Live Previews
David Gilmour was among the all-star cast who turned out for Mick Fleetwood & Friends Celebrate The Music Of Peter Green.
Must-see gigs from Nick Mason’s A Saucerful Of Secrets, Richard Marx, Red Kross, Scarlet Rebels and Phil Campbell & The Bastard Sons. Some of these might well be cancelled by the time you read this, and due to numerous and ongoing cancellations due to the coronavirus there is no Tour Dates section this issue.
Rock royalty gather for a stunning, once-in-a-lifetime night of classic tunes and jams, in honour of one of their heroes.
There are two Peter Greens. There’s the reclusive Peter Green, the damaged soul who dropped too much acid at the Highfisch-Kommune in Munich in March 1970 and hasn’t fully returned. And there’s the Peter Green being celebrated this evening, the genius who wrote songs that still sound bold and bewilderingly unique.
“We were just a bunch of young kids with a dream,” says Mick Fleetwood. “And it was a good time to be dreaming. London was buzzing.” The Palladium is also buzzing, giddy with the kind of anticipation you only get at events of this sort, where the cast is stellar and the likelihood of a repeat performance remote. Jon Bon Jovi sits in the audience. So does Peter Gabriel. And on stage, rock legends come and go, casually dropping in to perform a song or two before departing.
Highlights come, and keep coming. The house band is better than most (the guitarists are Andy Fairweather Low, bluesman Jonny Lang and former Fleetwood Mac/Bob Seger man Rick Vito), and after opening with Green’s Rollin’ Man and Otis Rush’s Homework, the stars begin to align. First up is Billy Gibbons, decked out in rhinestones, adding effortlessly heroic guitar to Doctor Brown, before Steven Tyler arrives to add some razzle-dazzle. It’s prime Tyler: mic stand draped in scarves, he spits gum, tosses his hair, and howls his way through Rattlesnake Shake.
“I’m going to introduce a lady who needs no introduction,” says Fleetwood, before going on to introduce Christine McVie and Stop Messin’ Around. In an evening that teeters on the edge of chaos more than once, McVie’s turn is probably the most chaotic, but Tyler picks up the slack, leaning into Jonny Lang like he’s Joe Perry, and on his way into the wings – in the first of several genuinely touching moments that dot the evening – bends down to embrace the 86-year-old John Mayall, who’s watching from a chair.
Love That Burns is introduced as Mick’s favourite song, and features a sultry, reverb-heavy solo from Vito as red and yellow lights bring fire to the theatre. He steps forward to the lip of the stage to sing a verse unamplified, and the only thing you can hear from the audience is the collective intake of breath. It’s stunning, while Noel Gallagher is workmanlike on The World Keep On Turning.
Pete Townshend plays on Station Man, windmilling furiously and admitting that the chord structure bears more than a passing resemblance to The Who’s own Won’t Get Fooled Again. Mac new boy Neil Finn delivers a tender Man Of The World, and Tyler and Gibbons return for a manic Oh Well, Part 1. As the final notes fade, Gibbons walks stage right to shake the hand of the unintroduced David Gilmour, who turns Part 2 into a soaring, Floydian epic.
The Sky Is Crying adds Bill Wyman to the mix and sees surprise guest Jeremy Spencer share a stage with Fleetwood for the first time in half a century. His voice is pure and his slide guitar lovely, but the tranquility doesn’t last, as Kirk Hammett’s arrival heralds an electrifying burn through The Green Manalishi (With The Two Prong Crown), with Hammett playing Green’s old Les Paul, kissing it tenderly as the song climaxes. Gilmour returns on lap steel for a slightly shaky version of Albatross, but the sound is sublime so it really doesn’t matter, and then it’s all hands on deck for a rowdy cover of Elmore James’ Shake Your Moneymaker. It’s over. Thank you, Peter Green.