Fleetwood Mac

When: Wednesday 25^th September

Where: O2

Why: RETURN OF THE MAC

Before I say ANYTHING, I have to provide the hugest of shout-outs to the numerous girls in my office who sat with refreshing fingers poised on the Ticketmaster website all those months ago, ready to bag me tickets for this pinnacle of my life’s gigs. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t have got in and that would have devastated me, so in a sense they basically saved my life. Thanks girls.

With my mum in tow, and after an exceptionally satisfying Nando’s session (free chicken, bitches), we bounded into the O2 arena at least 45 minutes before the start of the show, not able to hold back our excitement any longer. A lifelong love of the Mac was finally reaching its nadir and the anticipation was massive. Then suddenly, after no support (who could support the Mac?), they burst onto the stage to ‘Second hand news’ and the audience leapt headlong into an evening that I’m sure will stay with them for years.

It was a good value show at nearly 3 hours (considering most tickets were around £90 it was just as well), and the band had great chemistry on stage – it seems that Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham have put their deep mutual hatred aside and become BFFs again, and it was very much the Stevie and Lindsey show overall. Lindsey is an incredible guitar player and never left the stage even for a moment, and his ‘Big Love’ solo was actually mind-blowing. I could have done without his tedious song intros though – wrap it up, Bucks. But it was Stevie who carried the evening for me; she’s the stand-out star and her voice is still outrageously good. You just want to thank God for her existence whenever she performs, and this night’s version of ‘Rhiannon’ was awesome. She also dedicated ‘Landslide’ to the Mac’s original legendary guitarist Peter Green, who to my massive surprise was apparently watching from the wings – I really thought he had died decades ago and that Stevie was talking metaphorically (not entirely impossible) until I googled him when things got weird. Ignorance city: population me.

The visuals and lighting were more impressive than I’d been expecting, imagining the band to do it old school and keep the focus on them – but the backing screen videos were varied and very cool, particularly during ‘Gold dust woman’ and the epic ‘Tusk’ (one of my favourite Mac songs ever).

After a solid gold set-list, the first encore featured huge tune ‘World turning’ which incorporated Mick Fleetwood’s mad, bad drum solo which lasted nearly five minutes.  An Observer reviewer described Mick on this tour as “an increasingly jester-like figure, sitting worryingly near a gong” which is both hysterical and totally accurate.

I was also massively lucky that I didn’t end up getting tickets for the first night in London, as they didn’t get the amazing bonus in the second interval that was the return of Christine McVie to sing ‘Don’t Stop’. She was led on stage, followed by a faithful stand up keyboard and the most enormous roar of approval from a crowd that I’ve ever heard. It was a genuinely emotional and historical moment and was the natural and obvious high point of the show. She was great and I hear she’s now actually re-joined Fleetwood Mac, so we can just hope they launch straight into another tour featuring the full line up and full back catalogue (her tunes such as ‘Everywhere’, ‘You make loving fun’, ‘Little lies’, ‘Songbird’ etc were missing this time, which was a massive shame).

Given that Christine’s return was a huge high point and their joint curtain call was so well received, you would have thought that would be the natural ending point. But no. A second encore ensued – not against that in principle, but it was a bit of a lame duck after the massiveness that was C-McVie. They didn’t end on huge crowd pleasers but on slow tunes including ‘Silver springs’. These were then followed by grateful spiels of love from first Stevie running back on stage, then Mick. Nice sentiments, wrong timing guys. Although Mick wrapping up by screaming “THE MAC IS BACK!” was endearing and powerful.

Overall, an epic evening from an epic band and one of the highlights of my life.

Brixpig x