Fleetwood Mac

Glasgow Hydro

8th July 2015


Back in the late 1970s, even as an unashamedly unreconstructed Progger I could tell there was something more than just a little bit special about Rumours.  I knew nothing of the interpersonal shenanigans which helped give the album birth, and probably would not have cared much if I did.  Perhaps if I am being hypercritical, I would venture one or two of the songs on the second side are slightly weak, but for pure quality AOR, I do not think the first side of the album has yet been beaten.

Occasional further hit singles would waft past my ears over the following decade or so, but even my ever-expanding musical horizons never quite stretched to any other of the band’s albums. 

Linsdey Buckingham

Christine McVie

Mick Fleetwood & Lindsay Buckingham

Fleetwood Mac - Glasgow July 2015

During the delightfully bonkers Tusk

   
With a band of this vintage, and with the three singers boasting a combined age of just over 200 years, the quality of the vocals, rather than the musicianship say, was always going to be a concern.

Christine McVie, now the rather more dignified side of 70, after a decidedly dodgy start when she gargled and yodelled her way through You Make Loving Fun, came onto a game and her performances thereafter were first class.  I had forgotten just how many of the hits Mrs McVie had contributed to the band’s collection: Everywhere, Don’t Stop, Little Lies, Say You Love Me and Over My Head.

Stevie Nicks by contrast, it pains me to relate, for whatever reason appears to have parted company with that silky voice of old.  It remains unmistakeably her own, but it does appear at times to have become infected with a stridently shrill aspect which, if not quite fingernails-down-a-blackboard, was rather uncomfortable to listen to at times.  This was particularly evident on her two big showcases: Rhiannon and Gold Dust Woman.

Lindsay Buckingham, however had no such issues, but with his geetar histrionics I could not help but wonder if deep within his soul he rather wished he had been invited to join Deep Purple or Quiet Riot all those years ago.  For he does so love a good guitar thrash/blow out – as evidence I present both I Know I’m Not Wrong and I’m So Afraid.  I am sure he would have loved to break out into Smoke on the Water during the latter.  But he could also finger pick like a good ‘un, and his work on Big Love was jaw-dropping.

Go Your Own Way, predictably, closed out the main set, but the encores were a mixed bunch indeed.  Don’t Stop was sandwiched between a drum solo-bloated rendition of World Turning and an obscure (and not, it has to be said, terribly memorable) b side.

Will we ever see these five out and about on such a lengthy tour as this again?  I rather doubt it.

John McVie

Stevie Nicks

They did not make 71 year old women like this when I was a boy.

Lindsey prepares to riff.

Stevie Nicks & Mick Fleetwood

Fleetwood Mac - Glasgow July 2015

Set list

The Chain  
You Make Loving Fun  
Dreams  
Second Hand News  
Rhiannon  
Everywhere  
I Know I'm Not Wrong  
Tusk  
Sisters of the Moon  
Say You Love Me  
Big Love  
Landslide  
Never Going Back Again  
Over My Head  
Gypsy  
Little Lies  
Gold Dust Woman  
I'm So Afraid  
Go Your Own Way  

Encores
World Turning  
Don't Stop  
Silver Springs  

Songbird