Dallas Morning News 11-5-97

Fleetwood Mac might have been singing, "Don't stop thinking about tomorrow," Tuesday night at Coca-Cola Starplex, but 20,000 sets of ears were clearly focused on the past.

Five songs into the concert, when Christine McVie said, "And now we're going to play a few new songs," the thunderous applause vanished as if she'd just said she was going to play the complete works of Twisted Sister. But unlike the Rolling Stones, who often sounded as if they barely knew their own songs Saturday night at Texas Motor Speedway, at least the Big Mac's high-priced walk down memory lane was impeccably tight and well-rehearsed.

Lindsey Buckingham, the first Rumours-era member to quit the band back in 1987, emerged as the undisputed maestro of the retooled Mac. Dressed all in black and looking strangely like Albert Brooks, he led songs such as "Gypsy" and "The Chain" with his dazzling guitar work, then overhauled "Say You Love Me" with, of all things, a banjo. But perhaps his cheekiest - and most effective - moment was recasting his solo rock hit "Go Insane" as a quaint English folk ballad.

His old paramour Stevie Nicks dragged down "Gold Dust Woman" with raspy vocals, but for the most part her voice was much richer and stronger than it ever was in the '80s. She purred through "Landslide," spun honeyed harmonies with Ms. McVie and Mr. Buckingham during "Dreams," and twirled in circles with her jewelry sparkling and her gown flowing as if it were 1977 all over again.

Unlike the old days, the reconstituted Mac needed a five-piece backing band to make the hits sound perfect. But a thousand backing players couldn't improve on the rhythms of bassist John McVie and drummer Mick Fleetwood. Ms. Nicks might be the group's star, but its two namesakes are the ones who make it tick like clockwork - as they showed with their atomic funk lines in "You Make Loving Fun" and "Don't Stop."

And while the show revolved around songs from 20-year-old albums such as Rumours and Fleetwood Mac, the band's cache of new tunes fit in surprisingly well - especially Ms. McVie's rollicking pop tune "Temporary One" and Mr. Buckingham's hard-driving angst-rockers "My Little Demon" and "Bleed to Love Her." The capacity crowd might have showed up for a nostalgia trip. But this is one dinosaur band that might just have a future.