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Your Gateway to Music and More from a Christian Perspective Slow down as you approach the gate, and have your change ready.... |
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Your Gateway to Music and More from a Christian Perspective Slow down as you approach the gate, and have your change ready.... |
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Fleetwood
Mac Live At The Odyssey Arena, Belfast - 8.12.03
I was amazed, confused, bemused and enthralled. Fleetwood Mac is a serious night’s entertainment and wonderment. There is the music, the personalities, the interconnections between the personalities and then there are the memories of twenty five years revisited. Indeed the first thing that struck me as they kicked in to “The Chain” was how I had forgotten how much I remembered about these songs. I had left them behind after Mirage in 1982 until the recent Say You Will album but seventies Mac was oh so familiar. Second thought and revelation was how crucial Lindsay Buckingham was to the entire thing. I knew he had been missed when he went off to follow his solo career and I was aware of how central he was to the quality of Say You Will but I had never realized how his guitar licks had been such a trademark of the sound. That guitar playing is intrinsic to tonight’s event. If his guitar playing was verging on the obligatory seventies guitar solos on “Say You Will,” tonight he was coming across as Neil Young joining Lynyrd Skynyrd with a few Jimi Hendrix impersonations thrown in! At times, it was a little overindulgent and maybe losing control was excusable once but it became a habitual addiction. His ego seemed to pump his adrenaline, self-confessed when he spoke about he and Nicks sitting around in north California “wondering what to do with their talent” when they met Fleetwood and Mac! Which brings us to the personalities, Buckingham had me concerned with his sanity. There was no doubt that the crowd’s adulation was firing him more than the rest. Some of the guitar playing did seem a little heavy metal for a west coast signature band but those in the crowd who seemed least likely screamed the loudest for more. It was impressive but a little on the edge; not the playing the player! Stevie Nicks was described in the introductions as the lady of Fleetwood Mac and that is exactly what she did tonight. She gave mystery, that enchanting voice, the ribbons, the lace and the femininity in sound and presence. Of course there was “Rhiannon,” “Landslide,” “Dreams,” and particularly strong tonight, “Beautiful Child” with a voice that maybe wasn’t as sharp as 1977 but it was still trademark Stevie. That though was not the intrigue. The intrigue tonight was her and Buckingham, once lovers later haters and here reunited flirting and kissing and generally making their present partners very insecure indeed, I imagine. The songs of love betrayed and lost and longed for that has been the subject matter all along are songs that they wrote mainly about each other. Tonight they stood just feet apart and turned to sing conversations back and forward. As a drama with actors it would have been brilliant but playing themselves made it raw to the heart and the soul and at times made me feel a voyeur of an intimacy that should remain private. When they started touching each other during Landslide it got a bit too much to deal with. Great to see that you are friends again team but easy on! Mick and John? Well to be truthful they were the rhythm section without as much as a glance from Stevie and Lindsay for a long part of the show. McVie is the archetypal bass player; no fuss, no charisma, no emotion! If “The Chain” conjures up the Formula One Grand Prix that it was the theme tune for on British Television then he was in cruise control, almost asleep at the wheel or in the back seat to be more precise. Fleetwood was always making faces on the big screen close ups but came out from behind his kit near the end to become the spokesman and though his drum solo in the middle of World Turning was far too long to be enjoyable he did show an amazing stamina for a man of sixty years plus. Astoundingly brilliant is the musical judgment. On personality and appearance, Compo from another BBC television series the last of the Summer Wine is as good a description as any. A lot of this has been to do with people rather than the music and Fleetwood Mac were the sum of an array of brilliant parts. Christine McVie has been missed particularly “You make Loving Fun” and “Songbird” tonight but it gave Nicks more chance to shine. The audience was rather mature and there may have been the danger of a karaoke type functional going through the hits. But there wasn’t. The new songs from Say You Will held their own admirably which gives a real degree of integrity and dignity lacking in many comebacks! Buckingham needs applauded for that too. He must have gained a lot from have these guys and their name on what was probably planned as solo album but he has given much more than he gained in how he drove it and pulled it all together. When Fleetwood finished the night with “the Mac is back” in as demented a tirade of screaming as Buckingham’s earlier guitar playing he was not kidding. This is great music by a great band who have survived the most incredible story of access, drugs and personal animosity to be performing some of the best songs of their generation in the most impressive of ways. Quite a night! Steve Stockman 12/14/2003
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