Fleetwood Mac Announce Tour With New Lineup, Address Lindsey Buckingham Firing

Steve Granitz/Getty Images

Fleetwood Mac Announce Tour With New Lineup, Address Lindsey Buckingham Firing

Steve Granitz/Getty Images

Two weeks ago we learned Fleetwood Mac had fired Lindsey Buckingham (again) and would be launching a big tour with Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell and Crowded House frontman Neil Finn in his stead. Maybe that’s why Buckingham looks so sour in the above photo from January, when the group was collectively honored as MusiCares Person Of The Year on Grammy weekend.

Today they’ve officially announced that tour and given their first post-Buckingham interview with Rolling Stone, in which they chalk up Buckingham’s firing to scheduling conflicts. According to Stevie Nicks, Buckingham wanted to push back tour rehearsals by a year and a half: “We were supposed to go into rehearsal in June and he wanted to put it off until November [2019]. That’s a long time. I just did 70 shows [on a solo tour]. As soon as I finish one thing, I dive back into another. Why would we stop? We don’t want to stop playing music. We don’t have anything else to do. This is what we do.”

So Campbell and Finn were brought in and immediately struck up a close connection with the remaining core Fleetwood Mac membership of Nicks, Christine McVie, John McVie, and Mick Fleetwood. The six of them will be touring all over North America from October to December and again from February to April. They’ll be playing songs from the full Fleetwood Mac discography on this run, not just the material from the original Buckingham/Nicks era of 1975 to 1987 when the band became a pop powerhouse.

Nicks implied that Buckingham previously was preventing the band from digging back into their earlier blues-rock era: “We were never able to do that since 1975 because certain people in the band weren’t interested in doing that. Now we’re able to open the set with a lot; a raucous version of [1969’s] ‘Rattlesnake Shake’ or something. I’d also like to do [1970’s] ‘Station Man,’ which has always been one of may favorites. We’re definitely doing [1970’s] ‘Oh Well.'”

She continued, “There are 10 hits we have to do. That leaves another 13 songs if you want to do a three-hour show. Then you crochet them all together and you make a great sequence and you have something that nobody has seen before except all the things they want to see are there. At rehearsal, we’re going to put up a board of 60 songs. Then we start with number one and we go through and we play everything. Slowly you start taking songs off and you start to see your set come together.”

Check out the full itinerary below.

10/03/18 – Tulsa, OK @ BOK Center
10/06/18 – Chicago, IL @ United Center
10/10/18 – Louisville, KY @ KFC Yum! Center
10/12/18 – Lincoln, NE @ Pinnacle Bank Arena
10/14/18 – Des Moines, IA @ Wells Fargo Arena
10/16/18 – Indianapolis, IN @ Bankers Life Fieldhouse
10/18/18 – Kansas City, MO @ Sprint Center
10/20/18 – St. Louis, MO @ Scottrade Center
10/22/18 – St. Paul, MN @ Xcel Energy Center
10/26/18 – Cleveland, OH @ Quicken Loans Arena
10/28/18 – Milwaukee, WI @ Wisconsin Entertainment and Sports Center
10/30/18 – Detroit, MI @ Little Caesars Arena
11/01/18 – Pittsburgh, PA @ PPG Paints Arena
11/03/18 – Ottawa, ON @ Canadian Tire Centre
11/05/18 – Toronto, ON @ Air Canada Centre
11/07/18 – Columbus, OH @ Nationwide Arena
11/10/18 – Edmonton, AB @ Rogers Place
11/12/18 – Calgary, AB @ Scotiabank Saddledome
11/14/18 – Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena
11/17/18 – Tacoma, WA @ Tacoma Dome
11/19/18 – Portland, OR @ Moda Center
11/21/18 – San Jose, CA @ SAP Center at San Jose
11/23/18 – Sacramento, CA @ Golden 1 Center
11/25/18 – Oakland, CA @ Oracle Arena
11/28/18 – Phoenix, AZ @ Talking Stick Resort Arena
11/30/18 – Las Vegas, NV @ T-Mobile Arena
12/03/18 – Denver, CO @ Pepsi Center
12/06/18 – Fresno, CA @ Save Mart Center
12/08/18 – San Diego, CA @ Viejas Arena
12/11/18 – Inglewood, CA @ The Forum
12/13/18 – Inglewood, CA @ The Forum
02/05/19 – Houston, TX @ Toyota Center
02/07/19 – Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center
02/09/19 – Austin, TX @ Frank Erwin Center
02/13/19 – Birmingham, AL @ Legacy Arena at The BJCC
02/16/19 – New Orleans, LA @ Smoothie King Center
02/18/19 – Tampa, FL @ Amalie Arena
02/20/19 – Ft. Lauderdale, FL @ BB&T Center
02/22/19 – Columbia, SC @ Colonial Life Arena
02/24/19 – Charlotte, NC @ Spectrum Center
02/27/19 – Nashville, TN @ Bridgestone Arena
03/03/19 – Atlanta, GA @ Philips Arena
03/05/19 – Washington, DC @ Capital One Arena
03/09/19 – Atlantic City, NJ @ Boardwalk Hall
03/11/19 – New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
03/13/19 – Newark, NJ @ Prudential Center
03/15/19 – Hartford, CT @ XL CENTER
03/20/19 – Albany, NY @ Times Union Center
03/24/19 – Baltimore, MD @ Royal Farms Arena
03/26/19 – Buffalo, NY @ KeyBank Center
03/31/19 – Boston, MA @ TD Garden
04/05/19 – Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center

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