Concert Reviews, Photos, Videos and Rock and Roll Stories from fans who love live music

Monday Morning you look so fine, Friday I got travelin on my mind – I was 6 or 7 and remember the sound of Fleetwood Mac’s White Album on Vinyl. My mom’s speakers were as tall as me and the bass… Lindsey’s voice become a staple for years along with Stevie Nicks and of course Christine Mcvie.

March17, 2009 and Fleetwood Mac arrives in Toronto for the first of two shows this month. Yes that’s my ticket above that I picked up a few hours before the show. 3rd row! That’s what made up my mind for me. Down to the Air Canada Centre and I walk over to will-call, see a friend right away and then head on in through the front doors. Here is the sign on the doors walking in. I took this with my blackberry. Ok well the sign didn’t work to well because down front was a total photo shoot. Security sat down. There were no barriers between row 1 and the stage. Fans were leaning on the stage with their digi-cams.

Monday Morning launched the show off followed by The Chain and Dreams. Lindsey showed his strong presence early here in the show… his unique vocals and of course his guitar mastery. I wasn’t expecting to hear “Gypsy” and it was real cool to experience as it totally brought me back to the early 80′s.  Think about how many times you heard that tune on the radio back then? She is dancing…away from you now…

Dancing, singing and the hits.. was the mood down front in the first 3-5 rows. That was the purpose here as Lindsey announced “we have no new album “yet” and we just want to have some fun playing the songs we like”.  With the repertoire this band has things didn’t really get slow with the middle of the set being Rhiannon, Second Hand News, Tusk and then the beautiful Sara. It’s easy to get lost inside of a song like Sara… and then get woken up with the climatic finger-picking journey of Big Love… big big love.

Landslide is always good, maybe not as in depth as the version on the “DANCE DVD” but this stripped down part of the evening showcased a well crafted version of Never Going Back Again… that seemed to defy time.  Lindsey slowed it right down as many tried to sing along… it seemed to get slower… Stevie Nicks twirled around and sauntered over towards Lindsey for a “moment” and by the time I realized I should be video taping this one… it ended. Storms featured some video imaging on the screens above the bands heads and diehards along with Stevie herself seemed to like this one.

Say You Love Me… just drives home the fact that Christine Mcvie is not part of Fleetwood Mac anymore. Not just her vocals are missed but her left stage presence. One of the best songs I’ve ever seen presented was  in the late 80′s at Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto. Final encore… Christine on the grand piano, Mick Fleetwood comes out and lays a dozen red roses across the top of the piano and I swear I saw a Dove flying around while Christine sang SONGBIRD.

Back to 2009 here and by the time So Afraid hit everyone… the guitar solo here defied what many casual fans forgot or just plain don’t know. Lindsey Buckingham can play the music-box ! Then hearing Stevie do her solo Stand Back I thought maybe we would get Edge of Seventeen. No luck there.

The main set finished off with a strong Go Your Own Way.Top Hat on Stevie and more guitar fun from Buckingham with him letting some front row fans pluck away on the strings for a few seconds during his solo.

World Turning was song 21 and the 1st of a 3 song encore. It offered up bug-eyed Mick Fleetwood doing his thing on drums along with some Mick-chanting and what seemed to be recorded-feedback vocals of Lindsey being played by the keyboardist I believe. I didn’t see Mick’s little drummer-helper during this song although he did have someone playing behind the stack of monitors to his left. Apparently Mick isn’t as strong as he used to be on the skins.

Drum Solo

Don’t Stop & Silver Springs are the final songs…and it seems everyone is happy. No one song here took me into the clouds or anything. Fleetwood Mac just reminds me of my mom, a time period that was fun and is almost like having some “comfort food.”  The chance to sit 3rd row centre is something a real concert goer doesn’t turn down…..you get the ticket and run to your seat. (even though it was 2 rows behind where I sat 5 years ago when I saw the Mac.)

Security told me there were 5 fights on the night …all woman. Thanks to the Original Kid Rock for stopping by behind 3rd row to show off that he had the actual setlist and it was only half way through the show.

If you were at the show please leave us a comment or if you are going to the next one then drop us a link to your photos or videos. I twittered & updated my facebook during the show for the first time also offering up some live photos as they happened. Next up… live streaming video.

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With this show in Hamilton at Copps Coliseum I felt it it kind of flew under the radar for me since I did not have a ticket yet and wasn’t 100% sure I was going. It seemed weird having The Who in Hamilton versus Toronto. I made the trip from Toronto a grabbed a single ticket in the 9th row. The fun begins…

I helped a family I had met online who was coming to the show get the $9 parking and then met up with them inside to chat about their trip from Rochester, NY. An obvious Who fan and mother of 2, she brought her 10 year old daughter and 15 year old son to witness one of the greatest Rock Bands on the planet do what they have been doing for 4 decades. Play Rock Anthems.

Once inside I hung out around the soundboard at the rear floor and looked closely as the lighting technicians set up. There it is… “the setlist” … camera out and I took a photo of it and then later another shot over a couple of shoulders… just in case I didn’t get the actual setlist in hand after the show. Here I crossed paths with another serious concertaholic who goes by the handle the original kid rock. We chatted for a few minutes and I took a shot of the pass on his jacket as he staggered away.

