Fleetwood Mac hits old familiar favorites, shines on new tunes

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Jul 12, 2004 | by J. ADRIAN STANLEY THE GAZETTE

Stevie Nicks was as glittery as ever when she took the stage to sing "The Chain" on Sunday night in Denver -- her voice barely audible over the roar of the crowd.

After again convincing Lindsey Buckingham to return to the band, Fleetwood Mac had returned.

The nostalgia ran thick, as the huge screens at Coors Ampitheatre ran footage of old concerts mixed in with close-ups of the band. The music also spoke of the past. Buckingham and Nicks' voices seem to have shrugged off the passing decades.

Favorites such as "Rhiannon" and "Sara" have been played so many times the band seems to flow through them as if it were second nature.

Practice does make perfect, but the danger is making songs too perfect, as if broadcast directly from a CD. Fleetwood Mac seemed to play from habit on many songs, abandoning the experimentation that usually takes place in a live performance.

The most notable exception was on songs off the band's new album, "Say You Will," which was written by Buckingham as a solo project and later released as a Fleetwood Mac album. Buckingham had fun with some of these songs but had a tendency to get carried away -- breaking too sharply from the sound for which the band is known.

Fleetwood Mac did not make its name on hard rock, and it's a bit late to make a U-turn. Watching Buckingham squeal his guitar in a cluttered, angst-driven furor almost seemed ridiculous. Besides, Buckingham has nothing to prove -- he already has established himself as a master of the guitar and a talented songwriter.

He did better on the electric guitar solo "Big Love," which showcased his talents without making him look like an overgrown teenager or a man facing mid-life crisis.

Most of the time, Fleetwood Mac excelled at giving the audience what they came to hear -- their favorites performed without flaw. The band plays well together, Buckingham still knows how to rock his guitar, the vocal harmonies are warm, and Stevie Nicks has retained her distinctive voice and shimmering stage presence.

The soft, heart-wrenching "Landslide" was sung with grace, while "Tusk" had strength and energy, punctuated with hammering guitar.

Buckingham played with the crowd's emotion, driving the feeling. He even let their hungry hands stretch across his guitar strings on "Go Your Own Way." As if feeding off the crowd's excitement, the performance kept getting better. By the encore, the band was pumped, wild. "Don't Stop" was a whirlwind of excitement.

The good feeling stretched beyond the music, and exsweethearts Buckingham and Nicks embraced several times on stage. It's quite a gesture for a band that made its name as much for backstage drama as for its music.

Although they're not the musical innovators they once were, the members of Fleetwood Mac have developed into polished entertainers with a killer recipe for crowd pleasing.

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