Dreams come true as band show the magic’s still there

They seemed absolutely delighted to be back

There is something very comforting about living in a world where you can still go and watch Stevie Nicks twirling on stage in floaty skirts and scarves, waving a tambourine and singing about the good old days of excess. It makes you feel as though several decades you thought you had lived through never really happened after all.

That was certainly how I felt during the recent Fleetwood Mac gig Mr P and myself enjoyed, buoyed immeasurably by the fact that we were not in the oldest demographic of that particular audience. (We did sadly keep a tally of age ranges near our seats, deciding after a while that many of the younger girls there were probably showing an interest as they had been named Rhiannon.)

Many of the songs took me back to student parties I had long forgotten, where at a certain point in the proceedings Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours would be put on the turntable* and someone would start dancing in a floaty fashion, waving gauzy scarves aloft.

This would be the case even in a party populated with hard-core punks – it was just something that had to happen at a certain point in the proceedings. Some kind of law in the olden days.

There is a danger when you go and see a band so many years after they first enjoyed success that they may have reformed for a tour just to pay off another mortgage, but this did not appear to be the case as Stevie and co performed.

They seemed absolutely delighted to be back on stage together again and looked and sounded as though they were enjoying the music as much as the audience.

The set included the obligatory self-indulgent drum and guitar solos, but luckily no cringey attempts by the mature performers to cavort too energetically.

Quite energetic enough for many of us who were rather pleased that we’d been out on a school night and managed a bit of a jiggle to Go Your Own Way. Just for old times’ sake.