Fleetwood Mac Doesn't Stop - Buckingham Highlight of Show

by Brad Kava

When Fleetwood Mac announced its reunion tour, there was good reason to wonder what Rolling Stone magazine called the "drugingest band of the 70s" might not be as welcome today as a silver coke spoon at the Betty Ford Clinic. But at Tuesday's surprisingly satisfying show at Shorline Ampirtheater, the five formerly fighting, loving, drugging musicians showerd that, like John Travolta, they could change the way they look and play and still created something that works, even a copule of decades later. It was the first of two nights at Shorline. The 2 1/2 hours show, before a packed house that included more young people than you migh expect, was driven largely by guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, who has become for the new Mac what Peter Green was to the blues Mac of the 1960s. This was a homecoming for the 50-year old (again age is wrong, he was 48 here) Peninsula native, and his guitar playing, both in his solo set and backing singers Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie on their songs, was the highlight of the balmy night. It more than made up for his shaky singing, after a week in which the band canceled one Vancouver show and an ailing Buckingham croaked his way through another in Tacoma. From the show's opener, "The Chain," off 1977's 17 million-selling "Rumours," through more obscure songs such as "Not that Funny" (off 1979's "Tusk") and the new "My Little Denom," Buckingham kept tinkering, changing and updating the material. He spun a web of a spiraling solo on McVie's "Oh Daddy" that was unlike anything on the "Rumours" original. He picked up a banjo for "Say You Love Me," a single that helped make 1975's Fleetwood Mac the band's first multimillion selling album. He toned down "I'm So Afraid," the 1975 song that became a raging guitar showcase in 80's live perfomances. The solos were still long, but he played with a Santana-like finesse. Later he ripped up an acoustic guitar for a solo turn on 1987's "Big Love" and mixed classical and flamenco styles on a solo version of "Go Insane."

San Jose Mercury News, October 16, 1997

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