SECC, Glasgow, Fleetwood Mac

To those familiar with their patchwork history, the fact that this recent avatar of Fleetwood Mac has remained stable for a little over a decade is something approaching a miracle.
Guitarist, sometime singer and key songwriter, Lindsey Buckingham, alludes to previous traumas with mention of recording their classic album, Rumours, during which period he and Stevie Nicks were breaking up their relationship: "there were a lot of emotional opposites between us". Yes, there was "aggression" to be worked out during "Second Hand News", but rarely has such spite sounded as joyful as it did here.
Whatever bridges may have been burned during this era and Buckingham's departure from the band following 1987's Tango in the Night have obviously been long since rebuilt. At the end of "Sara", Nicks – a hippyish figure in a changing array of sequinned shawls and dresses, her eyes dreamy and her hair a fresh bottle-blonde – takes Buckingham in a tender embrace of friendship. To applause and camera flashes from the audience, words are whispered between the pair, and it's another moment for the photo album when they emerge holding hands for the encore an hour later.
These two have clearly settled into a lifelong friendship, but many might have noticed the opposite attraction of their musical relationship. While the pair's voices manage a beautifully rootsy combination on duets like "Don't Stop" and particularly a stripped-back acoustic pairing for "Never Going Back Again", their individual contributions are markedly change.
Nicks, spinning gently on the spot, is a folky bohemian, a rustic chanteuse during familiar tracks like "Gypsy", "Rhiannon" and an acoustic "Landslide". While the musical styles of the Janis Joplin-esque "Gold Dust Woman" and "Stand Back"'s alarmingly contemporary electronic keyboard riff are markedly different, Nicks's persona doesn't shift.
Buckingham, on the other hand, is a study in almost manic intensity, specially when Nicks has walked off to effect another costume different and he's left alone to indulge himself with the stalwart rhythm section of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie. Perhaps over-fond of the extended instrumental, he plays with a serious stare and punctuates each song with whoops and stamps of the feet. It's a little overwrought, but Buckingham conjures a young man's vitality during "Tusk", "Go Your Own Way", "Oh Well" and a truly spine tingling acoustic take on "Big Love".
For a band who deal in definitively enduring pop classics, there was the odd clunking moment – a dull "Go Insane", Fleetwood's literally barking drum solo during "World Turning". Yet the magic far outweighed these brief lulls, and the drummer's assertion at the end that "we'll see you next time" was a promise we'd like to hold him to.

Review, Fleetwood Mac

As famous Fleetwood Mac are almost for the bed hopping, powder-sniffing emotional trauma they have visited on each other over the years as they are for their era-defining monster hits. But with their heydays now 20 and 30 years behind them, can the music still thrill without the chemical and emotional charges of old?
In their most famous avatar, featuring Lyndsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac were million-selling megastars of soft rock in the 1970s and masters of airy synth anthems in the 1980s.
Nicks, Buckingham and rhythm section stalwarts Mick Fleetwood and John McVie are back on the road touting a greatest hits tour with no distracting new album to promote. “Yet,” said Buckingham, teasing. The expected roar of anticipation petered out almost before it had begun.
The crowd in Glasgow was a muted mirror of the band themselves, reflecting back what they were given. In the many long, baggy, drawn-out echoes of songs that peppered a flabby set they were silent in their thousands, still and mooning at the stage, clapping politely between numbers. But on the few occasions when the band came to life the crowd went off like firecrackers.
Buckingham’s maudlin posturing and hammy vocal theatrics had many on their feet and cheering, while the sudden liveliness of Tusk or the let-rip relief of the bluesy Oh Well brought roars of delight. The likes of Don’t Stop, The Chain and Go Your Own Way were full of real energy.
But for every one of those tracks there was a Sara or a Landslide, in which a listless and heavy-lidded Nicks struggled to push much range or power from her voice. Or an I’m So Afraid, with a bland and seemingly never-ending guitar solo.
The musical star of the night was Fleetwood, whose drumming lent every song dynamics, energy and, in Tusk and the last section of World Turning, some unexpected groove. He looked as if he was having a riot throughout.
It’s a shame his enthusiasm wasn’t more infectious – this canny dinosaur of a band had the good sense and good grace to snap into focus for arresting performances of the landmark songs, but its brio was too often short-lived.