Toronto Show?

[whitewingdove]

Just a shout out to any fans going to the show in Toronto on Saturday?

[michelej1]

Toronto Sun By Jane Stevenson, Toronto Sun
First posted: Sunday, October 19, 2014

http://www.torontosun.com/2014/10/19...stalgia-at-acc

TORONTO - It truly was the return of The Mac at the Air Canada Centre on Saturday night.

Fleetwood Mac’s most successful mid-’70s-and-onward lineup arrived at the arena with major anticipation given singer-keyboardist Christine McVie is touring again with the British-American rock band after a 16-year absence from the road.

“Imagine what it feels like for me to be given this second chance,” said the 71-year-old McVie as she played alongside ex-husband-bassist John McVie, drummer Mick Fleetwood, singer Stevie Nicks and singer-guitarist Lindsey Buckingham on a slick-looking stage with an eye-popping video screen and accompanying visuals.

The nostalgia-heavy night, which stretched a marathon two-and-a-half hours and two encores, appropriately began with The Chain, the first of nine songs performed from Rumours, the band’s 1977 juggernaut album that has sold 45 million copies worldwide and counting.

It is the only song on that disc, recorded as McVie’s marriage and Nicks and Buckingham’s relationship fell apart, written by all five members.

And when McVie took over on lead vocals for the second Rumours song, You Make Loving Fun, the crowd roared its approval, warmly welcoming her back.

“So Christine, where have you been?” joked Nicks, 66, who appeared thrilled, along with the rest of the group rounded out by two backing musicians and three backup singers, to have her on stage with them.

Buckingham, 65, later referred to McVie’s return “as a new chapter in the saga of Fleetwood Mac.” Other Rumours cuts that went down well included the Nicks-sung Dreams and Gold Dust Woman (the latter complete with gold shawl and interpretive dance moves) and the Buckingham-led Second Hand News and Go Your Own Way.

Holding up well too were tunes from 1975’s self-titled Fleetwood Mac disc, also known as The White Album, most significantly Nicks’ Welsh witch ode Rhiannon, which saw her perform the first of a handful of her signature twirls, and the gorgeous Landslide, along with the McVie-sung Say You Love Me and Buckingham’s I’m So Afraid during which he practically vibrated as he played.

McVie also pointed out she wrote another tune, Over My Head from that disc, when she was still married to John.

“Do you remember that John?” she said to the 68-year-old McVie, who battled cancer in 2013 leading to the group cancelling their Australian and New Zealand dates.

On the minus side, the title track from 1979’s double album Tusk was good if not great - I would have preferred a real marching band to the one pictured on the video screen - and some of the evening’s lighter fare like Sisters Of the Moon, Seven Wonders (with a Nicks dedication to American Horror Story which she appeared on last season), and Silver Springs, could have been edited out to make for a tighter set which dragged a bit in the middle and towards the end.

I’ve also never been able to hear Don’t Stop the same way again without thinking about its use by Bill Clinton for his first presidential campaign in 1992.

Of all the Fleetwood Mac members, Buckingham was the most wonderfully intense although the 67-year-old Fleetwood came a close second with his wild drum solo during World Turning pronouncing afterwards: “My head is on fire!” Buckingham blew kisses after some virtuoso playing on I Know I’m Not Wrong, also from Tusk, shouted and grunted during Big Love from 1987’s Tango In The Night, and made a major musical meal out of the Rumours track Never Going Back Again.

Otherwise, it seemed as if no time had passed between McVie and the rest of her Fleetwood Mac mates as she also took over on lead vocals for Everywhere and Little Lies, both from Tango In The Night, and the gorgeous show ending Songbird from Rumours.

Nicks’ Gypsy, from 1982’s Mirage, was preceded by a story about how she went shopping for clothes in the Janis Joplin and Grace Slick-frequented San Francisco store, The Velvet Underground, and had a premonition, as a 22-year-old, that “something big was coming.” That “something big” was Fleetwood Mac, which Buckingham Nicks (as the duo were then called), would soon join and the rest, as they say, is history.

Fleetwood Mac return to play the ACC a second time on Feb. 3.

[michelej1]

Mick Fleetwood on his band’s story: ‘You couldn’t invent what we went through’

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...ticle21151910/

Brad Wheeler The Globe and Mail, The Insider


Published Friday, Oct. 17 2014, 4:46 PM EDT

The drummer Mick Fleetwood will be on the stool when the storied Fleetwood Mac plays Air Canada Centre in Toronto on Saturday. As well, an exhibition of photography by the 67-year-old Englishman runs all month at the Liss Gallery, where he’ll make an appearance on Friday evening. We spoke to Mr. Fleetwood from New York.

