Fleetwood Mac was one of the most popular bands of the 1970s and ’80s. The soft-rock group’s landmark 1977 album Rumours is the sixth biggest-selling album in history. The group’s breezy, uptempo sound of that era glossed over internal drama: Fleetwood Mac has always had a revolving-door lineup, and there are twice as many ex-members as there are current ones. Anchored by original rhythm section Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, the current group features longtime members Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks. For the current tour, recently fired guitarist Lindsey Buckingham is replaced by Mike Campbell (of Tom Petty’s legendary Heartbreakers) and Neil Finn (Crowded House).

Fleetwood Mac
Wed, 8pm, $95+
SAP Center, San Jose

In Son of the Morning Star we read that the elderly Sitting Bull enjoyed visits with old U.S. cavalry soldiers who came by to see him. With whom else could you have such a deep conversation about the Little Bighorn? This is the reason why, someday, you will be happy to hear Nickleback at the old folks’ home.

Fleetwood Mac’s mega-monster hit Rumours (1977) was everywhere in its day. Those songs were in the air of the times, like the smell of musky polyester. It’s a surprise—those LPs that one once would have gladly shot as skeet, end up as repositories of the angst of the age. “Rhiannon” isn’t quite Joni Mitchell, but it does sum up a certain kind of Me Decade woman, aeire-faerie, and a flame to all us dumb male moths. The blood hasn’t quite dried on “The Chain” charting the devastating circumstances of the Sausalito recording sessions of Rumours. Here was an incestuous ronde of affairs, set into spinning overdrive by the kind of A-1 nose-candy few sub-rock stars have ever snorted. (The band honored the album’s suggestive title, posing four in bed on the cover of the Rolling Stone.)

The 2017 perspective suggests singer and keyboardist Christine McVie contributed to all the really good songs on Rumours. The appealing sweet sorrow of her singing the lines “Have mercy, baby, on a poor girl like me” harks back to Fleetwood Mac’s origins as a blues band.  Plus Christine plays the accordion sometimes. And plus, also, on video, she’s charming with her snappy answer to the stupid question: “How does it feel being a sex symbol?” “I dunno, ask Stevie Nicks.

Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie drops June 9, with two tracks released in advance. The duo has about a dozen summer tour dates, the nearest to us being two hours away at the Ironstone Winery in Murphys on Jul 21; they’re part of a musical calendar that includes Matchbox 20 and good ol’ Willie Nelson. But it’s clear the unkillable—and arguably local—band is back, just re-labeled Christine’s ex, John McVie turned up in the studio for the new recording, and Mick Fleetwood is on drums. Only Stevie Nicks is MIA. There are no spring chickens here, obviously. The ungallant might say “Now, here we have a band with a couple of centuries of experience between them.”

The new album marks something like five decades of south of San Francisco music. Buckingham and his off-again, on-again partner Stephanie “Stevie” Nicks met at Menlo Atherton High. In the late 1960s they played the county fairgrounds and the valley’s high school gyms as the Fritz Rabyne Memorial Band, popularly known as Fritz. The album Buckingham Nicks continued the work of these collaborators and lovers. Years later, when Buckingham was about to go full Brian Wilson in the studio for Tusk, he prepared by composing the songs on a then-state of the art home recording studio system.

I would have liked to have thrown the duo a few questions, but I was weighed and found wanting by the publicists. I found solace for this within the book Tusk by Rob Trucks (33 1/3)—“Lindsey Buckingham screwed me,” complains Trucks, as he was given a broken promise of interviews concerning that landmark double album. Trucks had to make up the shortage with descriptions of his childhood and his toenail fungus (ain’t joking). Still, there’s useful info here; the interview by trumpeter Gretchen Heffler of the USC Spirit of Troy Marching Band, heard in the recording of my lifetime favorite Mac-track “Tusk.” Also, Jonathan Segel of Camper Van Beethoven recalls the process by which his band traced over and recorded every track on F-Mac’s allegedly unpopular album Tusk.

Tusk, the double-album follow-up to Rumours, was hardly a financial stinkbomb. As Trucks points out, it earned well, just not by the standards of the book made by its hit predecessor. Show me the double album that doesn’t have a little fat on it, but Tusk is a serious musical stance: a band surveying the littered landscape after a crackup.   

 Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie
Jun 9
Atlantic Records

Legendary folk-rock outfit, Fleetwood Mac have just announced a 34 date tour in 2013, beginning in April, that includes a stop at the HP Pavilion in San Jose on May 22nd.

This will be Fleetwood Mac’s first tour in four years. The current lineup for the tour includes Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. It will mark the 35th anniversary of their brilliant (arguably flawless) rock album, Rumors, which was a critical sensation that has sold more than 40 million copies. The group will be releasing a deluxe version of Rumors—complete with unreleased studio recordings and live tracks—to coincide with the anniversary tour.

While the Rumors-era Fleetwood Mac is perhaps the most famous version of Fleetwood Mac, it was not the original. McVie and Fleetwood started the group in 1967 as a very different blues-rock-oriented band. Buckingham and Nicks joined the group in 1975 and released the self-titled album—which was oddly was their second eponymous release (the first was in 1968)—featuring quintessential Fleetwood Mac tracks like “Rhiannon” and “Landslide” (famously covered by Smashing Pumpkins and the Dixie Chicks), “Rumors” was released two years later which marked a critical and financial peak for the group.

Tickets are $149.50, $79.50 and $49.50. Tickets go on sale Friday December 14th.

Tribute albums are trouble, because they’re usually terrible. And tipping your hat to a band like Fleetwood Mac is a complicated act, not to mention one that requires singular talent. There’s plenty of the latter on Just Tell Me That You Want Me: A Tribute to Fleetwood Mac which includes indie favorites The Kills, Best Coast, J. Mascis, and Antony, among others.

I’m not saying discard (or delete?) your copy of Rumors just yet. In particular Best Coast singer Bethany Cosentino’s cover of “Rhiannon” exchanges the wailing melancholy for a bit of vapid pop sweetness, and it’s not great. If anything, the album is more of a nod to Fleetwood Mac’s legacy, and even the most curmudgeonly fan might appreciate the reminder. The album is set for release on August 14th, and also boasts diverse covers by Lykke Li, Washed Out, and Bonnie “Prince” Billy.

Lee Ranaldo Band featuring J Mascis “Albatross”
Antony “Landslide”
Trixie Whitley “Before The Beginning”
Billy Gibbons & Co. “Oh Well”
Best Coast “Rhiannon”
The New Pornographers “Think About Me”
Marianne Faithfull “Angel”
Lykke Li “Silver Springs”
Karen Elson: “Gold Dust Woman”
Matt Sweeney and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy “Storms”
Washed Out “Straight Back”
Tame Impala “That’s All For Everyone”
Craig Wedren with St. Vincent “Sisters of the Moon”
The Kills “Dreams”
Gardens & Villa “Gypsy”
The Crystal Ark “Tusk”
MGMT “Future Games”

There was something instantly exciting about watching the eight-piece River City Extension play the tiny Blank Club this past Sunday, especially seeing them employed such atypical rock instruments as a banjo, violin and trumpet. They played passionate, heartfelt indie-folk that was sincerely fun to watch and different from any other bands currently wearing the indie-folk label.

With barely enough room to fit everyone on stage, River City Extension brought so much energy and talent they instantly took control of the crowd. I predict this relatively obscure New Jersey band will build a solid buzz in the indie rock world within the next couple of years.

With eight people, they were free to vary their instrumentation from song to song. They played keyboards, guitars, percussion, mandolins, you name it. All the different instruments and the fun that was driving their music, made the show feel like a jamboree, similar to the infectious live shows of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. But rather than Sharpe’s freaky, hippie vibe, River City Extension played folk music that was honest, working-class and pure New Jersey rock and roll.

At times, they drifted into the quiet intensity of Fleetwood Mac or the down-and-out guttural pain of Bruce Springsteen. Their songwriting was clearly influenced by Arcade Fire—though a much more complex version of the group. They utilize dynamics to its full extent. When they reached full volume with everyone singing in union, it was a downright hootenanny, without a shred of irony or pretense.

The end of the set brought smiles to everyone’s faces. The band jumped off the stage, carrying percussion, and singing a passionate acapella song. They danced around the audience taking all the pain imbedded in their music and turning it into joy.

Local Ben Henderson, is filling in on bass with the group on this tour, opened the show with a set of his solo material. His music was well-received, as usual. River City Extension’s violinist joined him for a few songs along with Good Hustle bandmate Dan McKee.

“It’s good to be home in San Jose,” Henderson told the crowd, “If only for a day.”