The Washington Post, April 6, 1993

LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM'S POST-MAC ATTACK

by Geoffrey Himes

Lindsey Buckingham is a reclusive Southern California pop visionary on the order of Brian Wilson and Phil Spector, but he has emerged from the isolation of his home studio for his first-ever solo tour and his first tour of any kind in 10 years. He came to the jam-packed Bayou Tuesday night, where audience shouts for songs from last year's solo album clearly outnumbered cries for the old Fleetwood Mac hits. Buckingham supplied plenty of both in an energetic, impressive show that found him backed by four guitarists, three percussionists, a bassist and a keyboardist.

With his thick mane of black curls, unbuttoned black shirt and long guitar solos, Buckingham was clearly still wed to the mid-'70s rock gestalt, but he redeemed that much-maligned genre with a wit and passion rarely found among his contemporaries. New songs like "Street of Dreams" and "Doing What I Can" boasted melodic themes too pleasurable to be denied, and old Fleetwood Mac favorites like "I'm So Afraid" and "Tusk" rocked with unprecedented bar-band ferocity. When he re-created the sumptuous harmonies of "Save Me a Place" and "All My Sorrows," he had two female and three male voices to nail the parts in place.

One could quibble that the tone of Buckingham's acoustic guitar was terrible or that five guitarists were a bit redundant or that the solos went on a bit, but the one element that made the show a triumph was Buckingham's singing, which combined feeling and form with rare skill.

Thanks to Les for posting this to The Ledge and to Anusha for sending it to us.