9:05pm. The Big Screen lights up and The Who take the stage and they take us for an immediate trip down memory lane with Can’t Explain. I loved hearing “Seeker” and watching Pete Townsend all bundled up in a trench coat and scarf as if he hadn’t quite warmed up yet. The first 5-7 rows down front were dancing and in the aisles no where near their seats… me included. That ended with security cleaning up and interupting my first video “Who Are You”.. which was ok because I got a little smile as I looked in front of me as the 10 & 15 year old along with their mother were being escorted back from being right down front instead of following rules back at their 17th row seats.. Way to go!

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One of the unexpected highlights for me in this show was during the performance of “Real Good Looking Boy“. As much of a Who fan as I am… I just didn’t seem to recall this song… From Roger’s intro mentioning the obvious nod to Elvis to the powerful clips of The King himself on the screen as young man. The lyrics got me imagining a younger “WHO”… I saw Elvis and thought about his death, then glanced over at where The Ox… John Entwistle would be standing as Pino Paladino held down the right wing on bass… it was just one of those moments where you think you know a song and even if you do…it sounds like the first time for some reason. This song was just perfect. Right On!

The pace kept up as Baba O’Reilly (video) and Pete’s Windmill factory got going along with the crowd sing-a-long and harmonica of course from Roger. This was followed by Getting In Tune which I really enjoyed as it reminded of listening to Who’s Next over and over again back in the late 90′s when I discovered that Album over again through some friends. The Song Is Over was another favourite off that album. Here is the Getting In Tune video…

The band really leaned into 5:15 and the audience was responding in various ways from yelling lyrics, screams and one guy was throwing his chain-smoking girlfriend in the air for the entire back half of the show….plus the super fast video of the traintracks worked well. With Eminence Front next… these classic rock moments were making the string of songs..fly-by. It was so good to see this band again. Up close too! “My Generation” featured some fun bass from Pino and more and more of the excellent drumming we witnessed for the entire set by Zak Starkey. Then the finale of “Won’t Get Fooled Again” The energy level climbs up another notch on and off the stage for this one.

So the band comes back on stage for the encore and Roger & Pete start to talk about how quickly the band returns to the stage versus the rituals of the 60′s, 70′s etc. He said they had more things to do back then and Pete mentions possibly not having any equipment left to even play back then… Here is the conversation and …it leading into “Naked Eye”

Pinball Wizard was another singalong with more visuals on the screens but what happened next was worth the trip from Toronto and the ticket price for sure… according to a fan on the another forum we headed into a medley of Overature/Amazing Journey/Sparks/Underture/We’re Not Going to Take It…. and somewhere inside here it appeared Mr Townsend was going to put on a little clinic with is red axe…. so I zoomed in and started to film… for 6+ minutes..

There isn’t alot to say after watching that video… the party-lady beside me turns to me after experiencing this and musters up the best sentence she could to saying “you have to send me a copy of this”….. That is me yelling in the background at the guy beside say “unbelievable”… “deadly”… thanking the guitar gods for sending me to this show. This is Pete Townsend…this is The Who…. “See Me, Feel Me” and “Listening To You” was one big “love-in”… barely enough to slide down off that guitar solo.

At this point I actually left my row and headed back to the soundboard at the rear-floor area. So I watched Pete and Roger do the one song I knew was left on acoustic guitars… TEA and THEATRE. Beautiful.

I watched the lights come on. I watched the lighting tech’s sigh to each other on another show well done… I locked in on that setlist again… waiting as the tech shut down the 2 apples… he glanced over to his left… I was there… “Could I have one of those setlists“…as I pointed.. he looked at his partner for approval, he nodded, he handed it to me, I nodded back.

Long Live Rock

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If you look closely at this setlist and the one I got a photo of above ..they are different. The other one is actually Toronto and this one below that got handed to me I believe is Detroit with changes made.

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Milling around the Merchant Booth where the Darker My Love “45′s” were for sale (yes vinyl) Will Canzoneri…the band’s keyboardist told me the guys were a little haggard from the road, not a good sign as they haven’t been out that long although the enthusiasm was there. Apparently they caught some bitchy weather on the drive in from Chicago. Will put in a good word in making sure one of Canada’s top music photographers Richard Beland could get on stage to capture the visual side of the set for us.

Like the last city Toronto seemed a little Darker today also with its humid rain spell to welcome the boys from California. It didn’t take long though for the band to settle in… get comfortable and introduce their new CD “2″ to the crowd, young 20 something’s down front with the GenXers in the back half  and  allow them to get a feel of this relatively unknown (in Canada) 5 piece.

The mix was a bit muddy or was that the intention of sound? The venue is dark tonight as usual but this group has a light quality beneath a psych-rock sound that gets your interest on first listen. The drummer with his Bass man tucked in ever so tight rocked stage left rhythms as the maraca shak’in Tim Presley served up leads over on the right wing….

Darker My Love followed a fresh sounding opening act (The Upsidedown) while the crowd waited patiently for the veteran Dandy Warhols to get loud….started to win a few over as one music lover turned from her leaning position on the stage and asked “what was there name?” Highlights of the nine-song set were the trippy Northern Soul and the would-be radio hit Two Ways Out.

Another stage leaner seemed interested as guitar player Jared Everett handed me a setlist that looked to have been written on lined paper from their road binder.

We would like to run into these guys in Toronto again sometime with more songs, same sound and brighter lights so we can see their Rock too!

See all of our Photos of Darker My Love