The first concert Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham ever attended
Former Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham‘s path into rock and roll differed from most of his peers. While they shared a series of strong influences from a blues background, Buckingham’s musical interests lay elsewhere as a teenager. The first concert he attended came from a surprising artist who made her name on Broadway.
During an interview in 2002, Buckingham explained how he wasn’t initially smitten by the legion of axe-wielding 1960s guitar legends, and he didn’t even see himself ever becoming a lead guitarist. “I really came in the back door,” he said. “All the Jimi Hendrix and the Clapton types who were wearing their style on their sleeve were not the people I was listening to”.
Buckingham added: “It was probably people whose names I wasn’t even aware of so much, like Chet Atkins and Scotty Moore. The lead playing you usually associate with the ‘rock guitar god’ thing was the last thing I picked up. I couldn’t even play lead for a long time.”
However, the influence of Elvis Presley on his career is one similarity between him and other rock guitar greats of his generation. In the same interview, the former Fleetwood Mac member explained how his brother exposing him to ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ led to him picking up a guitar for the first time, and the classic track was the first song he learned to play.
Although he played his guitar and maintained a vague interest in rock music, the broader cultural landscape surrounding the genre didn’t grab Buckingam’s attention. Instead, he was less bothered about the artists deemed to be cool and attended shows by musicians who specialised in novelty or show tunes, which isn’t the typical lineage for a rock and roller.
Buckingham confessed to Rolling Stone about his first concert: “It wasn’t a rock concert. Maybe the Smothers Brothers. I remember I did see Barbra Streisand when I was about 13. She must have been around 19 then.”
As expected, as Buckingham grew older, his music tastes developed, and the Fillmore in San Francisco allowed him to see a broader spectrum of artists live.
However, the guitarist was still only half-interested, noting: “When I was a little older, I went to shows at the Fillmore in San Francisco, but even then, I was this kind of zoned-out individual who wasn’t partaking of a culture in the broad way that most of my friends were. It was a rare occasion when I would find myself sitting on the floor of the Fillmore.”
Although the Smothers Brothers and Barbra Streisand aren’t notable influences on his work, even on a subconscious level, it likely played to Buckingham’s advantage that he didn’t grow up worshipping heroic figures his peers collectively admired. The Fleetwood Mac guitarist’s pallet was more fluid than most in his generation, which later helped his band take over the world.
