Entertainment scene

Press, 24 November 1977, Page 21

Entertainment scene

By

NEVIN TOPP

It seems appropriate that the concert by Fleetwood Mac at Western Springs Stadium, Auckland, next Sunday should close the year for touring artists, after the year began with superstar Rod Stewart. The unfortunate aspect is that Fleetwood Mac will not be playing in Christchurch, a fact that was made worse after watching the television programme “Radio With Pictures” on Monday evening. Fleetwood Mac have bad a chequered career, both in personalities and The group is one of the few of the late sixties to make it back in the midseventies. For instance, the latest album “Rumours” is being shipped out in greater quantities than any other record in the history of Warner Brothers. It seems strange that the album should do so well, when relationships within the group, between Christine (nee Perfect), and John McVie, and Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham, are crumbling. The group is steeped in British blues. John McVie, previously a member of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, formed Fleetwood Mac in 1967 with Peter Green also of John Mayall’s band. Mick Fleetwood, and Jeremy Spencer. The group first appeared at the National Jazz and Blues Festival in England in 1967, and made a pop-oriented music industry sit up by having its first (blues) album in the national charts for 13 months. Danny Kirwan joined the group shortly afterwards, giving the group a

distinctive three front-men line-up. It then moved away from the blues, and included such hits by Peter Green as “Albatross,” “Man of the World,” “Black Magic Woman,” and “Oh Well” — the last of which the present group does with spectacular drive. But, in May, 1970 Green quit the group in a spell of self-doubt and religous intensity, and he was followed in February, 1971 by Jeremy Spencer, who disappeared while on tour at Los Angeles and turned up at the Los Angeles head-quarters of the Children of God sect.

He apparently stepped on to a bus in Hollywood

belonging to the sect, and refused to return. Christine Perfect, now McVie, then officially joined the group (though she had helped much earlier). Another addition was Bob Welch, whose Californian influences pushed Mac into the United States. Kirwan was >then asked to leave, and two new members, Bob Weston and Dave Walker, did not last long. Worse still, because the group was stagnant, its manager Clifford Davis toured with another group under the name Fleetwood Mac. An injunction and court action by Mick Fleetwood and John McVie ended

that after a year in which the group did not tour. Bob Welch departed in February, 1975, and was replaced by two who brought about the renaissance of Fleetwood Mac — Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. The new line-up of John McVie, his wife, Christine, Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks, and Lindsay Buckingham, has proved to be a fruitful one.

The two albums that they have put out, “Fleetwood Mac” and “Rumours,” have proved topsellers, and there is a world-wide demand for live performances by the group.