Author: Urban Bolta
Location: Schleyer-Halle / Stuttgart / Germany
Concert date: 14.10.2013
Attendance: 12,000
Ticket price: €61 – €91
There are plenty of American blues and classic rock bands that have been shortchanging European listeners for years, even decades, when it comes to live shows. Few of us can say we’ve ever had the chance to see the likes of Grand Funk Railroad, Chicago, Mountain, Heart, Kansas… live, and Fleetwood Mac belong in that league too. Sure, they’ve come back to the Old Continent “already” for the fourth time this millennium, but their European tours are either extremely short or take place far out of reach for Slovenian fans – in the UK, Scandinavia, the Benelux countries and central and northern Germany. It probably says enough that none of the nine members of the Slovenian delegation to Stuttgart, the closest stop on their current world tour, not even the oldest and most seasoned among us, had ever seen Fleetwood Mac before.
Fleetwood Mac hit the road after releasing the EP »Extended Play« (2013), their first studio work in over a decade. The band was completely dormant for the past few years, so much so that last year the American media even speculated about whether they’d ever perform together again. Now they’re not only playing, they’re even recording a new studio album, so the European tour doubles as a breather from the long hours in the studio.
Arriving at the Schleyer-Halle on the outskirts of Stuttgart, I remembered that I’d already seen Iron Maiden in this very hall two years ago. A huge venue can mean only one thing: that despite all the years since their commercial peak, Fleetwood Mac still enjoy the status of true rock giants, even if hearing them on the radio today is more the exception than the rule. The crowd was dominated by the older generation, who had literally stormed the ticket sales ahead of the show, so the event had been sold out for weeks.
True to proverbial German punctuality, the concert started just a few minutes after the announced time. The evening kicked off with Second Hand News, the hall fell completely silent and gave the eight musicians on stage an intimate welcome. Besides the classic members Stevie Nicks (vocals), Lindsey Buckingham (guitar, vocals), Mick Fleetwood (drums) and John McVie (bass), the touring lineup was rounded out by Brett Tuggle (keyboards, guitar, backing vocals), Neale Heywood (guitar, backing vocals) and backing vocalists Sharon Celani and Lori Nicks. This richly varied sonic mix, which filled out the sound nicely, was one of the brightest points of the Fleetwood Mac show, especially given the at times wobbly performances of the classic foursome. After the opener, Mick Fleetwood took off his hat and revealed his gray hair. Okay, now it’s getting real!
Fleetwood Mac built most of the set from their classic late-seventies era, slipping in a few newer songs, while keeping a careful eye on the mood, balancing hits like Dreams and Rhiannon with acoustic breathers in between. Even though the band comes from the blues, in the second half of the seventies they perfected a blend of female and male vocals and hypermelodic backing vocals, which sounded tight and infectious live too. After Big Love, only the two central Fleetwood Mac figures stayed on stage: Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. Time for acoustic! While Lindsey didn’t hold back on energy and came across as composed and reliable throughout, Stevie, now a 65-year-old grandma, kept taking the audience back decades with her chatter, slyly steering attention away from her weakened form and toward nostalgic reminiscing. The peak of the otherwise endearing rambling came with the intro to Without You, where Stevie spent a dozen minutes spilling every last detail in the history of this 40-year-old song, which only officially came out this year.
The concert was also a proper production feat, with huge screens decorating the backdrop and adding a visual component to the evening with the rock legends. It was precisely this all-round musical and visual spectacle that tucked bassist John McVie away in a mouse hole on the left side of the stage, where he went completely unnoticed until the band introductions. Guitarist Buckingham was also modest in character, yet he proved to be the strongest pillar of a band already gnawed at by time, whether in the acoustic touch of Never Going Back Again or the more upbeat take on Eyes of the World, where he also stepped in as lead vocalist. Only in the last part of the show did the evening’s good-humored drummer Mick Fleetwood get his moment with a short solo spot, enriching the basic drum kit with a whole array of extras, gong included. Those with a more hawk-eyed view managed to crack the formula behind his precise drumming – hidden behind his back was an assistant who helped him the whole time and occasionally even saved his skin. Age aside, does a fan who shelled out a mountain of money for a ticket really deserve such a condescending treatment?
The finale, with two encores, felt like the peak of a time warp back to when radio waves were still ruled by music of the original tradition! The hits Go Your Own Way, Don’t Stop and Silver Springs worked like dynamite despite their peaceful nature, launching a vast crowd of happy listeners out of the floor seats and straight up to the stage. The bond between band and audience, which Stevie Nicks above all had been building from the start, was finally sealed, even if at the cost of a slightly cheesy moment when the former partners Stevie and Lindsey walked onto the stage hand in hand before the last encore.
Despite the worn form of some key members, Fleetwood Mac are still well worth seeing in the autumn of their career, especially if you’ve never caught them live before. The rich sonic and visual backdrop served as an extra layer on top of the seemingly simple Fleetwood Mac legacy, so a pleasant atmosphere was guaranteed throughout a two-and-a-half-hour journey through the treasure trove of one of the most successful American rock bands.
Setlist
1. Second Hand News
2. The Chain
3. Dreams
4. Sad Angel
5. Rhiannon
6. Not That Funny
7. Tusk
8. Sisters of the Moon
9. Sara
10. Big Love
11. Landslide
12. Never Going Back Again
13. Without You
14. Gypsy
15. Eyes of the World
16. Gold Dust Woman
17. I’m So Afraid
18. Stand Back (Stevie Nicks song)
19. Go Your Own Way
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20. World Turning
21. Don’t Stop
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22. Silver Springs
23. Say Goodbye
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