Miami Herald 11-10-97

Fleetwood Mac's fractured history -- each member has been in a stormy relationship with at least one of the others -- only added to the performance Saturday night when these distinctive personalities meshed to deliver a knockout concert before a sold-out crowd of 20,000 at West Palm Beach's Coral Sky Amphitheater.

The reunited cast of characters will be familiar to anyone owning a radio after 1975: Lindsey Buckingham, the oddball genius who drew the evening's first standing ovation for his guitar work on the blistering blues rocker I'm So Afraid and who never relished being dumped by his girlfriend (Go Your Own Way); Stevie Nicks, Buckingham's-ex, the mystic who could give shots as well as she got (Silver Springs); Christine McVie, the keyboardist who always leavens her songs with optimism (Oh Daddy); and rock's tightest rhythm section, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie.

The success of Fleetwood Mac's new CD, The Dance, and its accompanying tour should come as little surprise to pop-culture observers. The '70s remain fondly in memory because the free-wheeling, ``Won't you lay me down in the tall grass and let me do my stuff'' aspect of the '70s that Fleetwood Mac sang about in Second Hand News captured the last time this country felt safe doing just that.

Maturity, however, elevated this reunion tour above previous Fleetwood Mac concerts. It was a delight to witness the band mates' small gestures of affection to one another -- especially the embraces exchanged by Buckingham and Nicks, even after the wounding Silver Springs.

But this group didn't coast on easy nostalgia. Buckingham did most of the pushing with his New Wave-styled My Little Demon rocker and his fleet-fingered solo classical guitar reinterpretations of Big Love and Go Insane. He played so maniacally that he opened a gash on his hand during the Don't Stop encore, requiring stitches after the show. Buckingham is musically this group's most valuable player, but the vocally revived Nicks inspired the audience's greatest devotion with a powerful Stand Back.

``I'm thrilled with this project,'' the usually reticent Buckingham told the crowd before a percussive Tusk. And though Nicks' bittersweet lyrics on her new Sweet Girl suggest she wouldn't go through all this hysteria again if given a choice, there was no faking the passion on that stage. Members of the audience celebrated their own memories and the band was only too happy to provide the soundtrack.