One thing that separates Fleetwood Mac from other bands of your generation is the history of all the inner-band drama. I think you have a rock-star mystique that most bands couldn’t match then, and even fewer can match now. The songs have held up well, but I think your younger fans dig the stories, and perhaps crave that kind of context to the music. Do you agree?

It’s meaningful. We were a bit green behind the ears back then. But it’s turned out to be a good document. I’m personally glad we were open about all the shenanigans we got up to, and the dysfunctionality. It may have been a little naive, but it was honest. You couldn’t invent what we went through. I think it resonated, and still resonates, increasingly so.

Can you talk about the relationship with your fans, particularly the ones who have been with you since the seventies?

It’s a life study. It’s music as a backdrop. The audience, emotionally, is telling its own story, because it’s gone on so long. The real nucleus that’s taken the journey with us is sitting there having a personal exchange on their own. It was nothing to do with the music. It has to do with being triggered about their lives. Their sadnesses, their joys – it’s all there in the audience. Which is hugely different than 40 years ago. It’s massive. It’s truly performance art, and I’m realizing that more and more. And I’m really realizing it with the advent of Christine McVie coming back.

She’s the story of the tour, really. How has she been received?

People are literally weeping with joy. When she opens up that voice and sings for the first time with us in 17 years, the place erupts – in a way we haven’t seen. It’s so passionate. They love the songs. It’s Christine and this crazy band. They can’t believe that Fleetwood Mac is all up there together.

About your photography, you’ve said that it’s not about documentation, but that the camera is more of an instrument to express yourself. Can we say that your exhibitions are your solo albums?

Yeah. I think that’s well put. With Fleetwood Mac, I was never the one who wrote or sang the songs. By nature, being in a rhythm section, you’re in a support team. But with my photography, my nuts are on the line. Mind you, it’s always been something I did for fun, first and foremost. I just like doing it. It’s like someone asking me why I started playing the drums. To make millions of dollars and to jump in bed with girls? No, I just like playing drums.

Can we talk about the millions of dollars and the girls, though?

You know, people have told me that. About why they picked up a guitar. But that wasn’t me. And I don’t think it’s anyone in this band. It was because we love what we do.

[michelej1]

Now Toronto, October 18, 2014

http://www.nowtoronto.com/music/stor...content=200082

Fleetwood Mac at the ACC

Christine McVie back after 16 years but Fleetwood Mac is still the Stevie Nicks show

By Sarah Greene

By the time Fleetwood Mac played Rhiannon, early on in their two and a half hour long revue at the Air Canada Centre, it was clear that despite the brouhaha over the return of long-time member Christine Mcvie after a 16-year hiatus, it’s still the Stevie Nicks show. Nicks oozes charisma; ahe can get a crowd excited by waving her arm or doing a little twirl. Every time she sang (and she was singing well) the packed house got out of their seats. No wonder ao many fans arrived dressed like her.

Starting with The Chain, the Mac played through nearly every song from their bestselling hit-machine Rumours, pulling out Silver Springs in the encore with an abundance of ridiculous chime sounds (the band clearly love their synths – why, oh why, did they not bring along a live horn section?).

Not to be outdone by Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham prepared for solo turn Big Love by charging up his right hand like a robot before launching into the loudest, most ferocious classical playing imaginable (Buckingham, a ham, admirably never left the stage, though some of his other songs came across as overwrought).

He was at his best was when he loaned his guitar chops in service of Nicks’s vocals on Landslide, though everyone had their moments (including Mick Fleetwood’s indulgent drum solo in the encore).

The band say this is a new chapter that will last long and bear fruit, and they’ve got a new album on the way. Time will tell how long those chains will hold.

[michelej1]

[Auction news. One of the prizes you can bid on]

http://www.edmontonsun.com/2014/10/2...harity-auction

And more for music lovers: a luxury suite for 16 for the Nov. 15 Fleetwood Mac concert at Rexall Place.

[mitzo]

I had a last minute really pricey ticket for this show. Had to cancel my trip to Toronto and the show when my partner ended up needing an emergency surgery to remove a spinal cord tumour. All turned out miraculously well. |I credit Stevie.

[michelej1]

Aubrey Jax @ blogto.com February 2, 2015

http://www.blogto.com/music/2015/02/...february_2015/

Fleetwood Mac is back again (I've started picturing Fleetwood Mac shows as regular singles meet ups for lonesome baby boomers, is that inaccurate?),