Rolling Stone, Splinter Group with Peter Green

Rolling Stone, October 15, 1998

SPLINTER GROUP WITH PETER GREEN

Sometimes you have to be satisfied when your heroes merely show up. And, sadly, there were moments at this show when Peter Green, the great British guitarist who founded Fleetwood Mac in 1967 as an electrifying blues band, abruptly quit in 70 and went into tailspin of psychosis and seclusion lasting more than two decades, seemed to be passing through.

Playing with the Splinter Group, a sturdy English quartet, Green- looking like a gentle, graying bear in his first NY show in 28 years-sang his Big Mac hits like "Black Magic Woman" and "Rattlesnake Shake" with the fragile hesitation of someone spooked by his past. He took hearty guitar solos in Freddy King's "The Stumble" and "Going Down" by Don Nix, but left it to Splinter guitarist Nigel Watson to re-create Green's own memorable recorded leads from "The Green Manalishi" and the gorgeous "Albatross".

Yet the run of vintage Mac gems in the set showed just how Green- a bold guitar stylist and songwriter with visionary ideas about down-home confession-transformed British blues before he ran off the rails. And when he uncorked "The Supernatural", a death-rattle rumba from his days with John Mayall, Green did it with an elfin smile and a silvery stabbing guitar tone that showed his once-formiddable powers were on the mend and that, slowly but surely, he is playing his way out of the darkness

Thanks to Joanne for posting this to the Ledge and to Anusha for formatting and sending it to us.