Return of the Mac...
MICK FLEETWOOD TELLS MARION McMULLEN HOW SOME OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST MUSICIANS GATHERED FOR A CONCERT OF A LIFETIME
IMAGINE seeing The Who’s Pete Townshend, Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, Crowded House’s Neil Finn, John Mayall and Noel Gallagher all on the same stage.
It’s a dream line-up that sounds to 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 lucky with the timing of it, 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,” adds Mick of his former bandmate who died in July 2020 aged 73. “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 some rough mixes of what we played.”
The concert special was recorded in February last year and was originally set 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.”
Mick says the concert was an emotional evening: “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.”
He laughs: “I was s****ing myself beforehand thinking ‘I’m going to f*** it up’, but I mostly didn’t.”
Reflecting on Fleetwood Mac, Mick, 73, says: “There have been changes in the line-up over the years, but the band is still going strong. 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.
“Right from the early days Peter was a great guitarist, but he was also a gifted songwriter. I love the music that he made and the incredible songs he wrote.”
Mick admits putting the concert together was a lot of work, but a fitting tribute to his former band member. “It was a lot of people and a lot of moving parts and I was so relieved and so happy that we did it.”
■ Watch Mick Fleetwood &
Friends Celebrate the Music of Peter Green and the Early Years of Fleetwood Mac on Video On Demand from April 24 to 29 via Nugs.net. It will be released on physical formats on April 30
I love the music that he made and the incredible songs he wrote Mick on Peter Green