Mick Fleetwood on special tribute concert
Mick Fleetwood tells MARION McMULLEN how some of the world’s greatest musicians came together for a tribute like no other
IMAGINE a dream line-up of The Who’s Pete Townshend, Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, John Mayall, Crowded House’s Neil Finn and Noel Gallagher all on the same stage.
It sounds too good to be true, but they all headed to the London Palladium last year to join the likes of Andy Fairweather Lowe, Billy Gibbons and Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie plus many others to pay tribute to the birth of Fleetwood Mac and founding member Peter Green.
“Some travelled from all over the world ... for just one song,” says drummer Mick Fleetwood.
“It’s been a labour of love, as are most things, but if we had done it a week later it would not have happened because Covid came along and the world literally stopped. There wouldn’t have been a concert. We got that lucky with the timing of it and we had this magical moment and now we have the film coming out.
“There is a sort of poignancy as well on a personal level because we lost Peter a few months later. He had no ego. He was always just about the music. There would not be a Fleetwood Mac without him and it’s a shame he didn’t get to hear what we did at the concert. He only heard just some rough mixes of what we played.”
The concert special was recorded in February last year and was originally planned to be screened in cinemas nationwide before lockdown happened. Now it is finally going to be seen later this month on Video On Demand.
Mick laughs: “People ask what is the connection with Noel Gallagher. Well, one of my nieces knows him through his wife and they were having dinner and she called me saying ‘Mick I’m here with Noel.’
“Noel’s always lovely. He’s a talented chap, a crazy, lovely cheeky person, and he said ‘I want in on the show. I’d love to do it’.
“He then wrote to me saying ‘No-one knows but I was a huge, huge Fleetwood Mac fan back in the day’.
“They never played any of our songs on stage, but Noel said when they did sound checks they would play Fleetwood Mac so he came on for the concert and killed it.
“There are stories for every single person on that stage and they were all invested in celebrating the early days of Fleetwood Mac. They all really wanted to do it.”
Mick says the whole concert was an emotional evening and remembers: “I was surrounded on stage by all these unbelievable people and it was like something really, really great had happened. We thought let’s just go for it and do one night. I was so relieved afterwards and I knew it had gone really well.”
Peter Green was a founding member of Fleetwood Mac and had a huge impact on the band, as well as being recognised as one of the 100 greatest guitarist of all time. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame together with Fleetwood Mac in 1998. Mick says he remembers Peter asking him if he wanted to be in a band and that day Fleetwood
Mac was born. “Right from the early days Peter was a great guitarist,” says Mick, “but he was also a gifted songwriter. I love the music that he made and the incredible songs he wrote.
“There have been changes in the line-up over the years, but the band is still going strong,” says 73-year-old Mick. “People remember Rumours coming out and the band with Stevie Nicks, Christine and John McVie, Lindsey Buckingham, but that wasn’t the beginning of Fleetwood Mac, that was Peter.
“I remember him saying ‘I’m thinking of setting up this blues band. What do you think about it?’
“We were four young English guys in the beginning and then Peter, quite quickly after the first album, started writing and all these songs came flowing out. He never turned his back on some of the hard core blues songs, but by then he was writing tracks like Man Of The World and Albatross.”
Mick admits putting the concert special together was a lot of work, but a fitting tribute to his former band member. “Trying to do the whole thing and get everyone on stage was a humongous task when I look back on it. It was a lot of people and a lot of moving parts and I was so relieved and so happy that we did it.
“I think we were lucky, no lucky is the wrong word, I think we got blessed with some angel watching over the evening because it was a lot to pull off in one night. If it had been a week later, which could easily have been the case, then it would never have happened. It was an emotional evening.” ■ Mick Fleetwood & Friends Celebrate the Music of Peter Green and the Early Years of Fleetwood Mac is available to watch on Video On Demand from April 24 to 29 via Nugs. net, and will released on CD and DVD on April 30.