IN 1969 Fleetwood Mac sold more records than the Beatles and the Stones combined. The band were still eight years away from their best selling album, Rumours, which is taking centre stage at tonight's gig at the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow.
Before the show starts, there’s an endorsement from Mr Fleetwood himself via a video link and you know it’s going to be a decent tribute.
The band open with Second Hand News, Lindsey Buckingham’s bitter lament on a dying relationship (with former girlfriend Stevie Nicks) and James Harrison does a fine job.
It’s followed by the ethereal Dreams. Singer Jess Hardwood is an incredibly good match for Nicks’ warm, husky tones, no mean feat, most noticeably here and later on Sara and Landslide. If you close your eyes, it’s (almost) her in her 70s heyday.
It’s an absolute joy to hear the entire Rumours album, with an additional track, Silver Silver Springs, added in that the band dropped from the album, a sweet country-heavy love song.
After a break we are taken back to the Peter Green blues, rock era of Fleetwood with I Need Uour Love So Bad So Bad and Oh Well which goes down well with the male contingent in the audience.
Fast forward to 1982 and the gorgeous Gypsy and then it's straight onto Tango in the Night, the band’s triumphant 80s comeback.
The musicians have to be exceptional for a tribute band to work, in some cases they are probably better than the originals, and in this case they deliver.
The show was scheduled to be held at the Pavilion Theatre but was moved to the Royal Concert Hall due to last month’s fire and probably benefited from the better acoustics.
The glorious,Tell me Lies has the crowd on their feet, Emily Gervers is good match for Mcvie and Everywhere gets even more female up and singing along.
They close with the sultry Rhiannon. an acoustic version of Big Love, and Tusk, giving the Mick lookalike Allan Cosgrove a chance to show off his drumming.
If you missed the Glasgow Fleetwood Mac dates (and I was lucky enough to be there) a few years back, this is the next best thing.
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here