Fleetwood Mac end their 2013 tour in a special and private 72 minute celebration in Las Vegas and deliver an experience of a lifetime.
January 26 2014 – The sweet familiar opening drum beat of The Chain echoes in the conference room at the Paris hotel in Las Vegas. Unlike every other night of this tour, the familiar screams from the 15,000 Mac faithful at the typical hockey or basketball stadium venues are absent. Instead a few hundred fans are up off their wedding style seats and applaud politely. The majority of the attendees are a different type of crowd – one that needs to be won over and be seduced by the sound of Fleetwood Mac.
Tonight’s crowd is lucky enough to be at a private retailer awards ceremony of products from a company called Monster Products (high end audio video cables, headphones, speakers, etc) who happens to bring in top notch entertainment for the annual event during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas every January. Past performers have included Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, Crosby Stills and Nash and James Brown but tonight it got as good as can be. The conference room looked like a very big wedding room and the wedding singers happened to be Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks with the house band consisting of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie (and Buckingham of course). The sound was nothing close to a real concert but echoed in the rectangular room with a bit of emptiness in both the instruments and the vocals.
Being a massive Fleetwood Mac fan, I recently traveled from Toronto to Newark to watch the band from the holy grail of concert goers known as front row center as part of a Mick Fleetwood VIP Package. That experience was as impactful and memorable as any other musical experience I have ever had and the full review of the VIP Meet and Greet Experience can be read here, and the concert review from front row center can be read here. Tonight’s experience comes in as a close second. Knowing I would be at CES for work (my real job is in high-tech, this website is purely a hobby and a labor of love) my mission became to get into the private party no matter what it took. RSVP’s to the public relations person got ignored (not even a rejection email), but I was lucky enough to know someone who knew someone who had an extra ticket for me. Turns out it would not be very difficult to get into the private party after all as outside of the entry doors were a bunch of dudes trying to dump their tickets for $30 and a few people walked up and got in that way. Tickets were separated into tiers such as Black Platinum, Platinum, Gold VIP, Gold, Red etc and although it was general admission seating you did have to stay in the area that your ticket indicated. I had Gold which meant that there was no way to get up and close up against the stage which is where I truly desired to be. Gold meant a couple of hundred feet from the stage is as good as it would get but it was comparable to something like 20th row of a stadium style seat.
Stevie Nicks leads off the next song by stating “Thank You. Welcome Monsters everywhere, we are so glad you are here tonight. Tonight is the last and 64th show, it’s our last show… we are really glad to be here, we are very happy to do it, this is very special for us so let’s rock.” Dreams is played to the audience that is starting to slowly but surely get up and try to vie for a better viewing spot. Buckingham counts down the next one like he has on many occasions and Second Hand News kicks in.
The lead singer duties back and forth continue between Buckingham and Nicks continues as Rhiannon is next and elicits a very loud crowd response as do her trademark shawl twirls. The insanity and energy of Tusk ensured that the applause after the end of every song was getting much more significant.
Buckingham finally addresses the audience for the next song with the familiar… “This next song is one that is particularly significant for me because it deals with transition. This was written for an album called Tango In The Night in 1987… the year you were born right (directed to a heckler that laughed about 1987)… but if you look at the lyrics of this song it accurately describes the person I was back then. One of the lines is looking out for love, I was not looking for love I was looking out for love, I was pushing back…..” It should be of no surprise to any Fleetwood Mac fans that Buckingham’s acoustic guitar picking blew away even the least interested in attendance. The guy next to me looks over and says “wow that guitarist is amazing man” to which I simply reply with a smug “that guitarist is Lindsey Buckingham man”. Very cool to see how what about half an hour ago was a fairly indifferent audience was turned into a screaming mass that proves nobody is immune to the melodic richness of the half American, half British quartet.
Eyes of the World is next which seemed a bit out-of-place sandwiched between the moody Big Love and Gold Dust Woman. The change of pace may have been intentional but to me instinctively it seemed that Gold Dust Woman would have been a much better choice to follow Big Love. Nicks did what she did best and seduced the crowd and in fact was the band member that seemed to be enjoying herself the most tonight. Case in point Buckingham made a quick exit as soon as the show was over as did McVie leaving Nicks and Fleetwood to address the crowd and thank their corporate sponsor Noel Lee the CEO of Monster.
Speaking of McVie, it was hard to tell the state of his health as he lurked in the back of the stage as he usually does but it was great to see him back with the band. He recently announced he had cancer and the band had to cancel a bunch of tours while he was getting it treated. The good news is that he was back on stage and delivering his trademark bass rhythms all night.
What was the highlight for me in Newark proved to be the highlight once again tonight with Buckingham transforming into a riff monster for I’m So Afraid. Tackling both vocals and lead guitar, this single song proves Buckingham deserves a spot in the pantheon of rock gods of our generation along with names like Jimmy Page, David Gilmour and Pete Townshend.
The party was now in full force and what a better way to end it all with a 1,2,3 punch of the up-tempo and very danceable Stand Back, Go Your Own Way and the finale of Don’t Stop in which Buckingham started it off by trying to get the audience to unsuccessfully chant “Monster, Monster”.
The best thing about this event that felt like a big fat Greek wedding was that there were no lame speeches or slide shows to sit through – although come to think of it having a presentation regarding the ex lovers Nicks and Buckingham during their dating days in the 70’s would have been pretty cool. The only real speech of the night was left for the absolute end and with Nicks saying“ we just want all you monsters to know first of all what a great way for us to end our tour, to come here and be with you tonight., and we knew this would be different than most corporate shows because this is a bunch of people that love music and we knew that from the beginning. Thank you so much for being a great audience and happy 35th Anniversary ,and you know well its our 35th anniversary too… oh yea since 1975… I think… something like that, close to that or maybe even something more”. Not sure how Stevie does her math, but certainly with those counting skills she should stay away from the blackjack tables in Vegas. Then Mick Fleetwood comes on and says “where is the monster man” to which Nicks responds “oh my god you’re interrupting me”.
Lee comes on to thank Fleetwood Mac and present them a lifetime achievement award. Fleetwood ends off by saying “This award is so damn heavy it’s like a ton of bricks but thank you so much I can tell you from the other night we met up here in Vegas and we have had nothing but fun with you guys and certainly the boss here has taken care of us, we feel welcomed and we are proud to have you up on our stage here. I will say one thing, on the plane coming here I was lucky enough to inherit some lovely headphones the other day, and no bull between you and me, they are musical, they represent things we used to hear in headphones a long time ago. So whatever you’re doing, this man knows what he is doing so thank you.”
Nicks closes the magical night with the familiar “What a great night everybody. Enjoy your night, enjoy every day like it’s your last day”
Verdict: 5+ out of 5. Fleetwood Mac in top form at a private event for only a couple of thousand of people. If you are a fan of the band or a regular reader of T-Mak world you understand the significance of the previous sentence. Seriously, what more needs to be said.
Thank you Monster for this once in a lifetime highlight of my musical journey in life. Below is the setlist of the night.
- Chain
- Dreams
- Second Hand News
- Rhiannon
- Tusk
- Big Love
- Eyes Of The World
- Gold Dust Woman
- So Afraid
- Stand Back
- Go Your Own Way
- Don’t Stop
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