.

I've read so many negative reviews of Stevie from that time.