“Killed us all”: The Fleetwood Mac tour that drove them into the ground
The touring lifestyle isn’t exactly the healthiest for anyone who dedicates their life to music. As much fun as it might be playing to millions of fans every single night, having to live out of a suitcase, go from one hotel room to another, and yet still be as animated as ever can get to be torture after a while, especially when you have to factor in time for family as well. Although Fleetwood Mac seemed practically indestructible, Christine McVie remembered this tour came close to killing all of them.
At the same time, ‘The Mac’ felt pretty much indestructible throughout every facet of their career. They had undergone lineup changes that should have killed most bands, and yet they still rose like a phoenix from the ashes every time they lost key players like Peter Green or Bob Welch.
When Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks joined the band, though, the emotional baggage came the minute that they finished their first album. Since Rumours was all about Buckingham and Nicks splitting up alongside Christine’s separation from John McVie, you can hear the passive aggression bleeding through every track, especially when they had to somehow share hotels on tour and resist the urge not to make every band meeting a screaming match.
By the time they finally settled, all they really needed was a break, but when Tusk came out, they seemed more energised than ever. Every songwriter came ready to play with new ideas; the only problem was that they felt like they should have been part of three separate albums.
That’s before getting into what Buckingham was doing behind the scenes. If the band considered him a perfectionist on the last album, hearing him try his best to make the most off-the-wall record of his career was one of the more annoying pieces of the production, to the point where they gave him a sarcastic ‘thank you’ on the album’s inner sleeve. So, naturally, this is the perfect guy that someone would want to spend half of a year of their life with on the road, right?
Although Tusk sold in droves, Christine remembered needing to break for a while after the dust had settled, saying, “I remember we did two huge world tours after Tusk. We drove ourselves into the ground physically, and obviously, there was a lot of drinking and a lot of drugs, and that just about killed us all, so we took a lot of time off. There was a long time between Tusk and Mirage.”
And listening back to Mirage, it’s easy to hear those years apart as well. Nicks had clearly grown into a tour de force in her own right during her solo career, so hearing her contribute songs like ‘Gypsy’ put her on equal ground with Buckingham. It’s not like Buckingham didn’t know how to reel things in either, with some of his songs returning to the traditional rock roots he was known for.
While the band wouldn’t make it much longer past Tango in the Night, taking that break was probably the best thing that could have happened then. They may not have been on the same creative page anymore, but if they had to keep being in each other’s space, chances are we wouldn’t have had any more Fleetwood Mac projects.
